I know each lane, and every alley green,
Dingle or bushy dell of this wild wood,
And every bosky bourne from side to side;
My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood.
MILTON.
Fleda and her grandfather had but just risen from a tolerably
early breakfast the next morning, when the two young sportsmen
entered the room.
"Ha!" said Mr. Ringgan, "I declare! you're stirring betimes.
Come five or six miles this morning a'ready. Well that's the
stuff to make sportsmen of. Off for the woodcock, hey? And I
was to go with you and show you the ground? I declare I don't
know how in the world I can do it this morning, I'm so very
stiff ten times as bad as I was yesterday. I had a window
open in my room last night, I expect that must have been the
cause. I don't see how I could have overlooked it; but I never
gave it a thought, till this morning I found myself so lame I
could hardly get out of bed. I am very sorry, upon my word!"
"I am very sorry we must lose your company, Sir," said the
young Englishman, "and for such a cause; but as to the rest, I
dare say your directions will guide us sufficiently."
"I don't know about that," said the old gentleman. " It is
pretty hard to steer by a chart that is only laid down in the
imagination. I set out once to go in New York from one side of
the city over into the other, and the first thing I knew I
found myself travelling along half a mile out of town. I had
to get in a stage and ride back, and take a fresh start. Out
at the West they say, when you are in the woods you can tell
which is north by the moss growing on that side of the trees;
but if you're lost, you'll be pretty apt to find the moss
grows on _all_ sides of the trees. I couldn't make out any
waymarks at all, in such a labyrinth of brick corners. Well,
let us see if I tell you now it is so easy to mistake one
hill for another Fleda, child, you put on your sun-bonnet,
and take these gentlemen back to the twenty-acre lot, and from
there you can tell 'em how to go, so I guess they wont mistake
it."
"By no means!" said Mr. Carleton; "we cannot give her so much
trouble; it would be buying our pleasure at much too dear a
rate."
"Tut, tut," said the old gentleman; "she thinks nothing of
trouble, and the walk 'll do her good. She'd like to be out
all day, I believe, if she had any one to go along with; but
I'm rather a stupid companion for such a spry little pair of
feet. Fleda, look here; when they get to the lot, they can
find their own way after that. You know where the place is
where your cousin Seth shot so many woodcock last year, over
in Mr. Hurlbut's land; when you get to the big lot you must
tell these gentlemen to go straight over the hill, not Squire
Thornton's hill, but mine, at the back of the lot. They must
go straight over it, till they come to cleared land on the
other side; then they must keep along by the edge of the wood,
to the right, till they come to the brook; they must _cross the
brook_, and follow up the opposite bank, and they'll know the
ground when they come to it; or they don't deserve to. Do you
understand? Now run and get your hat, for they ought to be
off."
Fleda went, but neither her step nor her look showed any great
willingness to the business.
"I am sure, Mr. Ringgan," said Mr. Carleton, "your little
granddaughter has some reason for not wishing to take such a
long walk this morning. Pray allow us to go without her."
"Pho, pho," said the old gentleman, "she wants to go."
"I guess she's skeered o' the guns," said Cynthy, happy to get
a chance to edge in a word before such company; "it's that
ails her."
"Well, well; she must get used to it," said Mr. Ringgan. "Here
she is!"
Fleda had it in her mind to whisper to him a word of hope
about Mr. Jolly; but she recollected that it was at best an
uncertain hope, and that if her grandfather's thoughts were
off the subject it was better to leave them so. She only
kissed him for good-by, and went out with the two gentlemen.
As they took up their guns, Mr. Carleton caught the timid
shunning glance her eye gave at them.
"Do you dislike the company of these noisy friends of ours,
Miss Fleda?" said he.
Fleda hesitated, and finally said, "she didn't much like to be
very near them when they were fired."
"Put that fear away then," said he, " for they shall keep a
respectful silence so long as they have the honour to be in
your company. If the woodcock come about us as tame as quails
our guns shall not be provoked to say anything till your
departure gives them leave."
Fleda smiled her thanks, and set forward, privately much
confirmed in her opinion that Mr. Carleton had handsome eyes.
At a little distance from the house Fleda left the meadow for
an old apple-orchard at the left, lying on a steep side hill.
