“Love to the mountains led his sheep,
Once on a summer day,
Into a valley green and deep,
Under rock-ramparts gray;
“Sat on a stone where the waters run
Rippling the hours away,
Touched his lute in the light of the sun—
That was a summer day.”
We return to the hotel through the soft, starlit dusk, and find that
the company has changed during our absence. Several newcomers have
arrived, Mr. Charlton has taken his departure.
“He has an attraction at Cæsar’s Head,” observes Mr. Brandon, when
Mrs. Cardigan remarks this fact. “Miss Tyrrell is there—you know her,
Markham. She is an uncommonly nice girl.”
“Who is she?” asks Mrs. Cardigan, with the interest that some women are
quick to feel in any other woman who is reputed attractive.
While this question is answered, and Eric is sounding the praises of
Miss Tyrrell and her family, the supper-bell rings, and we go in with
appetites sharpened by the fresh mountain-air.
After supper, the piazza is not less attractive than by day, and, with
shawls wrapped around us, we adjourn thither. The stars are brilliant,
and against the steel-blue sky the dark crest of Rich Mountain is
distinctly outlined.
“Don’t you wish we were there _now_?” asks Sylvia, wistfully. “How
silent and awesome it must be!”
“Some of us don’t fancy awesome things,” says Charley, who is seated on
the steps smoking. “I prefer my present quarters very much.”
“You have no poetry in your soul,” says the young lady. “Mr. Lanier,
now—I am sure _he_ would like to be there.”
She glances round as she speaks, but there is no Mr. Lanier to answer
the jesting words. His place is vacant, so likewise is that of Mrs.
Cardigan. At the far end of the piazza two dark figures in close
proximity are dimly visible—star-gazing, no doubt. Eric laughs.
“‘Now, gallant Saxon, hold thine own!’”
he says to Sylvia. “There seem suspicious signs of treachery and
desertion in the camp.”
“Two things which one should never condescend to notice,” she answers,
carelessly.
Notwithstanding this sentiment she expresses herself with less reserve
on the subject when we are alone for the night.
“Have you ever seen anything to equal the manner in which Mrs. Cardigan
is trying to flirt with Raph Lanier?” she asks. “She has given up Eric
as a hopeless subject, and turned her batteries on the other.”
“It is certainly a bold invasion of the rights of property,” I say,
“considering what an admirer of yours he has been for some time. No
woman with self-respect would act in such a manner—but Mrs. Cardigan
has little of that quality. Nevertheless, you have yourself, not her
attractions, to blame for Mr. Lanier’s desertion.”
“Perhaps I have,” she says, carelessly. “I know that I could bring
him back by a word—but I don’t think I shall speak the word. I have
lost any faint liking I may ever have had for him, and as for making a
cold-blooded marriage of convenience—I could not do _that_ if my life
depended on it.”
“Take care!” I say, warningly. “I grant that Mr. Lanier does not appear
to great advantage on a tour of this description—he is, in fact,
altogether out of his element. But you don’t expect to spend your life
in Arcadia, and when you go back to the world, where fine dresses,
fine jewels, fine equipages, will assume again their place of first
importance, you may be sorry for having discarded a man who represents
all these things.”
“What a feminine Mephistopheles you are!” she says. Then she throws
back the cloud of dark hair which she is combing, and looks at me with
her shining eyes. “Perhaps it is a good thing to wander in Arcadia for
a little while and realize that life may be happy, and healthy, and
free, without any of those things,” she says. “It is something I have
needed to learn.”
“Which means, I suppose, that you are going to marry Charley, and try
living in Arcadia for good. You are a simpleton—but never mind! Stop
talking, and go to bed.”
“You are mistaken,” she says, with dignity. “Because I don’t choose to
marry one man is no reason for supposing I mean to marry another.”
“You are an arrant flirt, and a shameful impostor!” I say; and then I
go to bed myself.
