GIPSY'S DARING.
"It is a fearful night; a feeble glare
Streams from the sick moon in the overclouded sky,
The ridgy billows, with a mighty cry,
Rush on the foamy beaches wild and bare.
What bark the madness of the waves will dare!"
--BYRON.
Gipsy was once more at Sunset Hall. Archie had escorted her home and
then returned to Washington. He would have mentioned their engagement to
the squire, and asked his consent to their union, but Gipsy said:
"No, you mustn't. I hate a fuss; and as I don't intend to be married
for two or three years yet, it will be time enough to tell them all by
and by."
So Archie, with a sigh, was forced to obey his capricious little love
and go back, after making her promise to let him come down every month
and see her; for she wouldn't write to him--it was "too much bother."
It began again to seem like old times at St. Mark's. There was Gipsy at
Sunset Hall, keeping them all from dying of torpor, and astonishing the
whole neighborhood by her mad freaks. There was Minnette--the proud,
cold, but now beautiful Minnette--living alone at Deep Dale; for the
doctor had gone from home on business. There was sweet Celeste, the Star
of the Valley, in her little cottage home--the fairest, loveliest maiden
the sun ever shone upon.
It was a lovely May morning. The air was made jocund with the songs of
birds; the balmy breeze scarce rippled the surface of the bay, where the
sunshine fell in golden glory.
Through the open doors and windows of Valley Cottage the bright May
sunbeams fell warm and bright; they lingered in broad patches on the
white floor, and touched gently the iron-gray locks of Miss Hagar, as
she sat knitting in her leathern chair in the chimney-corner, as upright
and gray as ever. Years seemed to pass on without touching her; for just
as we first saw her at Lizzie Oranmore's bridal, the same does she
appear to-day.
In the doorway stands a young girl, tall and graceful, dressed in soft
gray muslin, fastened at her slender waist by a gold-colored belt. _Can_
this young lady be our little, shy Celeste? Yes; here is the same superb
form, the same dainty little head, with its wealth of pale-gold hair;
the same clear, transparent complexion; the soft, dove-like eyes of
blue; the broad, white queenly forehead; the little, rosy, smiling
mouth. Yes, it is Celeste--celestial, truly, with the promise of her
childhood more than fulfilled. The world and its flatterers--and she has
heard many--have had no power to spoil her pure heart, and she has
returned the same gentle, loving Celeste--the idol of all who know her,
radiating light and beauty wherever she goes, a very angel of charity to
the poor, and beloved and cherished by the rich. More hearts than
Celeste likes to think of have been laid at her feet, to be gently and
firmly, but sadly, refused; for that sound, unsullied heart has never
yet been stirred by the words of man.
She stood in the doorway, gazing with parted lips and sparkling eyes on
the balmy beauty of that bright spring morning, with a hymn of gratitude
and love to the Author of all this beauty filling her mind.
Suddenly the sylvan silence of the spot was broken by the thunder of
horse's hoofs, and the next instant Gipsy came bounding along upon the
back of her favorite Mignonne.
"Good-morning, dear Gipsy," said Celeste, with her own bright smile, as
she hastened to open the gate for her. "Have you been out, as usual,
hunting this morning?"
"Yes, and there are the spoils," said Gipsy, throwing a well-filled
game-bag on the ground. "I come like a true hunter--a leal knight of the
gay greenwood--to lay them at the feet of my liege lady. I fancied a
canvas-back duck and a bright-winged partridge would not come amiss this
morning. I know my gallop has made me perfectly ravenous."
"You shall have one of them presently for breakfast," said Celeste,
calling Curly, their little black maid-of-all-work. "Tie Mignonne there,
and come in."
"By the way, Celeste, you don't seem to think it such an appalling act
to shoot birds now as you used to," said Gipsy, springing from her
horse; "it was once a crime of the first magnitude in your eyes."
"And I confess it seems a needless piece of cruelty to me still. I could
scarcely do it if I were starving, I think."
"You always were--with reverence be it spoken--rather a coward, Celeste.
Do you remember the day I shot the bird that Louis saved for you, and
you fell fainting to the ground?" said Gipsy, laughing at the
remembrance.