Up this hill-side they toiled; and then found themselves on a
ridge of tableland, stretching back for some distance along
the edge of a little valley or bottom of perfectly flat smooth
pasture-ground. The valley was very narrow, only divided into
fields by fences running from side to side. The table-land
might be a hundred feet or more above the level of the bottom,
with a steep face towards it. A little way back from the edge
the woods began; between them and the brow of the hill the
ground was smooth and green, planted as if by art with
flourishing young silver pines, and once in a while a hemlock,
some standing in all their luxuriance alone, and some in
groups. With now and then a smooth grey rock, or large
boulderstone, which had somehow inexplicably stopped on the
brow of the hill instead of rolling down into what at some
former time no doubt was a bed of water, all this open strip
of the table-land might have stood with very little coaxing
for a piece of a gentleman's pleasure-ground. On the opposite
side of the little valley was a low rocky height, covered with
wood, now in the splendour of varied red and green and purple
and brown and gold; between, at their feet, lay the soft quiet
green meadow; and off to the left, beyond the far end of the
valley, was the glory of the autumn woods again, softened in
the distance. A true October sky seemed to pervade all, mildly
blue, transparently pure, with that clearness of atmosphere
that no other month gives us; a sky that would have conferred
a patent of nobility on any landscape. The scene was certainly
contracted and nowise remarkable in any of its features, but
Nature had shaken out all her colours over the land, and drawn
a veil from the sky, and breathed through the woods and over
the hill-side the very breath of health, enjoyment, and
vigour.
When they were about over-against the middle of the valley,
Mr. Carleton suddenly made a pause and stood for some minutes
silently looking. His two companions came to a halt on either
side of him, one not a little pleased, the other a little
impatient.
"Beautiful!" Mr. Carleton said, at length.
"Yes," said Fleda, gravely, "I think it's a pretty place. I
like it up here."
"We sha'n't catch many woodcock among these pines," said young
Rossitur.
"I wonder," said Mr. Carleton, presently, "how any one should
have called these 'melancholy days.' "
"Who has?" said Rossitur.
"A countryman of yours," said his friend, glancing at him. "If
he had been a countryman of mine there would have been less
marvel. But here is none of the sadness of decay none of the
withering if the tokens of old age are seen at all it is in
the majestic honours that crown a glorious life the graces
of a matured and ripened character. This has nothing in
common, Rossitur, with those dull moralists who are always
dinning decay and death into one's ears; this speaks of Life.
Instead of freezing all one's hopes and energies, it quickens
the pulse with the desire to _do_. 'The saddest of the year'
Bryant was wrong."
"Bryant? oh!" said young Rossitur; "I didn't know who you
were speaking of."
"I believe, now I think of it, he was writing of a somewhat
later time of the year, I don't know how all this will look
in November."
"I think it is very pleasant in November," said little Fleda,
sedately.
"Don't you know Bryant's 'Death of the Flowers,' Rossitur?"
said his friend, smiling. "What have you been doing all your
life?"
"Not studying the fine arts at West Point, Mr. Carleton."
"Then sit down here, and let me mend that place in your
education. Sit down! and I'll give you something better than
woodcock. You keep a game-bag for thoughts, don't you?"
Mr. Rossitur wished Mr. Carleton didn't. But he sat down,
however, and listened with an unedified face; while his
friend, more to please himself, it must be confessed, than for
any other reason, and perhaps with half a notion to try Fleda,
repeated the beautiful words. He presently saw they were not
lost upon one of his hearers; she listened intently.
"It is very pretty," said Rossitur, when he had done. "I
believe I have seen it before somewhere."
"There is no 'smoky light' to-day," said Fleda.
"No," said Mr. Carleton, smiling to himself. "Nothing but that
could improve the beauty of all this, Miss Fleda."
"_I_ like it better as it is," said Fleda.
"I am surprised at that," said young Rossitur. "I thought you
lived on smoke."
There was nothing in the words, but the tone was not exactly
polite. Fleda granted him neither smile nor look.
"I am glad you like it up here," she went on, gravely doing
the honours of the place. "I came this way because we
shouldn't have so many fences to climb."
"You are the best little guide possible, and I have no doubt
would always lead one the right way," said Mr. Carleton.
Again the same gentle, kind, _appreciating_ look. Fleda
unconsciously drew a step nearer. There was a certain
undefined confidence established between them.
"There's a little brook down there in spring," said she,
pointing to a small, grass-grown water-course in the meadow,
hardly discernible from the height, "but there's no water in
it now. It runs quite full for a while after the snow breaks
up; but it dries away by June or July."
"What are those trees so beautifully tinged with red and
orange, down there by the fence in the meadow?"
"I am not woodsman enough to inform you," replied Rossitur.
