where did she say she was going? She's painting the ruins, and has
finished the old cathedral and the monastery. What's that other famous
wreck around here? Oh, yes; the castle! I remember now that she said she
was going to paint the castle to-day. Somebody ought to paint it. I
understand it hasn't been painted for more than eight hundred years."
His roar of laughter sounded like old Woodvale days.
"What's your hurry?" he asked. "Tell you what let's do! I'll fit you out
with a set of clubs and we'll play a few holes on the second course.
Then we'll go to the hotel, talk over the news with the women folks, and
this afternoon we'll drag Carter away from his bride, and you and he can
play Tom Morris and me a foursome! How does that strike you?"
"I cannot play this forenoon," I promptly said. "I must attend to my
luggage, shave, write some letters, send telegrams and--and do a lot of
things."
"How about this afternoon?" he asked. "We start at three o'clock."
"I'll be on hand," I promised, desperately.
"All right, and don't fail," he cautioned me. "You would not believe it,
Smith, but I have got so that I can line 'em out from one hundred and--"
I turned and left him with those unknown yards poised on his lips. When
at a safe distance I looked back and saw him gazing at me with an
attitude and expression of dumb wonder.
I retained the services of a red-headed and freckled-faced boy who was
confident he could direct me to the ruins of the old castle. It was not
a long walk, and when he pointed them out in the distance I gladdened
his heart and brought a grin to his tanned face by giving him a
half-crown as I dismissed him.
I was within sight of my fate! My steps faltered as I neared the grim
arches, and once I stopped and tried to plan how I should act and what I
should say. But I could think of nothing, and mustering all my courage
and invoking the god of luck, I went on.
In a few minutes I stood within the shadow of the gray and crumbling
walls, undecided which way to turn. Picking my way over fallen masonry,
I turned the corner of a huge pile which seemed as if it might crash to
earth at any moment.
And then I saw her!
She was seated at an easel, a small canvas in front of her. Her hat was
lying on a rock near by, and the breeze had toyingiy disarranged the
dark tresses of her hair.
She was looking out over the ocean, a brush idly poised in her hand. I
saw the profile of her sweet face as I stood motionless for an instant,
not five yards away.
"Grace!" I softly said.
That easel with its unfinished canvas was tipped to the rocks as with a
startled cry she sprang to her feet. For one agonising moment I gazed
into her startled eyes and saw her quivering lips.
[Illustration: "And then I saw her!"]
"Jack!" she cried, and we were in each other's arms.
I cannot write what we did or said during the first sweet minutes which
followed, for I do not know. I only know that we told each other the
most rapturous news which comes to mortal ears. Oh, the wonder of it!
We lived and we loved! This great earth with its blue-domed sky, its
fields, its flowers and its heaving seas became ours to enjoy "till
death us do part!"
There we sat amid the ruins where kings and queens had been born; where
they had lived, loved and died centuries agone. Their ashes mingled with
the dust from which they sprang; of their pomp and splendour naught
remained save the walls which crumbled over our heads; since their time
the world had been born anew, but the god of Love who came to them now
smiled on us, his heart as youthful, his figure as beautiful and his
ardour as strong as when he whispered sweet words into the ears of the
lovers who dwelt in Eden.
I had forgotten that we ever had quarrelled. As we sat there looking out
on the sea it seemed as if we had always known of each other's love.
"Sweetheart," I asked, "when did you first know that I loved you?"
"When I became angry at you," she replied.
"When you became angry at me?" I repeated, and then the thought of the
anguish through which I had passed recalled itself.
"Darling!" I exclaimed, "why did you treat me so? What had I done?
Sweetheart, you do not know how I have suffered!"
"But you must have known all the time that I loved you," she said, a
strange smile on her lips.
"How could I know?" I faltered.
"Could you not tell?" she asked, lifting her dancing eyes to mine. "Who
was the inspired author of lines which run like this: 'I have received
that glorious message! Grace Harding loves me! The message was
transmitted from the depths of her beautiful eyes! It has been confirmed
by the gentle pressure of her hand as it rested on my arm! It has been
echoed in the accents of her sweet voice! I have read it in the blush
which mantles her cheek as I draw near, and I know it from a thousand
little tokens which my heart understands and which my feeble words
cannot express. I am--'"
'"I am an ass,' is the amended and proper ending of that sentence," I
humbly said. "I beg of you, tell me how you ever came to see those
words from my miserable diary!"