The next morning at breakfast we find that there are grave signs of
desertion of another kind. The gentlemen in a body are missing—having
taken an early departure for a deer-hunt. Sylvia is much injured and
incensed by this proceeding.
“I should not mind it so much if they had not known that I wanted
to go!” she says. “It is mean and shameful of them to act in so—so
underhand a manner. They must have _stolen_ away; they could not even
have sounded a horn, or it would have waked me.”
“You are mistaken about that,” says one of the ladies. “There was a
great deal of noise—blowing of horns and barking of dogs. You must have
slept soundly not to have heard it.”
“How can anybody help sleeping soundly in this climate?” asks Sylvia,
aggrieved.
It is the middle of the day before the hunters return,
empty-handed—having failed altogether to start a deer, which fact is
full of balm to Sylvia’s feelings. She is standing on the piazza with
a novel (to which she has been forced to betake herself) in her hand
when they ride up, and she proceeds at once to empty the vials of her
indignation upon their heads.
“Are you not ashamed of yourselves?” she says. “If you had told me that
you did not want me, of course I should not have pressed my society
upon you; but to go off in this manner, and leave me behind _without a
word_—that I call mean in the extreme.”
“Look here!” says Eric, “you surely did not expect to be taken on a
regular deer-hunt? Why, you would find nothing entertaining in it, and
you would be amazingly in the way besides.”
This remark wounds Sylvia deeply. In the way! She is evidently unable
to imagine that such a thing could be within the remotest range of
possibility. A flush comes over her face; she draws herself up.
“In that case, I have nothing more to say,” she remarks, and moves away
like a queen.
With a laugh, Charley springs from his horse and follows her. She has
retreated to the end of the piazza, where Mrs. Cardigan and Mr. Lanier
conducted their flirtation the night before, and opened her novel with
the air of one intensely absorbed—an air, however, which does not
impose upon the young man, who comes up smiling.
“Don’t be vexed, Sylvia!” he says. “Eric is a sort of mis—what do
you call it?— woman-hater, you know. _I_ should not have found you
in the way at all; but it would have been a pity to disturb you so
early in the morning. Why, we started at daylight, and you know you
are not partial to rising with the lark—unless it is for a horseback
flirtation.”
Sylvia’s eyes are fastened on the pages of “The Wooing O’t.” She takes
no notice of the apologies, or of the last assertion, and Charley has
an excellent opportunity to observe the length and color of her lashes,
as they droop steadily downward. He laughs again.
“How shall we pacify you?” he says. “Shall we take you to Rich Mountain
again? By-the-by, did you leave anything on the top of Castle Rock
yesterday evening?”
“I lost a piece of blue ribbon from my hair,” she answers, glancing up
now—and then she sees the identical knot of ribbon pinned on the front
of his coat. “So you have found it!” she says, holding out her hand.
But he draws back.
“Treasure-trove!” he says. “I was passing the rock with Lanier, and
we both observed it lying on the side. I suggested that whoever could
get it should have it, but he declined to climb, so I risked my neck
alone—and here it is. You could not think of asking me to give it up
after that!”
“It is not of much importance,” she says carelessly, “but I don’t see
what you want with it.”
“Ah! don’t you? Well, Lanier does. I doubt if there is a more angry
or jealous man on the face of the globe just now. This is my order of
merit, and—and blue is the color of hope, isn’t it?
‘Give me but what this ribbon bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round!’”
“If you think,” says Sylvia, majestically, “that by climbing—no great
feat, I am sure—the Castle Rock for a piece of blue ribbon, and by
paying foolish compliments, you can make me forget my just grievance,
you are very much mistaken!”
And then, with a crushing air, she returns to “The Wooing O’t.”
“The woman who would not be flattered when a man climbs a rock for a
ribbon which she dropped, simply for the pleasure of possessing it,
and of aggravating another man, has—has no poetry in her soul!” says
Charley. “What _will_ make you forget your grievance, then? Should you
like to go to the falls behind Cedar Mountain this afternoon?”
She looks up laughing—finding it impossible to keep her face in order
any longer.