"Yes, I remember. I was rather an absurd little thing in those days,"
said Celeste, smiling. "How I _did_ love that unlucky little bird!"
"Oh! that was because Louis gave it to you. There! don't blush. Apropos
of Louis, I wonder where he is now?"
"In Rome, I suppose; at least Mrs. Oranmore told me so," replied
Celeste.
"Yes; when last we heard from him he was studying the old masters, as he
calls them--or the old grannies, as Guardy calls them. I shouldn't
wonder if he became quite famous yet, and--oh, Celeste! where did you
get that pretty chain and cross?" abruptly asked Gipsy, as her eye fell
on the trinket.
"A present," said Celeste, smiling and blushing.
Gipsy's keen eyes were fixed on her face with so quizzical an
expression, that the rose-hue deepened to crimson on her fair cheek as
they passed into the house. And Gipsy went up and shook hands with Miss
Hagar, and seated herself on a low stool at her feet, to relate the
morning's adventures, while Celeste laid the cloth and set the table for
breakfast.
After breakfast Gipsy rode off in the direction of Deep Dale. On
entering the parlor she found Minnette sitting reading.
Minnette--now a tall, splendidly developed, womanly girl, with the
proud, handsome face of her childhood--rose and welcomed her guest with
cold courtesy. The old, fiery light lurked still in her black eyes; but
the world had learned her to subdue it, and a coldly-polite reserve had
taken the place of the violent outburst of passion so common in her
tempestuous childhood.
"Don't you find it horribly dull here, Minnette?" said Gipsy, swallowing
a rising yawn.
"No," replied Minnette; "I prefer solitude. There are few--_none_,
perhaps--who sympathize with me, and in books I find companions."
"Well, I prefer less silent companions, for my part," said Gipsy. "I
don't believe in making an old hermit or bookworm of myself for
anybody."
"Every one to her taste," was the cold rejoinder.
"When do you expect your father home?" inquired Gipsy.
"To-night."
"Then he'll have a storm to herald his coming," said Gipsy, going to the
window and scanning the heavens with a practiced eye.
"A storm--impossible!" said Minnette. "There is not a cloud in the sky."
"Nevertheless, we shall have a storm," said Gipsy. "I read the sky as
truly as you do your books; and if he attempts to enter the bay
to-night, I'm inclined to think that the first land he makes will be the
bottom."
Minnette heard this intelligence with the utmost coolness, saying only:
"Indeed! I did not know you were such a judge of the weather. Well,
probably, when they see the storm coming, they will put into some place
until it is over."
"If they don't, I wouldn't give much for their chance of life," said
Gipsy, as she arose to go; "but don't worry, Minnette--all may be right
yet."
Minnette looked after her with a scornful smile. Fret! She had little
intention of doing it; and five minutes after the departure of Gipsy she
was so deeply immersed in her book as to forget everything else.
As the day wore on and evening approached, Gipsy's prophecy seemed about
to prove true. Dark, leaden clouds rolled about the sky; the wind no
longer blew in a steady breeze, but howled in wild gusts. The bosom of
the bay was tossing and moaning wildly, heaving and plunging as though
struggling madly in agony. Gipsy seized her telescope, and running up to
one of the highest rooms in the old hall, swept an anxious glance across
the troubled face of the deep. Far out, scarcely distinguishable from
the white caps of the billows, she beheld the sail of a vessel driving,
with frightful rapidity, toward the coast--driving toward its own doom;
for, once near those foaming breakers covering the sunken reefs of
rocks, no human being could save her. Gipsy stood gazing like one
fascinated; and onward still the doomed bark drove--like a lost soul
rushing to its own destruction.
Night and darkness at last shut out the ill-fated ship from her view.
Leaving the house, she hastily made her way to the shore, and standing
on a high, projecting peak, waited for the moon to rise, to view the
scene of tempest and death.
