THE WAYSIDE TAVERN.
The railroad depot, which we have had occasion to mention more than
once, stood a little in advance of a small cluster of houses which
occupied a space of flat ground lying between it and the river. Among
these houses was a small hotel, or tavern, at which travellers going
back into the country sometimes stopped, and which frequently held
guests from the city weeks together for as a transient boarding house,
it was well kept and pleasantly situated. This hotel and the surrounding
houses were completely shut out from the white mansion by the fine old
grove we have described, which swept up to the last slope of the
terraces and ended there in a beautiful wilderness, through whose cleft
heart came a bright gush of running waters.
Of all the lovely nooks which made that domain almost a paradise, this
piece of wildwoods was the most beautiful. But it lay some distance from
the house, while some of the great trees that grew upon its outskirts
almost sheltered the little hotel, and the inland stream rushing by one
end, gave it a rural aspect which can seldom be attained even from a
union of trees and running water.
To this hotel, a few days after the Miss Landers returned home, came
young Seymour, quite alone and with only a small valise by way of
baggage. A handsomely-mounted fowling piece, some fishing tackle and a
basket, that seemed never to have been used, were left at the depot, for
which the landlord sent his boy at once, for the young man, after an
examination of his room and some general inquiries, expressed himself
delighted with the accommodations, and determined to stay some days,
weeks perhaps, and see what sport could be found in the neighborhood.
The landlord was delighted; never had his door been darkened by a
presence so imposing. The extreme beauty of this man’s face, his
manners, at once dignified and cordial, charmed every one with whom he
came in contact. He was delighted with the room assigned to him,
remarked pleasantly on its white bed and the muslin curtains which let
in such lovely glimpses of green shadows and sparkling water, and
expressed general satisfaction. It was a lower room, and a quaint
affair, half door half window, opened from it to a little verandah.
Below this balcony the brook went eddying and laughing till lost in the
darkness cast by a plank bridge which crossed the highway and hushed it
into stillness for the space of thirty feet or more, when it broke forth
in a riot of sweet sounds and went dancing and sparkling off to its
death in the vast sweep of the Hudson.
After giving orders about his gun and fishing tackle, Seymour looked at
his watch and inquired what he could have for dinner.
“A broiled chicken, would that do—with splendid potatoes fresh from the
garden, custard and apple pie?”
“Add materials for a salad and exchange the pie for a ripe peach, and
nothing could be better,” Seymour answered.
The landlord went out delighted. He had a private understanding with
Mrs. Lander’s gardener, and made himself sure of such peaches as the
young gentleman had seldom eaten before.
“There,” muttered Seymour, as the man went out, “this broiled chicken
will help me through an hour, then give ten minutes to the fruit, and a
cigar or two will bring me close upon sunset. I wonder which way the
house lies from here.”
He took a note written on paper of a faint violet color from his bosom
and murmured softly to himself as he read it:
“There is a room on the ground floor which you must secure if possible.
It opens on an old-fashioned verandah, but little used, from which steps
run down to a footpath which leads along the margin of the brook, till
it ends in the strange summer-house I have described. There, my beloved,
I shall be waiting for you with an impatience which swells my heart and
burns upon my face even as I write, hours and hours from the time when I
can hope to see you. Do not fail, the disappointment would kill me if I
should go to that place and find it empty. I will not go till the very
hour—to wait would be an agony of suspense. I must find you watching,
impatient—counting each moment which keeps me from you as an enemy to be
wrestled with and hated. But I might keep on forever and say nothing
that will satisfy the heart which struggles and swells in my bosom in a
wild effort to reach yours. At sunset, remember—at sunset.”
The young man kissed this impassioned note more than once before he
placed it near his heart again, for with all his wayward soul he loved
the young creature who wrote it.
“Remember the sunset—as if I could forget! Oh! she is a glorious
creature, full of genius, ardent, earnest—a woman to live for and die
for! How her thoughts leap to mine! I could be the hound, the slave of a
woman like that and feel it no degradation, for she loves me—she loves
me, and I adore her!”
Seymour walked the room to and fro with restless impatience. The note
had broken up all the listless placidity of his manner. He longed to
tread the hours under his feet which lay between him and his love. To
most men the unwomanly warmth of that note would have brought something
like repulsion; but Seymour only loved her the better for this abandon.
Fresh from Southern Europe, he brought with him its fire and its
intensity of feeling.
The dinner was brought in at last and placed upon a round table, covered
with a cloth white and glossy as crusted snow.
With all his sentiment, Seymour was hungry but fastidious as an epicure.
He sent the broiled chicken back to be kept warm while he used up a
little time in mixing a salad to his taste. That was so much gained. He
was fifteen minutes nearer the sunset and had produced a delicious salad
before the covered dishes were brought in again. Everything was well
cooked and delightfully fresh. Simple as the meal was, he ate it with
exquisite relish, finding this a pleasant way of passing the time. The
landlord came in at last and inquired if his guest was satisfied with
his dinner.