"Those are maples," said Fleda "sugar maples. The one all
orange is a hickory."
"How do you know?" said Mr. Carleton, turning to her. "By your
wit as a fairy?"
"I know by the colour," said Fleda, modestly; "and by the
shape too."
"Fairy," said Mr. Rossitur, "if you have any of the stuff
about you, I wish you would knock this gentleman over the head
with your wand, and put the spirit of moving into him. He is
going to sit dreaming here all day."
"Not at all," said his friend, springing up; "I am ready for
you; but I want other game than woodcock just now, I confess."
They walked along in silence, and had near reached the
extremity of the table-land, which, towards the end of the
valley, descended into ground of a lower level covered with
woods; when Mr. Carleton, who was a little ahead, was startled
by Fleda's voice, exclaiming, in a tone of distress, "Oh, not
the robins!" and turning about, perceived Mr. Rossitur
standing still with levelled gun, and just in the act to
shoot. Fleda had stopped her ears. In the same instant, Mr.
Carleton had thrown up the gun, demanding of Rossitur, with a
singular change of expression "what he meant!"
"Mean?" said the young gentleman, meeting with an astonished
face the indignant fire of his companion's eyes "why, I mean
not to meddle with other people's guns, Mr. Carleton. What do
_you_ mean?"
"Nothing, but to protect myself."
"Protect yourself!" said Rossitur, heating as the other cooled
"from what, in the name of wonder?"
"Only from having my word blown away by your fire," said
Carleton, smiling. "Come, Rossitur, recollect yourself
remember our compact."
"Compact! one isn't bound to keep compacts with unearthly
personages," said Rossitur, half sulkily and half angrily;
"and besides, I made none."
Mr. Carleton turned from him very coolly, and walked on.
They left the table-land and the wood, entered the valley
again, and passed through a large orchard, the last of the
succession of fields which stretched along it. Beyond this
orchard the ground rose suddenly, and on the steep hill-side
there had been a large plantation of Indian corn. The corn was
harvested, but the ground was still covered with numberless
little stacks of the cornstalks. Halfway up the hill stood
three ancient chestnut-trees; veritable patriarchs of the nut
tribe they were, and respected and esteemed as patriarchs
should be.
"There are no 'dropping nuts' to-day, either," said Fleda, to
whom the sight of her forest friends in the distance probably
suggested the thought, for she had not spoken for some time.
"I suppose there hasn't been frost enough yet."
"Why, you have a good memory, Fairy," said Mr. Carleton. "Do
you give the nuts leave to fall of themselves?"
"Oh, sometimes grandpa and I go a nutting," said the little
girl, getting lightly over the fence "but we haven't been
this year."
"Then it is a pleasure to come yet?"
"No," said Fleda, quietly; "the trees near the house have been
stripped; and the only other nice place there is for us to go
to, Mr. Didenhover let the Shakers have the nuts. I sha'n't
get any this year."
"Live in the woods and not get any nuts! that wont do, Fairy.
Here are some fine chestnuts we are coming to what should
hinder our reaping a good harvest from these?"
"I don't think there will be any on them," said Fleda; "Mr.
Didenhover has been here lately with the men getting in the
corn; I guess they have cleared the trees."
"Who is Mr. Didenhover?"
"He is grandpa's man."
"Why didn't you bid Mr. Didenhover let the nuts alone?"
"Oh, he wouldn't mind if he was told," said Fleda. "He does
everything just as he has a mind to, and nobody can hinder
him. Yes, they've cleared the trees I thought so."
"Don't you know of any other trees that are out of this Mr.
Didenhover's way?"
"Yes," said Fleda; "I know a place where there used to be
beautiful hickory trees, and some chestnuts too, I think; but
it is too far off for grandpa, and I couldn't go there alone.
This is the twenty-acre lot," said she, looking, though she
did not say it, "Here I leave you."
"I am glad to hear it," said her cousin. "Now give us our
directions, Fleda, and thank you for your services."
"Stop a minute," said Mr. Carleton. "What if you and I should
try to find those same hickory-trees, Miss Fleda? Will you
take me with you or is it too long a walk?"
"For me? oh no!" said Fleda, with a face of awakening hope;
"but," she added, timidly, "you were going a shooting, Sir?"
"What on earth are you thinking of, Carleton?" said young
Rossitur." Let the nuts and Fleda alone, do!"