[Illustration: “‘One does not come to Arcadia to stay in the house and
read novels.’”]
“You know I should!” she says. “It is doubly mean of you to treat me in
this way, because one does not come to Arcadia to stay in the house and
read novels.”
So it is arranged, and, after an early dinner, we start to the falls of
the Little River, which are chief among the sights around Buck Forest.
Charley still wears his “order of merit” conspicuously on his coat, and
Mr. Lanier devotes the chief of his attentions to Mrs. Cardigan. That
lady is in the highest possible spirits, and I think would be perfectly
happy if she could induce Sylvia to show any signs of pique. But the
latter is unaffectedly indifferent—culpably indifferent, Aunt Markham
thinks—to Mr. Lanier’s defection, and her eyes shine as brightly, her
sweet laugh rings as gayly, as if his devotion was all that the heart
of woman could desire.
With affairs in this condition we start—a long cavalcade—toward the
falls. Aunt Markham, seated in state on the piazza, gives us her
blessing, but declines to accompany us.
“Eric,” she says, “pray take care that nobody is shot, or drowned, or
killed in any other way.”
The allusion to shooting is on account of the guns which several of
the gentlemen carry, for the dogs are taken along, and there are faint
hopes entertained of “jumping” a deer. Eric, who is accustomed to being
addressed as a kind of general policeman, answers with commendable
gravity that he will endeavor to see that no accident of the kind
occurs, and then we ride off.
The sun is shining brightly, but there are one or two ominous-looking
clouds on the mountains, which make several persons prophesy rain.
We heed the prophecies as little as possible. When people have been
drenched in every conceivable manner, and at every conceivable time, it
would be remarkable if they did not become indifferent to the weather.
Our way lies over Cedar Mountain—not because it is the way to reach the
falls, but rather because it is _not_.
“Most people follow the road,” says Charley, “but that is stupid. Come
this way and we shall have the view besides.”
Nobody demurs—not even Mr. Lanier. He seems to have resigned himself
to anything that may befall him while he is with a party who value
their necks so lightly. Up Cedar Mountain, therefore, we go. This
imposing hill of brown rock is the first thing which attracts the
attention of the traveler who arrives at Buck Forest. It rises boldly
in the foreground, its sides only sparsely covered with foliage, and in
many places altogether bare. As are the sides, so is the summit. Here
and there sufficient soil has collected to nourish a forest-growth;
but for the most part one rides or walks over immense sheets of rock,
diversified by beds of the richest moss and tiny pools of water. The
height of the eminence is not very great, but it commands a good view
of the surrounding country, and of the mountains that stretch in azure
fairness across the far horizon. This afternoon, however, the prospect
is not seen to advantage—there are too many low-lying clouds in all
directions, and over Rich Mountain one dark mass is rising—“boiling up”
is the expressive provincial phrase—which looks as if it meant mischief.
“There may be a storm before long,” says Eric. “Shall we go back and
defer seeing the falls until to-morrow?”
“Go back because there is a dark cloud three or four miles away?” says
Sylvia. “What an idea! No; let us go on.”
“Is that the vote of the party?” he asks, looking round.
Yes, it is the vote of the party; the feminine part of which is
strongly inclined to suspect the other part of wanting to secure
another uninterrupted hunt.
“If the storm comes up,” says Charley, “we can find a refuge at the
Bridal-Veil Fall.”
“What an odd place to find a refuge!” says Mrs. Cardigan. “How can
a fall shelter us—unless it be on the homœopathic principle of like
curing like?”
“You’ll see when we get there how it can shelter us,” says Mr. Brandon,
winding a blast on his horn.
Having ascended the mountain on one side, we go down on the other,
leaving the sheets of rock behind, and plunging into the depths of
a forest without road or path. We are struggling through a laurel
_chaparral_ in single file, and I am wondering if I shall emerge
without having suffered the loss of any of my raiment, or without being
pulled from my horse, when a vivid flash of lightning suddenly blazes
around us, and a rattling peal of thunder sounds overhead.
