The Dew of Their Youth

by S. R. Crockett

I remember being a great deal impressed myself by Old Birkenbog. He was a wonderful horseman as a boy, and when he came to the market alone he rode a big black horse of which even the head ostler stood in awe in the yard of the King’s Arms. Once he had thrashed a robber who had assailed him on his way to pay his rent, and had brought him into town trotting cross-handed at his horse’s tail, the captive of his loaded whip and stout right arm. It is doubtful if this draggled Dick Turpin, lying in Bridewell, appreciated Birkenbog’s humour quite so much as did Cochrane and Blethering Jock when he told them the story afterwards.

If I had any common-sense I might have seen that Birkenbog was not a safe man to trouble in the matter of an only daughter, without the most serious intentions in the world. But, truth to tell, I never thought of him knowing, which was in itself a thing quite superfluous and altogether out of my calculations. I had had some small experience of girls even before Miss Irma came to change everything. And the fruit of my observations had been that, though girls tell each other’s secrets freely enough, they keep a middling tight grip on their own. Nay, they can even be trusted with yours, in so far as these concern themselves—until, of course, you quarrel with them—and then—well, then look out!

Certainly I found lots of chances to talk to Charlotte. In fact Agnes Anne made them for me, and coached me on what to say out of books. Also she cross-examined Charlotte afterwards upon my performances, and supplemented what I had omitted by delivering the passage in full. My poor version, however, pleased Charlotte just as much, for merely being “walked out” gave her a standing among Miss Seraphina’s young ladies, who asked her what it felt like to be engaged.

All had to be gone about in so ceremonious a manner, too, at least at first—when I made my formal call on Miss Huntingdon, who received me in her parlour with prim civility, as if I had come to order a leghorn hat of the best.

“My mother’s compliments, and might Miss Charlotte Anderson be allowed to accompany Agnes Anne to tea at four hours that day? I would be responsible—yes, I knew Miss Huntingdon to be most particular upon this point—for the convoy of the young ladies to the school-house, and would see Miss Anderson safe home again.”

My mother winked at these promenades, because in her heart of hearts she was more than a little jealous of Irma. Charlotte Anderson she could understand. She was of her own far-off kin, but Irma and her brother had descended upon us, as it were, from another world.

Why Agnes Anne meddled I cannot so well make out, unless it were the mania which at a certain age attacks most nice girls—that of distributing their brothers among their dearest friends—as far, that is, as they will go round.

So Charlotte and I walked under the tall firs of the Academy wood in the hope that Irma might be passing that way. I escorted her home in full sight of all Eden Valley—that was always on the look-out for whatever might happen in the way of courtship about the shop of the famous mantua-maker.

And yet (I know people will think I am lying) never, I say, did I find Miss Irma so desirable in my eyes as when I saw her at Heathknowes during these days of folly. It was not that she was kinder to me. She appeared not to think of me either one way or the other. She curtsied to me, like a bird, flirting the train of her gown like a wagtail on a stone by the running stream. One forenoon she met us, strolling with little Louis by the hand, her black hair crowned with scarlet hips—those berries of the wild dog-rose which grow so great in our country lanes. She waved us a joyous little salute from the top of a stile, on which she perched as lightly as if joyful graces were fluttering about her, and she herself ready to take wing.

But she never so much as looked wistful, but let me go my way with a single flirt of a kerchief she was adjusting about her brother’s neck. As for me I was ready to hang myself in self-contempt and hatred of poor innocent Charlotte Anderson, who smiled and imagined, doubtless, that she was fulfilling the end for which she had come to Miss Huntingdon’s.