"It makes me mad even now when I think of it!" she declared, vainly
attempting to release her hand. "You great big stupid; do you not know
what you did?"
"I only know that I wrote those vain-glorious lines and that you must
have read them," I said.
"I did not read them! Oh, I could box your ears! While you were
composing that rhapsody Mr. Chilvers and others came along and asked you
to play golf with them. Golf being more important than anything else on
earth, you rushed up stairs for your clubs and left that diary on the
table. Do you remember that on your way to the first-tee you met Miss
Ross, Miss Dangerfield and me?"
I remember it.
"When we arrived on the veranda," she continued with rising indignation,
"Miss Dangerfield picked up that literary treasure of yours and of
course opened it to the page from which I have been quoting. And then
she read it to us! I never was so mortified and angry in my life. I
rushed away from them, and when you found me I was so angry that I
could have killed you. It was not a declaration of your love for me; it
was a declaration of my love for you!"
I could not help laughing, and then she did box my ears.
"That little minx of a Miss Dangerfield busied herself until your return
from your golf game in copying from your diary its choicest extracts,"
continued Grace, after we had "made up," "but I managed to get them away
from her, and I have them yet. Some of them were--well, they were nicer
than the one Miss Dangerfield read."
"Which one, for instance?"
"I won't flatter your vanity by repeating them. But when I received your
letter and had thought it over several days I decided to forgive you,
Jack, and so I wrote you that letter."
"But I never received a letter from you!" I exclaimed.
On comparing dates we found that I had left Albuquerque before the
letter could arrive there, and that it probably had not been forwarded
to Woodvale in time so that I would get it prior to my sailing.
"It was a cold and formal letter," she said, trying to look severe.
"I don't care anything about the old letter, sweetheart," I declared,
"now that I have found you."
And then we laughed and cried and were very happy. It seems that Miss
Dangerfield gave the diary to the steward, who must have sent it to my
rooms, for I have no recollection of missing it at any time.
We talked of many, many things as we sat there within the shadows of the
old castle.
"Oh, Jack!" she suddenly exclaimed, "we must secure an invitation for
you to the wedding."
"Ours, dearest?" I innocently asked. "Do I need an invitation?"
"You are so stupid I'm afraid you will--if it ever takes place," she
added, looking down. "Be good, Jack, and don't tease me. I meant to Lord
Marwick's wedding."
"Lord Marwick? Who is Lord Marwick?"
"Lord Wallace Marwick, of Perth!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands in
delight at being the custodian of some great secret.
"My knowledge of the peerage is so slight, dearest, that I confess I
have never heard of, much less met, Lord Wallace Marwick of Perth," I
declared, smiling in sympathy with her enthusiasm.
"Oh, yes you have! You know him very well!"
"I?"
"Yes, you; you dear old stupid!"
"Who on earth is Lord Wallace Marwick, or whatever his name is?"
"Bishop's hired man!"
"Wallace?"
"Wallace, our club professional!"
"And his bride is--?"
"Can you not guess?" she exclaimed.
"Miss Olive Lawrence," I hazarded.
"Really, Jack, you are improving. Two weeks from this noon Bishop's
hired man, Lord Wallace Marwick, will be united in marriage with Olive
Lawrence!"
If she had told me that her father had bought the English throne and was
about to be crowned I should not have been more surprised.
"What was he doing at Bishop's?" I gasped.
"He was studying farming," she explained. "It seems that his father
invested heavily in farming lands in the abandoned districts of New
England. Upon his death Wallace determined to acquire a practical
knowledge of the methods of American farming, and this was the way in
which he went about it. He had already worked on two farms before he
applied to Mr. Bishop. He was about to return to Scotland when he met
Miss Lawrence. The reasons for his subsequent course you certainly must
understand."
"How soon did Miss Lawrence learn that he was--that he was what he is?"
