That was all that Lavender hinted of his plans. He went home early that night, and spent an hour or two in packing up some things, and in writing a long letter to his aunt, which was destined considerably to astonish that lady. Then he lay down and had a few hours' rest.
In the early morning he went out and walked across Kensington Gardens down to the Gore. He wished to have one look at the house in which Sheila was, or perhaps he might, from a distance, see her come out on a simple errand? He knew, for example, that she had a superstitious liking for posting her letters herself: in wet weather or dry she invariably carried her own correspondence to the nearest pillar-post. Perhaps he might have one glimpse of her face, to see how she was looking, before he left London.
There were few people about: one or two well-known lawyers and merchants were riding by to have their morning canter in the Park; the shops were being opened. Over there was the house—with its dark front of bricks, its hard ivy, and its small windows with formal red curtains—in which Sheila was immured. That was certainly not the palace that a beautiful sea-princess should have inhabited. Where were the pine woods around it, and the lofty hills, and the wild beating of the waves on the sands below? And now it seemed strange and sad that just as he was about to go away to the North, and breathe the salt air again, and find the strong west winds blowing across the mountain-peaks and through the furze, Sheila, a daughter of the sea and the rocks, should be hiding herself in obscure lodgings in the heart of a great city. Perhaps—he could not but think at this time—if he had only the chance of speaking to her for a couple of moments, he could persuade her to forgive him everything that had happened, and go away with him—away from London and all the associations that had vexed her and almost broken her heart—to the free and open and joyous life on the far sea-coasts of the Hebrides.
Something caused him to turn his head for a second, and he knew that Sheila was coming along the pavement—not from, but toward the house. It was too late to think of getting out of her way, and yet he dared not go up to her and speak to her, as he had wished to do. She, too, had seen him. There was a quick, frightened look in her eyes, and then she came along, with her face pale and her head downcast. He did not seek to interrupt her. His eyes too were lowered as she passed him without taking any notice of his presence, although the sad face and the troubled lips told of the pain at her heart. He had hoped, perchance, for one word, for even a sign of recognition, but she went by him calmly, gravely and silently. She went into the house, and he turned away with a weight at his heart, as though the gates of heaven had been closed against him.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
LAKESHORE RELICS.
We were sitting on the sand looking off over the blue water veiled with the soft haze of Indian summer. A point covered with pine trees stretched boldly out into the lake, its rocky cliffs rising perpendicularly eighty feet above the beach, a sheer precipice from whose summit a pebble dropped would strike the water below. On the west a stream came rippling over the stones between bluffs high and massive enough for a deep rapid river—bluffs of wild majesty worn into varied outlines, as though a mighty torrent had once surged between them, forcing the very rocks to crumble before its headlong career. But now only a gentle stream wandered through the broad bed, here shallow over the sand, there darkling in a still pool, now making a green willow-shaded island, and now a deep rock-bordered channel, doing its best with the various graceful devices of a happy little stream to compensate for the absence of the river, to whose former existence the cliffs bore silent witness and the pines testified in sighing lamentations all the day long. On the east the lake swept inland in a gradual curve to the piers and wharves of a city with a cloud of smoke hanging above its spires, and then outward again to a wooded point twelve miles away, the eastern boundary of the bay. Looking north, we could see only water, apparently as deep as the ocean: no land was visible on the Canadian horizon, no island to break the harmony—nothing but vessels sailing gayly toward the east or tacking patiently toward the west, some distinct and snowy, others dark in the distance, and all with the graceful rigging peculiar to the lake-craft. Although November was far advanced, the warm sunshine and soft breeze gave no indications of approaching winter: the leaves had fallen from the trees and lay in brilliant heaps upon the ground, and children running through the groves waded in their glowing masses and tossed them high in the air with many a shout and half-finished song. The bare branches basked motionless in the hazy warmth, and the brown and empty farm-lands expanded their broad breasts to the heat, the care of the crops well over, the last sheaf safely housed and their labors ended. Nature works hard in these Western fields, conquering them from the forest, redeeming them from the swamp and tending the delicate grain amid the rank growth of prairie-grass; but when the last load is driven home and the last leaf has fallen, then she rests, and the hazy atmosphere and peculiar stillness mark her repose. Indian summer! what is it? It is Nature's dolce far niente, her one holiday. Wise will he be who, working with her through the dreary winter, the budding spring, yes, and even the sultry summer, earns the right to rest with her in Indian summer, the vacation of the year.
We had come from the East to visit friends at the West, from a venerable village on the Atlantic Ocean to a new city on the Western lake-shore; and although we acknowledged that the country was advancing with the strides of a giant, we also maintained that the charm of old associations, the mystery of the past, the interest of stirring events, were all wanting, and therefore the West, prosperous as it was, could not be compared to the rock-bound coasts of New England or the beautiful shores of New York Bay, so filled with legends and adventures, memories of the past, battles and shipwrecks, all dating back before the first axe resounded in the Western wilderness. Everything here was new. There were no houses with the marks of Revolutionary bullets, no families of unbroken aristocratic descent from over the ocean, no traditions of Colonial times, no stories of danger, no interesting relics: a few tales of pioneer life, a few encounters with the Indians, composed the annals of the town; and the prosaic reality of its life was as new and glaring as the white paint on its houses.
These thoughts we expressed to Uncle John as he joined us on the beach, bringing the baskets containing our picnic dinner: over the sandwiches, cakes and native Catawba we dilated upon the subject, and invited him to visit us at Winthrop, where the very atmosphere was redolent with old associations and the beach a treasure-house of strange relics. Our quiet uncle smiled as we talked, and when we had finished our lunch and climbed the cliff he took us to a pleasant stone house and introduced us to its owner, a silver-haired gentleman of the old school, whose personal appearance and courtly manners filled us with admiration and respect. Living thus quietly on the lake-shore, this man of learning and science had spent many years absorbed in natural history and its kindred pursuits, in close communion with Nature, loved by his neighbors and honored by the naturalists of the whole country for his persevering industry and valuable discoveries. Surrounded by his birds, bees and flowers, the beautiful old man received us with kindly courtesy, and from him we heard a story of the past, authenticated by records and old letters, and illustrated by relics found on the beach below, washed up by the waves or exposed to view by the shifting of the sands. Deeply interested in the narrative, we yet found it hard to believe that the peaceful hazy lake and the little stream rippling over the bar had ever been the scene of the raging tempest, desolation and death described in the story. But as we drove homeward in the evening the sun went down in a lurid cloud, and a wind came driving up from the east, whirling the dry leaves in circles and blowing the dust in eddies at the corners of the streets. All night it raged over land and water, increasing to a gale as the pale dawn broke, lashing the lake into a sheet of foam, and growing colder and colder as the flying watery clouds obscured the sun and the dismal day waxed and waned. With our faces pressed against the window-panes we watched the fresh-water sea in its fury. Out in the offing several vessels were scudding under bare poles, and a steamer trying to make the harbor was blown over almost horizontally in the water before she reached the piers. Darkness fell and the wind howled over the city, changing to the north and bringing a storm of sleet and snow in its train, so that the ground was white when daylight broke, and the air so thick with the stinging hail that we could not see the lake. Anxiously we waited, but in vain: our thoughts were with the sailors out on the raging waters. Not until twilight did the atmosphere grow clear; and as an angry gleam of sunshine shot from under the heavy bank of clouds, we saw two schooners, one near the shore, the other out on the horizon, driving before the gale.