"By your leave, Mr. Rossitur," said Carleton. "My murderous
intents have all left me, Miss Fleda; I suppose your wand has
been playing about me, and I should like nothing better than
to go with you over the hills this morning. I have been a
nutting many a time in my own woods at home, and I want to try
it for once in the New World. Will you take me?"
"Oh, thank you, Sir!" said Fleda; " but we have passed the
turning a long way; we must go back ever so far the same way
we came to get to the place where we turn off to go up the
mountain."
"I don't wish for a prettier way if it isn't so far as to
tire you, Fairy?"
"Oh, it wont tire me!" said Fleda, overjoyed.
"Carleton!" exclaimed young Rossitur. "Can you be so absurd!
Lose this splendid day for the woodcock, when we may not have
another while we are here!"
"You are not a true sportsman, Mr. Rossitur," said the other,
coolly, "or you would know what it is to have some sympathy
with the sports of others. But _you_ will have the day for the
woodcock, and bring us home a great many, I hope. Miss Fleda,
suppose we give this impatient young gentleman his orders and
despatch him."
"I thought you were more of a sportsman," said the vexed West
Pointer, "or your sympathy would be with me."
"I tell you the sporting mania was never stronger on me," said
the other, carelessly. "Something less than a rifle, however,
will do to bring down the game I am after. We will rendezvous
at the little village over yonder, unless I go home before
you, which I think is more probable. Au revoir!"
With careless gracefulness he saluted his disconcerted
companion, who moved off with ungraceful displeasure. Fleda
and Mr. Carleton then began to follow back the road they had
come, in the highest good humour both. Her sparkling face told
him with even greater emphasis than her words,
"I am so much obliged to you, Sir."
"How you go over fences!" said he, "like a sprite, as you
are."
"Oh, I have climbed a great many," said Fleda, accepting,
however, again with that infallible instinct, the help which
she did not need. "I shall be so glad to get some nuts, for
I thought I wasn't going to have any this year; and it is so
pleasant to have them to crack in the long winter evenings."
"You must find them long evenings indeed, I should think."
"Oh no, we don't," said Fleda. "I didn't mean they were long
in _that_ way. Grandpa cracks the nuts, and I pick them out, and
he tells me stories; and then you know he likes to go to bed
early. The evenings never seem long."
"But you are not always cracking nuts."
"Oh no, to be sure not; but there are plenty of other pleasant
things to do. I dare say grandpa would have bought some nuts,
but I had a great deal rather have those we get ourselves, and
then the fun of getting them, besides, is the best part."
Fleda was tramping over the ground at a furious rate.
"How many do you count upon securing to-day?" said Mr.
Carleton, gravely.
"I don't know," said Fleda, with a business face, "there are
a good many trees, and fine large ones, and I don't believe
anybody has found them out they are so far out of the way;
there ought to be a good parcel of nuts."
"But," said Mr. Carleton, with perfect gravity, "if we should
be lucky enough to find a supply for your winter's store, it
would be too much for you and me to bring home, Miss Fleda,
unless you have a broomstick in the service of fairydom."
"A broomstick!" said Fleda.
"Yes, did you never hear of the man who had a broomstick
that would fetch pails of water at his bidding?"
"No," said Fleda, laughing. "What a convenient broomstick! I
wish we had one. But I know what I can do, Mr. Carleton, if
there should be too many nuts for us to bring home, I can take
Cynthy afterwards and get the rest of them. Cynthy and I could
go grandpa couldn't, even if he was as well as usual, for
the trees are in a hollow away over on the other side of the
mountain. It's a beautiful place."
"Well," said Mr. Carleton, smiling curiously to himself, "in
that case I shall be even of more use than I had hoped. But
shan't we want a basket, Miss Fleda?"
"Yes, indeed," said Fleda, "a good large one I am going to
run down to the house for it as soon as we get to the turning-
off place, if you'll be so good as to sit down and wait for
me, Sir, I wont be long after it."
"No," said he; "I will walk with you and leave my gun in safe
quarters. You had better not travel so fast, or I am afraid
you will never reach the hickory-trees."
Fleda smiled, and said there was no danger, but she slackened
her pace, and they proceeded at a more reasonable rate till
they reached the house.
Mr. Carleton would not go in, placing his gun in an outer
shelter. Fleda dashed into the kitchen, and after a few
minutes' delay came out again with a huge basket, which Mr.
Carleton took from her without suffering his inward amusement
to reach his face, and a little tin pail which she kept under
her own guardianship. In vain Mr. Carleton offered to take it
with the basket, or even to put it in the basket, where he
showed her it would go very well; it must go nowhere but in
Fleda's own hand.
