"Thank you, Patsey. Perhaps I will if she do not come in soon. And perhaps I 'mought' make a fool of myself, clambering over those confounded mountain-paths for half a day, and not get a glimpse of her!" he muttered, when the handmaiden had withdrawn.
He stepped through the oriel-window into the garden, humming, sotto voce, "My heart's in the Hielands, my heart is not here;" made the tour of the enclosure, noting how Eunice's rose labyrinth had grown, and that the rarer plants he had sent her in the Spring were recompensing her for the care she had bestowed upon them; brushed both hands over a bed of bergamot until the air reeked with perfume, and plucked a sprig of rosemary from the spot where he had stood to overhear the sisters' criticisms of himself sixteen months before—smiling queerly as he did so.
"I will send the fair Una a root of 'Cæsar's Bay,' with the stipulation that she shall set it just here," he said inwardly, the smile brightening at the apt conceit. "It shall be to me a floral monument—a Cupid's Ebenezer."
He gathered, furthermore, several bunches of choice roses, rifling them of their freshest odor by ruthless handling, and strewing them to the right and left as he went from the garden into the meadow. The day was fine, and not warm enough to make walking a grievous task, and he might find Jessie at or near the bridge. He whistled "Casta Diva" as he strolled over the short, thick grass, elastic to the foot as carpets of the deepest pile,—whistled melodiously, and, one would have said, for want of thought, in remarking his roving eyes and tranquil physiognomy. He looked, as he felt, on excellent terms with himself and the rest of the world; like a man who had eaten to satisfaction, but not to repletion, of the sunny side of the peach tendered by Fortune, and who was suitably grateful to the person to whom he considered that he owed his success in life—to wit, Orrin Wyllys.
What a companion portrait to set over against this serene visage and lounging figure in the pleasant meadow-paths was that, which, with distorted limbs, and countenance eager to frenzy, hung midway over the stream he was approaching! Jessie had heard the whistle, and known it for his; caught from afar his measured tread upon the sward, and, feeling herself grow weak and voiceless in the rush of reviving hope, had painfully gathered her remaining forces to abide his coming. She could see him through rifts in the low-branching birches; counted every step with trembling impatience until he was within a stone's throw.
Then she signalled him in a husky, dissonant voice that shocked herself, fainting though she was with suspense, intent only upon watching his movements, which meant to her deliverance, sure and swift.
"Orrin! make haste! I am perishing!"
A glimpse of the broken railing told him all.
Tearing off his coat as he ran, he leaped into the creek, swam out to her, and bade her loosen her hold, and remain perfectly quiet.
"Don't seize me! I will save you! Trust me!" he said, in authority she did not dream of resisting.