It lifted its wan, spectral face at last from behind a bank of dull,
black clouds, and lit up with its ghastly light the heaving sea and
driving vessel. The tempest seemed momentarily increasing. The waves
boiled, and seethed, and foamed, and lashed themselves in fury against
the beetling rocks. And, holding by a projecting cliff, Gipsy stood
surveying the scene. You might have thought her the spirit of the
storm, looking on the tempest she had herself raised. Her black hair and
thin dress streamed in the wind behind her, as she stood leaning
forward, her little, wild, dark face looking strange and weird, with its
blazing eyes, and cheeks burning with the mad excitement of the scene.
Down below her, on the shore, a crowd of hardy fishermen were gathered,
watching with straining eyes the gallant craft that in a few moments
would be a broken ruin. On the deck could be plainly seen the crew,
making most superhuman exertions to save themselves from the terrible
fate impending over them.
All in vain! Ten minutes more and they would be dashed to pieces. Gipsy
could endure the maddening sight no longer. Leaping from the cliff, she
sprang down the rocks, like a mountain kid, and landed among the
fishermen, who were too much accustomed to see her among them in scenes
like this to be much startled by it now.
"Will you let them perish before your eyes?" she cried, wildly. "Are you
men, to stand here idle in a time like this? Out with the boats; and
save their lives!"
"Impossible, Miss Gipsy!" answered half a dozen voices. "No boat could
live in such a surf."
"Oh, great heaven! And must they die miserably before your very eyes,
without even making an effort to save them?" she exclaimed,
passionately, wringing her hands. "Oh, that I were a man! Listen!
Whoever will make the attempt shall receive five hundred dollars
reward!"
Not one moved. Life could not be sacrificed for money.
"There she goes!" cried a voice.
Gipsy turned to look. A wild, prolonged shriek of mortal agony rose
above the uproar of the storm, and the crew were left struggling for
life in the boiling waves.
With a piercing cry, scarcely less anguished than their own, the mad
girl bounded to the shore, pushed off a light _batteau_, seized the
oars, and the next moment was dancing over the foaming waves.
A shout of fear and horror arose from the shore at the daring act. She
heeded it not, as, bending all her energies to the task of guiding her
frail bark through the tempestuous billows, she bent her whole strength
to the oars.
Oh! surely her guardian angel steered that boat on its errand of mercy
through the heaving, tempest-tossed sea! The salt spray seemed blinding
her as it dashed in her face; but on she flew, now balanced for a moment
on the top of a snowy hill of foam, the next, sunk down, down, as though
it were never more to rise.
"Leap into the boat!" she cried, in a clear, shrill voice, that made
itself heard, even above the storm.
Strong hands clutched it with the desperation of death, and two heavy
bodies rolled violently in. The weight nearly overset the light skiff;
but, bending her body to the oars, she righted it again.
"Where are the rest?" she exclaimed, wildly.
"All gone to the bottom. Give me the oars!" cried a voice.
She felt herself lifted from where she sat, placed gently in the bottom
of the boat, and then all consciousness left her, and, overcome by the
excitement, she fainted where she lay.
When she again opened her eyes she was lying in the arms of some one on
the shore, with a circle of troubled, anxious faces around her. She
sprang up wildly.
"Are they saved?" she exclaimed, looking around.
"Yes; thanks to your heroism, our lives are preserved," said a voice
beside her.
She turned hastily round. It was Doctor Nicholas Wiseman. Another form
lay stark and rigid on the sand, with men bending over him.
A deadly sickness came over Gipsy--she knew not why it was. She turned
away, with a violent shudder, from his outstretched hand, and bent over
the still form on the sand. All made way for her with respectful
deference; and she knelt beside him and looked in his face. He was a
boy--a mere youth, but singularly handsome, with a look of deep repose
on his almost beautiful face.
"Is he dead?" she cried, in a voice of piercing anguish.
"No; only stunned," said the doctor, coming over and feeling his pulse.
"Take him to Sunset Hall, then," said Gipsy, turning to some of the men
standing by.
A shutter was procured, and the senseless form of the lad placed upon
it, and, raising it on their shoulders, they bore him in the direction
of the old mansion-house.
Doctor Wiseman went toward his own home. And Gipsy, the free mountain
maid, leaped up the rocks, feeling, for the first time in her life, sick
and giddy. Oh! better, far better for her had they but perished in the
seething waves!