Fleda was in restless haste till they had passed over the
already twice-trodden ground and entered upon the mountain
road. It was hardly a road; in some places a beaten track was
visible, in others Mr. Carleton wondered how his little
companion found her way, where nothing but fresh-fallen leaves
and scattered rocks and stones could be seen, covering the
whole surface. But her foot never faltered, her eye read way-
marks where he saw none; she went on, he did not doubt
unerringly, over the leaf-strewn and rock-strewn way, over
ridge and hollow, with a steady light swiftness that he could
not help admiring. Once they came to a little brawling stream
of spring water, hardly three inches deep anywhere, but making
quite a wide bed for itself in its bright way to the lowlands.
Mr. Carleton was considering how he should contrive to get his
little guide over it in safety, when quick, over the little
round stones which lifted their heads above the surface of the
water, on the tips of her toes, Fleda tripped across before he
had done thinking about it. He told her he had no doubt now
that she was a fairy, and had powers of walking that did not
belong to other people. Fleda laughed, and on her little
demure figure went picking out the way, always with that
little tin pail hanging at her side, like Mr. Carleton
busied himself in finding out similes for her. It wasn't very
easy.
For a long distance their way was through a thick woodland,
clear of underbrush and very pleasant walking, but permitting
no look at the distant country. They wound about, now up hill
and now down, till at last they began to ascend in good
earnest; the road became better marked, and Mr. Carleton came
up with his guide again. Both were obliged to walk more
slowly. He had overcome a good deal of Fleda's reserve, and
she talked to him now quite freely, without however losing the
grace of a most exquisite modesty in everything she said or
did.
"What do you suppose I have been amusing myself with all this
while, Miss Fleda?" said he, after walking for some time
alongside of her in silence. "I have been trying to fancy what
you looked like as you travelled on before me with that
mysterious tin pail."
"Well, what _did_ I look like?" said Fleda, laughing.
"Little Red Riding-Hood, the first thing, carrying her
grandmother the pot of butter."
"Ah, but I haven't got any butter in this, as it happens,"
said Fleda; "and I hope you are not anything like the wolf,
Mr. Carleton?"
"I hope not," said he, laughing. "Well, then, I thought you
might be one of those young ladies the fairy-stories tell of,
who set out over the world to seek their fortune. That might
hold, you know, a little provision to last for a day or two
till you found it."
"No," said Fleda, "I should never go to seek my fortune."
"Why not, pray?"
"I don't think I should find it any the sooner."
Mr. Carleton looked at her, and could not make up his mind
whether or not she spoke wittingly.
Well, but after all, are we not seeking our fortune?" said he.
"We are doing something very like it. Now up here on the
mountain-top perhaps we shall find only empty trees perhaps
trees with a harvest of nuts on them."
"Yes, but that wouldn't be like finding a fortune," said
Fleda; "if we were to come to a great heap of nuts all
picked out ready for us to carry away, _that_ would be a
fortune; but now if we find the trees full, we have got to
knock them down, and gather them up, and shuck them."
"Make our own fortunes, eh?" said Mr. Carleton, smiling.
"Well! people do say those are the sweetest nuts. I don't know
how it may be. Ha! that is fine. What an atmosphere!"
They had reached a height of the mountain that cleared them a
view, and over the tops of the trees they looked abroad to a
very wide extent of country undulating with hill and vale,
hill and valley alike far below at their feet. Fair and rich,
the gently swelling hills, one beyond another, in the
patchwork dress of their many-coloured fields, the gay hues
of the woodland softened and melted into a rich autumn glow,
and far away, beyond even where this glow was sobered and lost
in the distance, the faint blue line of the Catskill faint,
but clear and distinct, through the transparent air. Such a
sky! of such etherialized purity as if made for spirits to
travel in, and tempting them to rise and free themselves from
the soil; and the stillness, like nature's hand laid upon
the soul, bidding it think. In view of all that vastness and
grandeur, man's littleness does bespeak itself. And yet, for
every one, the voice of the scene is not more humbling to
pride than rousing to all that is really noble and strong in
character. Not only "What thou art," but "What thou mayest
be!" What place thou oughtest to fill what work thou hast to
do, in this magnificent world. A very extended landscape,
however genial, is also sober in its effect on the mind. One
seems to emerge from the narrowness of individual existence,
and take a larger view of Life as well as of Creation.
