[CHAPTER XV.]
GIPSEYING.
We tried the deck again, but the fog was too disagreeable to remain there, for the water fell from the ropes in such large drops, and the planks were so wet and slippery, we soon adjourned again to the cabin.
“I have to thank you, Doctor,” said I, “for a most charming day at the Beaver-Dam. That was indeed a day in the woods, and I believe every one there knew how to enjoy it. How different it is from people in a town here, who go out to the country for a pic-nic! A citizen thinks the pleasure of gipseying, as they call it in England, consists solely in the abundance and variety of the viands, the quality and quantity of the wines, and as near an approach to a city dinner as it is possible to have, where there are neither tables, chairs, sideboards, nor removes. He selects his place for the encampment in the first opening adjoining the clearing, as it commands a noble view of the harbour, and there is grass enough to recline upon. The woods are gloomy, the footing is slippery, and there is nothing to be seen in a forest but trees, windfalls which are difficult to climb, and boggy ground that wets your feet, and makes you feel uncomfortable. The limbs are eternally knocking your hat off, and the spruce gum ruins your clothes, while ladies, like sheep, are for ever leaving fragments of their dress on every bush. He chooses the skirts of the forest therefore, the background is a glorious wood, and the foreground is diversified by the shipping. The o-heave-o of the sailors, as it rises and falls in the distance, is music to his ears, and suggestive of agreeable reflections, or profitable conversation peculiarly appropriate to the place and the occasion. The price of fish in the West Indies, or of deals in Liverpool, or the probable rise of flour in the market, amuse the vacant mind of himself and his partner, not his wife, for she is only his sleeping partner, but the wide-awake partner of the firm, one of those who are embraced in the comprehensive term the ‘Co.’ He is the depository of his secrets, the other of his complaints.
“His wife is equally happy, she enjoys it uncommonly, for she knows it will spite those horrid Mudges. She is determined not to invite them, for they make too much noise, it gives her the headache, and their flirting is too bad. Mrs White called them garrison hacks. And besides (for women always put the real reason last—they live in a postscript) they don’t deserve it, for they left her girls out when they had the lobster-spearing party by torch-light, with the officers of the flag-ship, though that was no loss, for by all accounts it was a very romping party, knocking off the men’s hats, and then exchanging their bonnets for them. And how any mother could allow her daughter to be held round the waist by the flag-lieutenant, while she leaned over the boat to spear the fish, is a mystery to her. The polka is bad enough, but, to her mind, that is not decent, and then she has something to whisper about it, that she says is too bad (this is a secret though, and she must whisper it, for walls have ears, and who knows but trees have, and besides, the good things are never repeated, but the too bad always is), and Mrs Black lifts up both her hands, and the whites of both eyes in perfect horror.
“‘Now did you ever! Oh, is that true? Why, you don’t!’
“‘Lucy Green saw him with her own eyes,’ and she opens her own as big as saucers.
“‘And what did Miss Mudge say?’
“‘Well, upon my word,’ said she, ‘I wonder what you will do next,’ and laughed so they nearly fell overboard.
“‘Oh, what carryings on, ain’t it, dear? But I wonder where Sarah Matilda is? I don’t see her and Captain De la Cour. I am afraid she will get lost in the woods, and that would make people talk as they did about Miss Mudge and Doctor Vincent, who couldn’t find their way out once till nine o’clock at night.’
“‘They’ll soon get back, dear,’ sais the other, ‘let them be; it looks like watching them, and you know,’ laying an emphasis on you, ‘you and I were young once ourselves, and so they will come back when they want to, for though the woods have no straight paths in them, they have short cuts enough for them that’s in a hurry. Cupid has no watch, dear; his fob is for a purse,’ and she smiles wicked on the mother of the heiress.