We glance up in dismay. That the sun has been for some little time
obscured we are all aware, but the suddenness with which the cloud
has come over astonishes even those who are best acquainted with
mountain-storms.
“I did not expect it so soon,” says Mr. Brandon. “We must run for it,
or we shall be drenched to the skin.”
“Run! where?” asks Mr. Lanier, blankly.
“To the fall!” answers Eric, galloping ahead.
There is no time for question. Another vivid flash, another volleying
peal, show us the necessity of following as rapidly as possible.
Away we go, a string of racing equestrians, presenting altogether so
ludicrous an appearance that I find myself shaking with laughter as
I bring up the rear. It is a breathless race, under drooping boughs,
through dense thickets, over fallen trees, down declivities where a
stumble would send horse and rider rolling head-foremost. Presently we
dash into something bearing a faint resemblance to a road, and, just as
the first heavy drops of rain begin to fall, come in sight of a white
sheet of water rushing swiftly down an inclined plane of rock, falling
abruptly in a beautiful cascade, and then shooting down another rocky
slope. Here our escorts draw up their panting horses.
“Just in time!” says Charley, as he lifts Sylvia from her saddle.
The rest of us are deposited on the ground, the horses are fastened,
and then, as the rain begins to pour fast and furious, we are hurried
along a winding descent over and under rocks, until some one says,
“Stoop!” and we find ourselves beneath a great shelving rock on a level
with the lower river-bed.
“Why, this is like the Black Mountain cave!” exclaims Sylvia, “only
five times as large.”
“It is not near so high in the roof,” says Rupert, who has given his
tall head a severe thump.
It is certainly low of roof and damp of floor, this house of Nature’s
providing; but, despite these drawbacks, it is as excellent a shelter
from storm as the heart of a wayfarer could desire. Over part of the
ledge which forms the cave the stream pours in the perpendicular
fall already mentioned, then the rock sweeps round parallel to the
bed of the river, and under this we have taken refuge. The bottom is
covered with large fragments of stone that have fallen from above, and
on these we perch, taking care to keep our feet from the water which
is everywhere. Meanwhile, the rain is pouring in white torrents, the
lightning is flashing, and above the tumult of the fall we hear the
thunder rolling and rattling overhead.
“Is not this delightful?” cries Sylvia, appealing to the company.
“Would you miss it for anything?”
“I should like exceedingly to miss it,” replies Mrs. Cardigan, holding
up her dress and looking thoroughly out of humor. “I can see nothing
delightful in sitting here, for who can say how long.”
“Not for very long,” says Eric. “The storm is too violent to last. It
will be fair in an hour.”
“An hour is a considerable time to spend in this manner,” says Mr.
Lanier, dusting his fingers, which show signs of contact with the rocks.
“It is a desirable thing to be a philosopher,” says Charley, seating
himself on a pile of stones and regarding the falling rain with an
expression of complacency. “I am a philosopher. It is a matter of small
moment to me how long the rain lasts. I am ready to sit here till dark,
or to ride home through it. Meanwhile, can’t we have a game of whist?”
This proposal is received with favor, but, since nobody has thought
of bringing a pack of cards, falls to the ground. There is nothing to
be done but to possess our souls in patience, to talk idly, to shiver
slightly in the damp air, and wonder when the storm will end. As soon
as it abates, Charley and Mr. Brandon go out on a ledge by the side of
the river to take an observation of the sky. They return in a moist
condition, and report another cloud coming over.
“At this rate,” says Mrs. Cardigan, “when _shall_ we get away?”
In a few moments the cloud comes over as prophesied, and the rain pours
again in torrents. The stream begins to swell, as mountain-streams do
in the shortest possible time; and we notice that the fall increases in
volume.
“Perhaps we shall be overflowed,” Rupert cheerfully suggests. “That
would be a jolly adventure.”