Perhaps Mr. Carleton felt it so, for, after his first
expression of pleasure, he stood silently and gravely looking
for a long time. Little Fleda's eye loved it too, but she
looked her fill, and then sat down on a stone to await her
companion's pleasure, glancing now and then up at his face,
which gave her no encouragement to interrupt him. It was
gravely, and even gloomily thoughtful. He stood so long
without stirring, that poor Fleda began to have sad thoughts
of the possibility of gathering all the nuts from the hickory-
trees, and she heaved a very gentle sigh once or twice; but
the dark blue eye which she with reason admired, remained
fixed on the broad scene below, as if it were reading, or
trying to read there a difficult lesson. And when at last he
turned and began to go up the path again, he kept the same
face, and went moodily swinging his arm up and down, as if in
disturbed thought. Fleda was too happy to be moving to care
for her companion's silence; she would have compounded for no
more conversation, so they might but reach the nut-trees. But
before they had got quite so far, Mr. Carleton broke the
silence, speaking in precisely the same tone and manner he had
used the last time.
"Look here, Fairy," said he, pointing to a small heap of
chestnut burs piled at the foot of a tree "here's a little
fortune for you already."
"That's a squirrel!" said Fleda, looking at the place very
attentively. "There has been nobody else here. He has put them
together, ready to be carried off to his nest."
"We'll save him that trouble," said Mr. Carleton. "Little
rascal! he's a Didenhover in miniature."
"Oh, no!" said Fleda; "he had as good a right to the nuts, I
am sure, as we have, poor fellow. Mr. Carleton "
Mr. Carleton was throwing the nuts into the basket. At the
anxious and undecided tone in which his name was pronounced,
he stopped, and looked up at a very wistful face.
"Mightn't we leave these nuts till we come back? If we find
the trees over here full, we shan't want them; and if we
don't, these would be only a handful "
"And the squirrel would be disappointed?" said Mr. Carleton,
smiling. "You would rather we should leave them to him!"
Fleda said yes, with a relieved face, and Mr. Carleton, still
smiling, emptied his basket of the few nuts he had put in, and
they walked on.
In a hollow, rather a deep hollow, behind the crest of the
hill, as Fleda had said, they came at last to a noble group of
large hickory-trees, with one or two chestnuts standing in
attendance on the outskirts. And, also, as Fleda had said, or
hoped, the place was so far from convenient access, that
nobody had visited them; they were thick hung with fruit. If
the spirit of the game had been wanting or failing in Mr.
Carleton, it must have roused again into full life at the
joyous heartiness of Fleda's exclamations. At any rate, no boy
could have taken to the business better. He cut, with her
permission, a stout long pole in the woods; and swinging
himself lightly into one of the trees, showed that he was a
master in the art of whipping them. Fleda was delighted, but
not surprised; for, from the first moment of Mr. Carleton's
proposing to go with her, she had been privately sure that he
would not prove an inactive or inefficient ally. By whatever
slight tokens she might read this, in whatsoever fine
characters of the eye, or speech, or manner, she knew it; and
knew it just as well before they reached the hickory-trees as
she did afterwards.
When one of the trees was well stripped, the young gentleman
mounted into another, while Fleda set herself to hull and
gather up the nuts under the one first beaten. She could make
but little headway, however, compared with her companion; the
nuts fell a great deal faster than she could put them in her
basket. The trees were heavy laden, and Mr. Carleton seemed
determined to have the whole crop; from the second tree he
went to the third. Fleda was bewildered with her happiness;
this was doing business in style. She tried to calculate what
the whole quantity would be, but it went beyond her; one
basketful would not take it, nor two, nor three, it wouldn't
_begin to_, Fleda said to herself. She went on hulling and
gathering with all possible industry.
After the third tree was finished, Mr. Carleton threw down his
pole, and resting himself upon the ground at the foot, told
Fleda he would wait a few moments before he began again..
Fleda thereupon left off her work too, and going for her
little tin pail, presently offered it to him temptingly
stocked with pieces of apple-pie. When he had smilingly taken
one, she next brought him a sheet of white paper, with slices
of young cheese.
"No, thank you," said he.
"Cheese is very good with apple-pie," said Fleda, competently.
"Is it?" said he laughing. "Well upon that I think you
would teach me a good many things, Miss Fleda, if I were to
stay here long enough."
"I wish you would stay and try, Sir," said Fleda, who did not
know exactly what to make of the shade of seriousness which
crossed his face. It was gone almost instantly.
"I think anything is better eaten out in the woods than it is
at home," said Fleda.
