THE RECONCILIATION.
It was, of course, the old story; there were one or two meetings by the
mill-stream, a morning spent together in some distant hay-field, an
afternoon in the woods, and then the mischief was done--they loved each
other.
"Alas, how easily things go wrong--
A sigh too deep or a kiss too long;
Then follows a mist and a weeping rain--
And life is never the same again."
It soon became not merely a habit but a necessity for them to meet every
day. Farmer Noel understood perfectly well the art of tilling the
ground, of sowing the crops, of making the earth productive, but he knew
less than a child of the care and watchfulness his young niece required.
He contented himself by asking where she had been; he never seemed to
imagine that she had had a companion. He saw her growing more and more
beautiful, with new loveliness on her face, with new light in her eyes,
with a thousand charms growing on her, but he never thought of love or
danger--in fact, above the hay-making and the wheat, Farmer Noel did not
think at all.
She had gone into the glowing heart of fairyland--all the old life was
left far behind; she did not even seem to remember that she had been
restless and discontented; that in her soul she had revolted fiercely
against her fate; that she had disliked her life and longed for anything
that would change it; all that was forgotten; the golden glamour of love
had fallen over her, and everything was changed. He was young--this
brave, generous, gallant lover of hers--only twenty, with a heart full
of romance. He fairly worshiped the proud, beautiful girl who carried
herself with the stately grace of a young queen. He had fallen in love
after the fashion of his age--madly, recklessly, blindly--ready to go
mad or to die for his love; after the fashion of his age and sex he
loved her all the more because of her half-cold reserve, her indomitable
pride, her haughty rejection of all flattery.
Young girls do not always know the secret of their power; a little
reserve goes further than the most loving words. Leone's pride attracted
Lord Chandos quite as much as her beauty. The first little quarrel they
had was an outburst of pride from her; they had been strolling through
the sunniest part of Leigh Woods, and when it was time to part he bent
down to kiss the warm, white hand. She drew it quickly from him.
"You would not have done that to one of your own class," she cried; "why
do you do it to me?"
"You are not really angry, Leone?" he cried in wonder.
She turned her beautiful face, colorless with indignation, to him.
"I am so far angry," she said, "that I shall not walk through the woods
with you--never again."
She kept her word. For two whole days Lord Chandos wandered through the
fields and the lanes, through the woods and by the river, yet he saw no
sight of her. It was possible that she punished herself quite as much as
she did him; but he must be taught that, were he twenty times an earl,
he must never venture on even the least liberty with her; he must wait
her permission before he kissed her hand.
The fourth day--he could bear it no longer--he rode past the farm twenty
times and more; at length he was fortunate enough to see Farmer Noel,
and throwing the reins on his horse's neck he got down and went up to
him.
"Have you a dog to sell?" he asked. "Some one told me you had very fine
dogs."
"I have good dogs, but none to sell," replied the farmer.
"I want a dog, and I would give a good price for a good one," he said.
"Will you let me see yours?"
"Yes, you can see them, but you cannot buy them," said Robert Noel; and
the next scene was the handsome young lordling going round the farm,
with the stalwart, stolid farmer.
He won the farmer's heart by his warm praises of the farm, the cattle,
the dogs, and everything else he saw; still there was no Leone.
"I am very thirsty; should you think me very impertinent if I asked you
for a glass of cider?" he said; and the farmer, flattered by the
request, took him into the little parlor. He looked at his visitor in
simple wonder.
"They say you are a great lord's son," he said; "but if you are, you
have no pride about you."
Lord Chandos laughed; and the farmer called Leone. There was a pause,
during which the young lord's heart beat and his face flushed.
"Leone," cried the farmer again.
He turned to his visitor.
"You will wonder what 'Leone' means, it is such a strange name; it is my
niece. Here she comes."
The loveliest picture in all the world, trying hard to preserve her
usual stately grace, yet with a blushing, dimpling smile that made her
lovely beyond words.
"Leone," said the farmer, "will you bring a jug of cider?"
"Pray," cried the lord, "do not trouble yourself, Miss Noel. I cannot
think----"
She interrupted him by a gesture of her white hand.
"I will send it, uncle," she said, and disappeared.
The farmer turned with a smile to the young lord.
"She is very proud," he said; "but she is a fine girl."
The cider came; the visitor duly drank his glass and went; his only
reward for all that trouble was the one glance at her face.
