Mr. Jinks is happy, radiant, triumphant, and as he watches the retreating wooer, his frame shakes with sombre merriment. Then he turns toward the window, and laughs with cautious dignity.
The lady, who is just closing the window, starts and utters an exclamation of affright. This, however, is disregarded by Mr. Jinks, who draws near, and stands beneath the window.
Mistress O'Calligan considers it necessary to state that she is in such a taking, and to ask who could have thought it. Mr. Jinks does not directly reply to this question, but, reaching up, hands in the bundle, and commences a whispered conversation. The lady is doubtful, fearful—Mr. Jinks grows more eloquent. Finally, the lady melts, and when Mr. Jinks clasps, rapturously, the red hand hanging out, he has triumphed.
In fifteen minutes he is on his way back to the tavern, chuckling, shaking, and triumphant.
All is prepared.
CHAPTER LXII.
VERTY MUSES.
Let us now leave the good old town of Winchester, and go into the hills, where the brilliant autumn morning reigns, splendid and vigorous.
In the hills! Happy is the man who knows what those words mean; for only the mountain-born can understand them. Happy, then, let us say, are the mountain-born! We will not underrate the glories of the lowland and the Atlantic shore, or close our eyes to the wealth of the sea. The man is blind who does not catch the subtle charm of the wild waves glittering in the sun, or brooded over by the sullen storm; but "nigh gravel blind" is that other, whose eyes are not open to the grand beauty of the mountains. Let us not rhapsodize, or with this little bit of yellow ore, venture to speak of the great piles of grandeur from whose heart it was dug up. There is that about the mountains, with their roaring diapason of the noble pines, their rugged summits and far dying tints, purple, and gold, and azure, which no painter could express, had the genius of Titian and Watteau, and the atmosphere of Poussin, to speak over its creations. No! let them speak for themselves as all great things must—happy is he, who, by right of birth, can understand their noble voices!
But there is the other and lesser mountain life—the life of the hills. Autumn loves these especially, and happy, too, are they who know the charm of the breezy hills! The hills where autumn pours her ruddy sunshine upon lordly pines—rather call them palms!—shooting their slender swaying trunks into the golden sea of morning, and, far up above, waving their emerald plumes in the laughing wind;—where the sward is fresh and dewy in the shivering delicious hunter's morning!—where the arrow-wood and dogwood cluster crimson berries, and the maple, alder tree and tulip, burn away—setting the dewy copse on fire with splendor! Yes, autumn loves the hills, and pours her brawling brooks, swarming with leaves, through thousands of hollows, any one of which might make a master-piece on canvas. Some day we shall have them—who knows?—and even the great mountain-ranges shall be mastered by the coming man.