"Well, I don't know," said her friend. "I have no doubt that
is the case with cheese and apple-pie, and especially under
hickory trees which one has been contending with pretty
sharply. If a touch of your wand, Fairy, could transform one
of these shells into a goblet of Lafitte, or Amontillado, we
should have nothing to wish for."
'Amontillado' was Hebrew to Fleda, but 'goblet' was
intelligible.
"I am sorry!" she said; "I don't know where there is any
spring up here, but we shall come to one going down the
mountain."
"Do you know where all the springs are?"
"No, not all, I suppose," said Fleda; "but I know a good many.
I have gone about through the woods so much, and I always look
for the springs."
"And who roams about through the woods with you?"
"Oh, nobody but grandpa," said Fleda. "He used to be out with
me a great deal, but he can't go much now this year or two."
"Don't you go to school?"
"O no!" said Fleda, smiling.
"Then your grandfather teaches you at home?"
"No," said Fleda; father used to teach me; grandpa doesn't
teach me much."
"What do you do with yourself all day long?"
"O, plenty of things," said Fleda, smiling again. "I read, and
talk to grandpa, and go riding, and do a great many things."
"Has your home always been here, Fairy?" said Mr. Carleton,
after a few minutes' pause.
Fleda said, "No, Sir," and there stopped; and then seeming to
think that politeness called upon her to say more, she added
"I have lived with grandpa ever since father left me here,
when he was going away among the Indians; I used to be always
with him before."
"And how long ago is that?"
"It is four years, Sir; more, I believe. He was sick when he
came back, and we never went away from Queechy again."
Mr. Carleton looked again silently at the child, who had given
him these pieces of information with a singular, grave
propriety of manner; and even as it were reluctantly.
"And what do you read, Fairy?" he said, after a minute.
"Stories of fairy-land?"
"No," said Fleda; "I haven't any. We haven't a great many
books there are only a few up in the cupboard, and the
Encyclopaedia; father had some books, but they are locked up
in a chest. But there is a great deal in the Encyclopaedia."
"The Encyclopaedia!" said Mr. Carleton; "what do you read in
that? what can you find to like there?"
"I like all about the insects, and birds, and animals; and
about flowers, and lives of people, and curious things.
There are a great many in it."
"And what are the other books in the cupboard, which you
read?"
"There's Quentin Durward," said Fleda, "and Rob Roy, and Guy
Mannering in two little bits of volumes; and the
Knickerbocker, and the Christian's Magazine, and an odd volume
of Redgauntlet, and the Beauties of Scotland."
"And have you read all these, Miss Fleda?" said her companion,
commanding his countenance with difficulty.
"I haven't read quite all of the Christian's Magazine, nor all
of the Beauties of Scotland."
"All the rest."
"O yes," said Fleda, "and two or three times over. And there
are three great red volumes besides, Robertson's History of
something, I believe. I haven't read that either."
"And which of them all do you like the best?"
"I don't know," said Fleda, "I don't know but I like to read
the Encyclopaedia as well as any of them. And then I have the
newspapers to read too."
"I think, Miss Fleda," said Mr. Carleton, a minute after, "you
had better let me take you with my mother over the sea, when
we go back again, to Paris."
"Why, Sir?"
"You know," said he, half smiling, "your aunt wants you, and
has engaged my mother to bring you with her, if she can."
"I know it," said Fleda. "But I am not going."
It was spoken not rudely, but in a tone of quiet
determination.
"Aren't you too tired, Sir?" said she gently, when she saw Mr.
Carleton preparing to launch into the remaining hickory trees.
"Not I!" said he. "I am not tired till I have done, Fairy. And
besides, cheese is working man's fare, you know, isn't it?"
"No," said Fleda, gravely, "I don't think it is."
"What then?" said Mr. Carleton, stopping as he was about to
spring into the tree, and looking at her with a face of
comical amusement.
"It isn't what our men live on," said Fleda, demurely eyeing
the fallen nuts, with a head full of business.
They set both to work again with renewed energy, and rested
not till the treasures of the trees had been all brought to
the ground, and as large a portion of them as could be coaxed
and shaken into Fleda's basket, had been cleared from the
hulls and bestowed there. But there remained a vast quantity.
These with a good deal of labour, Mr. Carleton and Fleda
gathered into a large heap in rather a sheltered place by the
side of a rock, and took what measures they might to conceal
them. This was entirely at Fleda's instance
"You and your maid Cynthia will have to make a good many
journeys, Miss Fleda, to get all these home, unless you can
muster a larger basket."