The second storm is of short duration. Presently the rain ceases, and
a flash of sunshine lights up leaping water, gray rocks, and green
hillsides.
“How delicious!” says Sylvia. “What a glittering scene! Let us go out
where we can see it.”
So we go out from under the shadow of the rock, and look round on the
radiant, dripping world, and up at the blue sky from which the clouds
have parted and fled. On the opposite side of the stream Cedar Mountain
rises, covered with a wealth of tangled verdure; in front of us the
Bridal Veil sweeps down and pours in a sheet of white foam and spray to
the solid rock on which we stand.
“If you like,” says Charley, “you can go behind the fall. It will
be rather wetter than usual after such a heavy rain; but it is the
regulation thing to do.”
“Will anybody tell me,” says Mrs. Cardigan, “what was the good of
keeping dry under the rock, if we are going behind the fall now to get
wet?”
“You won’t get wet—only a little damp,” says Mr. Brandon.
“I don’t think that I care to get a ‘little damp,’” she answers.
“Besides, I can see the fall very well from here.”
“But you can’t see the view from the other side,” says Charley. Then he
turns to Sylvia. “Will _you_ go?” he asks.
“That is a question which may be defined as unnecessary,” she answers,
drawing her water-proof over her shoulders. “Lead on!”
So he leads and she follows, while Mr. Brandon, Rupert, and I, come
next. It is a trying operation, this passing behind the falls. The
space for passage is very narrow, the wet stones are exceedingly
slippery, the rock above shelves in a manner which makes it necessary
to bend nearly double, the tumult of the falling water is almost
deafening, and the spray fairly blinding. We draw a breath of relief
when we emerge on the other side.
It is beautiful enough over here, however, to repay us for the
inconvenience of the passage. The river does not altogether cover its
bed, and we walk along the inclined rock, with the current rushing
swiftly by our side and the mountain rising sheer above, covered with
rhododendron, and interspersed with tapering juniper-trees and stately
spruce-pines. The stream shoots rapidly down until it drops suddenly
into the loveliest pool that ever charmed the eye of a painter. The
pellucid water might serve as a bath for Diana; rocks draped with
vines, and flowers, and shrubs, inclose it; graceful trees lean over
the crystal depths. It is a spot fit for nymphs—or lovers.
Perhaps Charley thinks so, for he insists upon taking Sylvia to it,
along a very slippery and perilous way. She does not refuse his
assistance, as she has often refused Mr. Lanier’s under similar
circumstances. Clinging together, and laughing gayly as a pair of
children, they clamber down to the side of the pool, and then she
clasps her hands in an ecstasy of delight.
“How beautiful! Oh, how beautiful!” I hear her say. “Charley, I should
like to stay here!”
“I am at your service,” says Charley. “We’ll tell the others to go back
and leave us. I shall be glad of the opportunity to utter a seasonable
word or two.”
“In that case I don’t think I care to stay,” she answers. “A seasonable
word is one of the most unseasonable things in the world.”
“Yonder is some beautiful moss,” observes Mr. Brandon to me. “I’ll get
it for you if you like.”
I do like; and, while he and Rupert are scrambling up the hillside, I
watch them, and catch such scraps of the conversation at the pool as
the following:
_Charley._ “I’ve stood a great deal, but, by Jove! I think it is time
for me to have a definite answer of some kind.”
_Sylvia._ “Oh, dear me, Charley, what is the good of beginning like
this! You promised faithfully not to worry any more until we got home.”
_Charley._ “_I_ promise such a thing as that, with Lanier at hand to
make love to you all the time! I’ll be hanged if I did!”
_Sylvia._ “That was my understanding—but it does not matter. I suppose
I need not expect any peace at any time. Mr. Lanier has gone over to
Mrs. Cardigan; I think that ought to set your mind at rest about _him_.”
_Charley._ “Fiddlesticks for Mrs. Cardigan! Lanier cares no more for
her than I do! Sylvia, long as I have known you, I don’t quite know
what to make of you yet. Sometimes I think you are a heartless flirt!”
