"All of which the sacred passion could very well have done without," says my didactic miss. "There is not a painter in the world, be he never so cunning, that can put a new colour in the sunset, nor is there an author of them all that can add a new rapture to a kiss."
"Body o' me," says I, "you are not a little right there."
If there is any vindication needed of the sex's incontestable prerogative to enjoy the last word in any argument, be it of the nature of metaphysics, reason or common practice, here is it to be found. We stopped in the middle of the road and concluded our discourse with a chaste salute. And I think there was a strain of poetry in us both as we did so. The weeping heavens smiled upon us; all the wet verdure of the spring was a sparkling face that laughed and greeted us. We went along refreshed and more cheerful of heart.
Yet it was a toilsome journey. The mud clogged our feet, the damp pervaded our clothes, and our unaccustomed fatigues of the last few days were beginning to tell upon us terribly. Never in all our lives had we given our feet such exercise. We had not walked much beyond an hour this morning before I noticed with something of a sinking heart that poor Cynthia was limping. At first these symptoms were hardly to be discerned, and when I taxed her with them, she denied them stoutly. But too soon were they revealed beyond a doubt. It was getting towards noon before my proud little miss would in any wise admit this to be the case, though. By then, however, she was so footsore that she could scarce drag one foot behind the other. Chancing to pass near a handrail bridge a little later, that spanned a small clear stream running over long floating moss and stones, nothing would content me but she should go and sit upon it, take off her shoes and stockings, and bathe her bruised feet by dangling them over the side. A little cottage nestling close at hand, fenced with box in front and apple-trees behind, thither I repaired to beg clean linen rags to wrap them in.
The cottage door was opened at my knock by a smiling, buxom housewife, who stood out upon a background of crowing babes. No sooner had I made my request than with cheerful energy, says she:
"Oh yes, sir, to be sure I can," and feeling that we were like to find a true friend in her, no sooner had I explained the occasion for it than she proved a friend indeed. Having procured these requisites with a bustling promptitude, she carried them to Cynthia and found her seated on the bridge as I had left her, bathing her toes in the cool sweetness of the stream. With many a "poor lamb!" and many a "deary, deary me!" she played the good Samaritan to my unlucky little one. She dried them, comforted them, and bound them up with all the honest grace of her great good nature. Never did I see a woman so brisk and motherly, and certainly never one so overflowing with true charity. When she had fulfilled her tender offices, and having kissed poor Cynthia on both cheeks in a most resounding manner, "because she was such a little beauty," she had us both go back with her to the cottage, that we might eat a bowl of curds and whey in the arbour cut in the laurel bushes, next the well, at the bottom of the garden.
Looking back on the scenes of our itinerary, this bustling, kindly housewife makes the fairest picture of them all. Can the great who dwell in palaces conceive the degree of simple happiness it is in the power of such a creature to bestow? Whenever subsequently, in an hour of gloom, I may have been led to doubt the essential goodness that lies buried in the hearts of our human kind, I insensibly recall the conduct of this honest woman on that wet spring morning when we came to her door afflicted of mind and body.
By gentle walking we were able to make many more miles that day. But a shadow had come over us. We had no longer the joyous intrepidity with which we had set out less than a week ago. A foreboding had come upon us. We could not hope to go much farther by our present mode. My little companion, strive as she might to conceal the dire fact, was rapidly being overcome. Her boots were wearing thin, she was already suffering much pain, and there was the sum of sevenpence left to us by which she could obtain her ease. We had not the heart to endeavour to increase it by blowing further on the flute. Besides, if the truth of that matter must be told, the stocks had given us a particular distaste for the gentle instrument. As the slow, cloud-laden hours passed to the occasional accompaniment of rain, with no glint of sunshine to relieve their drab monotony, it called for all the courage of which we had made a boast that morning to keep us from repining. The nearer we approached the evening the greater was our gloom. There was the eternal problem of food and shelter to be solved. The previous night our audacity had solved it for us. But in our present state we both felt quite incapable of furnishing the necessary spirit and effrontery for a repetition of that bold trick. Alas! our one desire was to be wafted by some magic into warmth and plenty that we might sup and fall asleep.
We spent our last pence at a hedge inn on our habitual repast of bread and cheese and ale. But the longer we lingered, the cheerless, wretched place appeared to heighten our dejection, so that we hailed the wet countryside as a relief when we walked out again upon it. But I cannot tell you how we dreaded the coming of night. The barren character of the landscape, and the few people and the fewer habitations that we came upon probably increased the depression of our spirits. Indeed, towards evening, the only human being that we encountered in several miles was a travelling tinker singing on a stile, and I think we could have wished to have been spared this meeting. In our forlorn state we regarded such an irresponsible gaiety in the light of a personal affront. But the dirty rogue had such a cheerful, jolly look that I was fain to accost him with my curiosity.
"I beg your pardon, sir," says I, "but why do you uplift your soul in merriment on such a dismal afternoon?"