Seymour had just taken a peach in his hand and fastened his white teeth
in its crimson side. He took the peach from his lips with a sigh of
sensuous enjoyment, and answered in a single word, “Delicious!”
“This is indeed a glorious fruit,” he said, eyeing the juicy pulp and
crimson coat of the peach he had half eaten with intense admiration;
“and seems fresh from the tree. Not of your own growing, surely?”
“No,” answered the landlord, with a bland smile, “they were a present
from Mrs. Lander’s gardener. Wall peaches sir, and picked ones at that.”
“And who is Mrs. Lander?” asked Seymour with apparent unconcern. “Some
Lady Bountiful of the neighborhood?”
“She is—or was the lady of the white marble house which you passed a
quarter of a mile back—but I really do not know who it belongs to now.
Mr. Lander’s daughter has come back and everything is claimed by her, I
am told.”
“And is it a large property?”
“Immense, and falls, every dollar of it, to that young girl.”
“Indeed!” said Seymour, pushing the plate of fruit from him. “And the
other—I beg pardon, but did not you say that there was a relative?”
“No, sir, I don’t remember mentioning it. But there is a cousin, brought
up in the house, the very image and picture of the young lady, but poor
as a church mouse—hasn’t a dollar that I know of independent of her rich
cousin. Besides she’s said to be—I don’t answer for it remember—but
she’s said to be a little wild, wrong about the head, you know. The
fright of that awful shipwreck unsettled her; but it’s to be hoped that
it will go off. Quiet and her native air will do wonders the doctors
say.”
Seymour was puzzled and a good deal mystified, but he did not venture on
questioning the landlord too closely. “There must be some mistake,” he
thought; “both the young ladies were bright as larks ten days ago. This
must be village gossip, but at nightfall I shall learn everything.”
The landlord, finding the conversation droop, went out, and a servant
came in to remove the table and set the room to rights. Seymour stood by
the window while this was going on, and smiled as he noticed how the
shadows had lengthened, and that faint gleams of violet and rose-color
were giving an opaline tint to the west.
When the servant disappeared with the last vestige of the meal he had
enjoyed so much, he had still half an hour to dispose of, and spite of
his impatience, was not altogether inconsolable that it was so. Under
all circumstances, Seymour was a man to make the best of his
surroundings, and never failed to snatch the blossoms from each hour as
it passed him. The room was scantily furnished, and he looked around for
a couch to rest upon. No such luxurious convenience presenting itself he
drew a heavy chair, large enough for a modern pulpit and draped with
white dimity, up to the window, stretched himself almost at full length
in it, and selected a cigar from a case richly mounted and exquisitely
embroidered, probably by some lady. This he laid daintily on the arm of
his chair, and searching in another pocket, drew forth a small box of
enamelled gold, from which a waxen match soon flashed fire in answer to
a quick motion of his hand. Then igniting his cigar, with an indolent
motion of his red lips, he fell into a reverie, looking out upon the sky
with his half-shut eyes and sending up dainty curls of blue smoke at
intervals of indolent animation.
Thus he watched the sky till its delicate opal tints turned into
seething scarlet, broken up with great ridges of gold, which sunk, and
changed, and floated in a deep sea of purple lanced with flame and
fringed with living fire. The last sunbeams broke against the window
where the young man sat, like a handful of golden arrows. Then he
started up from his reverie with a thrill of life that completely
transfigured him, flung the end of his cigar out of the window, and
opening the lower half, which was of wood, stepped out upon the
verandah. The trees above him, were all ablaze with dying sunbeams, but
soft purple shadows were gathering in the ravine, and the brook laughed
out fitfully through the beautiful gloom which fell upon it.
A footpath ran along the margin of this brook, to which the wood moss
crept, tufting its edges with velvet. Spotted ferns and delicate
sarsaparilla brushed against his boots as he passed into the woods,
walking rapidly and smiling as he went.
All at once a bend of the path brought him upon a tiny log cabin, which
stood upon an embankment of the brook just below a rustic bridge, half
stone, half logs, which spanned one of its deepest parts. It was a
lovely spot, sheltered by tall chestnuts and a single hemlock, which let
in a glow of the red sunset through the dusky green of their branches.
In the door of that miniature cabin stood a female, leaning out, with a
hand shading her eyes and searching the footpath with eager glances. She
had come first, notwithstanding her promise to the contrary, and, while
her whole soul went out in longing for his presence, was angry that he
should have made her wait.
He saw her from the margin of the brook, cleared its highest embankment
with a bound or two, and stood beside her beaming with happiness. Her
anger fled at the first touch of his hand; not a gleam of it was left in
those deep blue eyes; a tremor ran through her frame, but it was not one
of rage or resentment even. She loved the man—yes, at the time she loved
him honestly, devotedly, with a wild vehemence that might have made her
his slave; and he loved her ardently, madly, with a better love than she
could ever give in return. He was not a good man, as our readers will
know, but the depth and earnestness of his affection for this girl gave
a grandeur even to his most wayward nature.