_Sylvia._ “Thank you very much.”
_Charley._ “Then again I feel inclined to trust you with—everything.
Just now that inclination is particularly strong. If you hold out a
sign of encouragement, I will indulge it with the greatest pleasure.”
_Sylvia._ “But what is ‘everything?’ Such an indefinite offer is rather
more alarming than gratifying. Don’t tell me now, however. Let us go
back, and some other time—”
_Charley._ “That is what you always say—‘Some other time,’ but the time
never comes, and I am half inclined to believe that it never will come.
This time is as good as any other, and, if you care for me—”
_Sylvia_ (coolly). “I never said that I did, other than ‘as a younger
brother,’ as I heard a sentimental lady say the other day of the man
with whom she was flirting.”
I do not hear Charley’s reply to this, for Mr. Brandon and Rupert
return laden with mosses and ferns, over which we hold an animated
discussion until a shout from the direction of the cave makes us turn,
and we see three handkerchiefs waving a signal of recall. Then, like
Lord Ullin in the ballad, we lift our voices and cry to Charley and
Sylvia, “Come back! come back!”—a summons which one, at least, of them
is ready enough to heed.
They come, and we walk on. I—who loiter behind my escort in order to be
sure of finding safe footing on the treacherous rock—learn that their
conversation has not waxed more amicable.
“I am tired of the subject!” I hear Sylvia say, petulantly, “and I will
_not_ be browbeaten into giving an answer when I am not ready to do so.
You must wait my time, or do without an answer at all.”
_Charley_ (whose long-suffering patience is plainly exhausted). “You
mean that I am to be kept off and on until you are tired of amusing
yourself, or until you decide to marry some rich prig like Lanier.
Thanks exceedingly, but I don’t fancy the _rôle_, and I am sure you
could answer me now if you chose to do so. We’ve known each other long
enough!”
_Sylvia_ (with a sigh): “Too long for romance. There is no possibility
of the illusion that ought to accompany the tender passion. Why, I know
all your weak points as well as you know mine!”
_Charley._ “So much the better!—we’ll have less to learn after
marriage. I don’t believe in illusions—I can’t see that they serve any
good end. I had rather love one woman than a dozen angels. Now, Sylvia,
just one word—”
_Sylvia_ (impatiently): “I won’t! I haven’t any word to say—do let me
alone.”
_Charley_ (speaking with dark emphasis): “You had better tell me. I
have made up my mind not to stand this state of affairs any longer. If
the worst comes to the worst, I’ll have it out with Lanier.”
_Sylvia_ (sarcastically): “Pray do! That would help matters so much.”
By the time the conversation has reached this point we gain the fall,
and Mr. Brandon says:
“Be careful where you step, and follow me exactly.”
I am careful, and follow him exactly—hence I emerge in safety on
the farther side; but there are other members of the party not so
fortunate. What evil spirit possesses Charley I do not know, but he
certainly pauses midway in the passage and turns—thus forcing Sylvia,
who is behind, to pause also. The torrent of water is pouring in a
cataract of foam and spray before their eyes, its noise fills their
ears. Yet the reckless young fellow absolutely seizes his companion’s
hand and holds it in a vice-like pressure.
“Now,” he says, “you _shall_ answer me! I’ll not let you pass until you
do. Is it yes or no?”
“Charley, how dare you!” cries Sylvia, amazed and indignant. “I—I
_won’t_ be bullied in this manner! Let me pass.”
“I’ll let you pass the instant you say yes or no,” replies Charley,
inexorably; “not before on any account.”
“_No_, then!” she cries, with all the emphasis of which she is capable
under the circumstances, and, snatching her hand from his grasp, she
endeavors to dart past him—but the stepping-stones are slippery and
unstable. She loses her footing, and he has barely time to seize her as
she sinks under the Bridal-Veil Fall.
[Illustration: “He has barely time to seize her as she sinks under the
Bridal-Veil Fall.”]