"Shortly after he became our professional." she replied. "That
disclosure, and certain other disclosures constituted one of her
'lessons.' Olive confided the secret to me, and this is the principal
reason we are here."
"Sweetheart," I said, after an interval of silence, "would it not be
splendid to have our wedding at the same time? I have always been--been
partial to double weddings."
"I do not know," she whispered, looking intently at the tip of her
dainty shoe. "Perhaps--perhaps--I don't know what papa and mamma would
think about it."
I heard the crunching of gravel.
"Don't you folks ever eat?" demanded a familiar voice, and Mr. Harding
bore down upon us. We said nothing.
"Do you know what time it is?" he added, with an impatience which
puzzled me.
"I have not the slightest idea," I truthfully replied.
"Well, it's nearly two o'clock," he declared, looking at his watch.
"I've been looking everywhere for you, Smith, and then I began to be
worried about you," turning to his daughter. "Why, Kid, you've had time
to paint this old stone shack two coats."
"I imagine I'm to blame," I interposed.
"Have you forgotten, Smith, that you have an engagement to play a
foursome with old Tom Morris, Carter and myself this afternoon?" he
said, looking at us rather suspiciously, I thought.
"I have another engagement," I returned, mustering all my courage.
"What's that?"
"I have an engagement with Grace for life, and we wish to know if you
will give your consent to our marriage two weeks from to-day!"
He gazed at us for a moment, a grave look on his rugged and honest face.
He dropped his cane, took our hands in his and said:
"Children, you didn't fool your old dad for one minute! Take her, my
boy, and God bless both of you! Your mother knows it, Grace, and she
sends her blessing."
We almost overcame him with our expressions of gratitude. As we started
back to the hotel he glanced at us and chuckled.
"I suppose you two have not quit eating?" he suggested.
We promptly admitted we were hungry.
"And I presume you will play golf once in a while?"
We assured him that we certainly should.
"Well, suppose we go to the hotel, get a bite to eat and then go out and
play that foursome with old Tom Morris and Carter," he pleaded. "There
is one green out there which is called 'The Garden of Eden,' and I want
to show it to you. You, Grace, and mother and Mrs. Carter can go along
and be the gallery. I'll promise not to say a word or give a hint about
what has happened."
Oh, that happy, happy afternoon on the turf, sand dunes, braes and
greens of Old St. Andrews! The sea gulls circled over our heads, the
foam-flecked surf crooned its song of love, the River Eden wound about
our pathway, and the blue sky smiled down upon us.
"Sweetheart," I said, "there is one confession you have not made to me."
"What is it, Jack?"
"Why did you play so wretchedly that first game in Woodvale?"
Old Tom Morris looked back and smiled in sympathy with her joyous laugh.
"They told me that you were a confirmed woman hater, and that nothing so
exasperated you as to be compelled to play with a girl who was a novice.
I wished to see if it were true. You are not a woman hater; are you,
Jacques Henri?"
"No longer!" I declared.
"And you take back all the mean things you wrote about us in your
diary?"
"Every word of it, Sweetheart!"
"Oh, Jack; I thought I should die of laughter when I drove those eight
new balls in the pond. And when you never said a cross word, and smiled
and tried to encourage me, then I suspected that you loved me."
"I wouldn't have cared if you had driven me into the pond," I said, and
then I missed my fourth brassie.
Two weeks from that day there was a double wedding in the fine old
drawing room of Marwick Mansion. From the wedding feast which followed
cablegrams went to our friends in Woodvale, also one to Mr. James
Bishop, farmer near Woodvale, informing him that sometime next season
all of us, including the "hired man," would be with him for dinner and
another dance in the new red barn.
We have been cruising in the Mediterranean, and now are anchored in the
beautiful Bay of Naples. Mr. Harding has been pacing the deck and gazing
at the smoke-wreathed crest of Vesuvius.
[Illustration: "I believe I can carry it"]
"Jack," he has just remarked, "that is quite a bunker, but with a little
more practice I believe I can carry it."
End of Project Gutenberg's John Henry Smith, by Frederick Upham Adams