That same evening a little note was given to her, in which he begged her
so humbly to forgive him, and to meet him again, that she relented.
He had learned his lesson; he wooed her with the deference due to a
young princess; no word or action of his displeased her after that,
while he loved her with a love that was akin to madness.
So through the long, bright, beautiful summer days, in the early
morning, while the sweet, fragrant air seemed to sweep the earth, and in
the evening when the dew lay upon flower and tree, they met and learned
to love each other.
One evening, as they sat by their favorite spot--the mill-stream--Lord
Chandos told her how he had learned to love her, how he had ceased to
think of anything in the world but herself.
"I knew you were my fate, Leone," he said, "when I saw you sitting here
by the mill-stream. I am quite sure that I have loved you ever since. I
do not remember that there has been one moment in which I have not
thought of you. I shall always thank Heaven that I came to Rashleigh--I
found my darling here."
For once all the pride had died from her face; all the hauteur was gone
from her eyes; a lovely gleam of tenderness took its place; a love-light
in the shy, sweet eyes that dropped from his.
"My darling Leone," he said, "if I lived a hundred years I could only
say over and over again--'I love you.' Those three words say everything.
Do you love me?"
She looked up at him. Then she raised her dark eyes to his and a little
quiver passed over her beautiful mouth.
"Yes, I love you," she said. "Whether it be for weal or for woe, for
good or ill, I know not; but I love you."
There was unutterable pathos, unutterable music in those three words;
they seemed to rhyme with the chime of the falling waters. She held out
her white hands, he clasped them in his.
"Why do you say it so sadly, my darling? Love will bring nothing but
happiness for you and for me," he said.
She laid her white arms on his neck, and looked earnestly in his face.
"There can be no comparison," she said. "Love to you is only a small
part of your life, to me it is everything--everything. Do you
understand? If you forget me or anything of that kind, I could not bear
it. I could not school myself into patience as model women do. I should
come and throw myself into the mill-stream."
"But, my darling, I shall never forget you--never; you are life of my
life. I might live without the air and the sunlight; I might live
without sleep or food, but never without you. I must forget my own soul
before I forget you."
Still the white hands clasped his shoulders and the dark eyes were fixed
on his face.
"You and your love are more than that to me," she said. "I throw all my
life on this one die; I have nothing else--no other hope. Ah, think
well, Lance, before you pledge your faith to me; it means so much. I
should exact it whole, unbroken and forever."
"And I would give it so," he replied.
"Think well of it," she said again, with those dark, earnest eyes fixed
on his face. "Let there be no mistake, Lance. I am not one of the meek
Griselda type; I should not suffer in silence and resignation, let my
heart break, and then in silence sink into an early grave. Ah, no, I am
no patient Griselda. I should look for revenge and many other things.
Think well before you pledge yourself to me. I should never
forgive--never forget. There is time now--think before you seal your
fate and mine."
"I need not think, Leone," he answered, quietly. "I have thought, and
the result is that I pledge you my faith forever and ever."
The earnest, eager gaze died from her eyes, and the beautiful face was
hidden on his breast.
"Forever and ever, sweet," he whispered; "do you hear? in all time and
for all eternity, I pledge you my love and my faith."
The water seemed to laugh as it rippled on, the wind laughed as it bent
the tall branches, the nightingale singing in the wood stopped suddenly,
and its next burst of song was like ringing laughter; the mountains
quivered over the mill-stream, the stars seemed to tremble as they
shone.
"Forever and ever," he repeated. The wind seemed to catch up the words
and repeat them, the leaves seemed to murmur them, the fall of the water
to rhyme with them. "Forever and ever, sweet, I pledge you my love and
my faith; our hearts will be one, and our souls one, and you will give
me the same love in return, my sweet?"
"I give you even more than that," she replied, so earnestly that the
words had a ring of tragedy in them; and then bending forward, he kissed
the sweet lips that were for evermore to be his own.
"You are mine now forever," he said, "my wife, who is to be."
She was quite silent for some minutes; then, looking up at him, she
said:
"I wish you had never sung that pretty ballad of the mill-wheel to me;
do you know what the water always says when I listen?
"'Those vows are all forgotten,
The ring asunder broken.'"
"My darling," he said, clasping her to his heart, "no words that have
any ring of doubt in them will ever apply to us, let the mill-stream say
what it will."