Tossing a little stick upon the rock, she hastened to gather the abundant fruit, a little for herself, a good deal for Madame and Miselle, until Gypsy and Fanny stamped and neighed with impatience, and Monsieur cried cheerily,—
"Come, young woman, come! We are not half-way to Sandwich, and the horses will be devoured by these flies as surely as Bishop Hatto was by mice."
And so on through miles of merry woodland, by fields and orchards, whose every crop is a fresh conquest of man over Nature in this one of her most niggardly phases, by desolate cabins and lonely farms, until at a sudden turn the broad, beautiful sea swept up to glorify the scene. And while Miselle with flushed cheeks and tearful eyes drank in the ever-new delight of its presence, Monsieur began a story of how a man, almost a stranger to him, had come one winter evening and begged him for God's love to go and help him search for the body of his brother, reported by a wandering madwoman to be lying on this beach, and how he begged so piteously that the listener could not choose but go.
And as Monsieur vividly pictured that long, lonely drive through the midnight woods, the desolate monotony of the beach, along whose margin curled the foam-wreaths of the rising tide, while beyond phosphorescent lights played over a world of weltering black waters,—as he told how, after hours of patient search, they found the poor sodden corpse and tenderly cared for it,—as Monsieur quietly told his tale and never knew that he was a hero, Miselle turned shuddering from sea and beach and the mocking play of the crested waves, as they leaped in the sunshine and then sank back to sport hideously with other corpses hidden beneath their smiling surface.
Presently the sea was again shut off by woodland, and the scattered houses closed into a village, nay, a town, the town of Sandwich; and swinging through it at an easy rate, the carriage halted before an odd-looking building, consisting of a quaint old inn, porched and gambrel-roofed, joined in most unholy union to a big, square, staring box, of true Yankee architecture.
Descending with reluctance, even after three hours of immobility, from her breezy seat, Miselle followed Madame into the quiet house, whose landlord, like many another man, makes moan for "the good old times" when summer tourists and commercial travellers filled his rooms and the long dining-table, now unoccupied, save by our travellers and two young men connected with the glass-manufactories.
Rest, plenty of cool water, and dinner having restored the energies of the travellers, it was proposed that they should proceed at once to the Glass Works. And now, indeed, did Fortune smile upon this band of adventurous spirits; for when the question of a guide arose, mine host of the inn announced himself not only willing to act in that capacity, but eminently qualified therefor by long experience as an operative in various departments of the works.
"How fortunate that the stage-coaches and peddlers no longer frequent Sandwich! If our friend had them to attend to, he could not devote himself to us in this charming manner," suggested Optima, as she and Miselle gayly followed Monsieur, Madame, and Cicerone down the long sunny street, whose loungers turned a glance of lazy wonder upon the strangers.
Passing presently a monotonous row of lodging-houses for the workmen, and a public square with a fountain, which, as Optima suggested, might be made very pretty with the addition of some water, the travellers approached a large brick building, many-windowed, many-chimneyed, and offering ingress through a low-browed arch of so gloomy an aspect that one looked at its key-stone half expecting to read there the well-known Dantean legend,—
"Lasciate ogni speranza, voi chi'ntrate!"