Missy: A Novel

by Miriam Coles Harris

CHAPTER XII.

FIRE AND SWORD.

That evening, however, a little incident occurred which made it difficult, nay, even impossible, to send the papers home with their leaves uncut. After tea, Missy hurried out, buttoning a sack on, and looking carefully around to see that she was not followed by neighborly notice. It had been a warm and lovely day; May was melting into June; the evening was perfect, the sun not quite below the hills as yet. Missy went across the lawn; the tide was high, and there was little wind. She pulled in the anchor of a little boat that rocked on the waves, and stepping in, took the oars and pushed out. No one was looking; Mr. Andrews was no doubt taking his solid and comfortable dinner, and had not yet ventured to accept Miss Varian's invitation to come and smoke his cigar at the beach gate. Missy had resolved that he should find no one there to bear him company, even if she gave up her favorite after-tea hour on the lawn, all summer. She pulled out into the bay, with a sense of getting free which is one of the pleasures of a woman on a horse or in a boat by herself. Some of Missy's happiest hours were spent skimming over the bay like a May-fly. No one could recall her to duty or bondage till she chose. She almost forgot Aunt Harriet when she was across the harbor; housekeeping cares fell from her when she pushed off into the water, and only came back when the keel grated on the shore again. To-night she drew a long breath of freedom as she pulled herself, with light-dipping oars, far out on the serene blue bay, and then, resting, held her breath and listened. How sweet and placid the scene!

Fret and headache, sin and temptation!—it was difficult to believe in them, out here in the cool and fresh stillness, palpitating with the gentle swell of the tide, fanned by an air that scarcely moved the waters, transfigured by the glorious hues that overspread the heavens and colored sea and land. "It is good to be here. Why must I ever go back again?" she thought, and then scorned herself for the unpractical and sentimental longing. "At any rate, I shall have time to go over to the West Harbor, before it is night, and perhaps get a look across Oak Neck into the Sound."

The village looked tranquil and sweet as she passed it; the smoke rose from a chimney here and there; the faint sounds came out to her like a dream; a little motion attracted the eye now and then, where the road was not hidden by the trees; a boatman moved about on the shore, but slowly, musically. The rich verdure of the early summer fields crept down to the yellow strip of sand, upon which the water splashed; two or three spires reached up into the rosy sky; pretty cottages peeped through the silent trees, green lawns lay with the evening shadows stretching across them. It was hard to believe that there, in that tranquillity, nestled sin and sickness; that there people went to law with each other, and drove sharp bargains, and told lies. That there indigestion and intemperance had their victims; that lust laid its cruel wait beneath that shade, that hypocrisy there played its little part.

"I will believe only what I see," thought Missy, gliding past. "All is lovely and serene." It was a long pull to the West Harbor. The pink had faded from the sky and from the waters before she turned towards home. She paddled along the shores of the little island that lies opposite Yellowcoats, and shuts in its pretty harbor from the Sound, and watched the changing of the sky from rose color to gray, and from gray to deep, dark blue, and the coming out of a silver thread of moon, and of a single star. Then one by one she saw lights glimmer in the distant village, and one, a little brighter and sharper than the rest, that even made for a moment a light against the sky.

"Lady Bird, Lady Bird, fly away home,
Your house is on fire, and your children will burn,"

she sang to herself as she rowed across the bay, with her back to the place she was going to, as is the sad necessity of rowers. She neared the shore just below Ship Point, and then, turning around her head, stopped involuntarily to listen, as she heard the sound of a bell. It must have been a fire, after all, she thought; for while she rowed across the bay, she had forgotten the sudden light that made her think of Lady Bird, and the sound of her oars had kept her from hearing the bells which had been ringing for some time, no doubt. Her first impulse was to spring on shore, and run up the lane towards the houses that lay on the outskirts of the village, and hear what was the matter. Then she reflected that she could do no good, and that her absence and the fire together might upset her mother; so she soberly turned her boat towards home, speculating nevertheless, upon the chances of the fire, and wondering whose old barn or out-house had fallen victim to the heel of its owner's pipe. She certainly had no feeling of personal interest in the matter, further than as all Yellowcoats was of personal interest to her.

But as she neared the steamboat landing, and came opposite a stretch of road that was clear of trees, she could hear voices, and see people moving along it.