"O _that_'s nothing," said Fleda. "It will be all fun. I don't
care how many times we have to come. You are _very_ good, Mr.
Carleton."
"Do you think so?" said he. "I wish I did. I wish you would
make your wand rest on me, Fairy."
"My wand?" said Fleda.
"Yes you know your grandfather says you are a fairy, and
carry a wand. What does he say that for, Miss Fleda?"
Fleda said she supposed it was because he loved her so much;
but the rosy smile with which she said it would have let her
hearer, if he had needed enlightening, far more into the
secret than she was herself. And if the simplicity in her face
had not been equal to the wit, Mr. Carleton would never have
ventured the look of admiration he bestowed on her. He knew it
was safe. _Approbation_ she saw, and it made her smile the
rosier; but the admiration was a step beyond her; Fleda could
make nothing of it.
They descended the mountain now with a hasty step, for the day
was wearing well on. At the spot where he had stood so long
when they went up, Mr. Carleton paused again for a minute. In
mountain scenery every hour makes a change. The sun was lower
now, the lights and shadows more strongly contrasted, the sky
of a yet calmer blue, cool and clear towards the horizon. The
scene said still the same that it had said a few hours before,
with a touch more of sadness; it seemed to whisper, "All
things have an end thy time may not be for ever do what
thou wouldest do 'while ye have light, believe in the light,
that ye may be children of the light.' "
Whether Mr. Carleton read it so or not, he stood for a minute
motionless, and went down the mountain looking so grave, that
Fleda did not venture to speak to him till they reached the
neighbourhood of the spring.
"What are you searching for, Miss Fleda?" said her friend.
She was making a busy quest here and there by the side of the
little stream.
"I was looking to see if I could find a mullein leaf," said
Fleda.
"A mullein leaf? what do you want it for?"
"I want it to make a drinking-cup of," said Fleda, her
intent bright eyes peering keenly about in every direction.
"A mullein leaf! that is too rough; one of these golden leaves
what are they? will do better, wont it?"
"That is hickory," said Fleda. " No; the mullein leaf is the
best because it holds the water so nicely. Here it is."
And folding up one of the largest leaves into a most artist-
like cup, she presented it to Mr. Carleton.
"For me was all that trouble?" said he. "I don't deserve it."
"You wanted something, Sir," said Fleda. "The water is very
cold and nice."
He stooped to the bright little stream, and filled his rural
goblet several times.
"I never knew what it was to have a fairy for my cup-bearer
before," said he. "That was better than anything Bordeaux or
Xeres ever sent forth."
He seemed to have swallowed his seriousness, or thrown it away
with the mullein leaf. It was quite gone.
"This is the best spring in all grandpa's ground," said Fleda.
"The water is as good as can be."
How come you to be such a wood and water spirit? you must live
out of doors. Do the trees ever talk to you? I sometimes think
they do to me."
"I don't know I think _I_ talk to _them_," said Fleda.
"It's the same thing," said her companion, smiling. "Such
beautiful woods!"
"Were you never in the country before in the fall, Sir?"
"Not here in my own country often enough; but the woods in
England do not put on such a gay face, Miss Fleda, when they
are going to be stripped of their summer dress they look
sober upon it the leaves wither and grow brown, and the
woods have a dull russet colour. Your trees are true Yankees
they 'never say die.' "
"Why are the Americans more obstinate than the English?" said
Fleda.
"It is difficult to compare unknown quantities," said Mr.
Carleton laughing, and shaking his head. "I see you have good
ears for the key-note of patriotism."
Fleda looked a little hard at him, but he did not explain; and
indeed they were hurrying along too much for talking; leaping
from stone to stone, and running down the smooth orchard
slope. When they reached the last fence, but a little way from
the house, Fleda made a resolute pause.
"Mr. Carleton," said she.
Mr. Carleton put down his basket, and looked in some surprise
at the hesitating anxious little face that looked up at him.
"Wont you please not say anything to grandpa about my going
away?"
"Why not, Fairy?" said he, kindly.
"Because I don't think I ought to go."
"But may it not be possible," said he, "that your grandfather
can judge better in the matter than you can do?"
"No," said Fleda, "I don't think he can. He would do anything
he thought would be most for my happiness; but it wouldn't be
for my happiness," she said, with an unsteady lip, "I don't
know what he would do if I went!"
"You think he would have no sunshine if your wand didn't touch
him?" said Mr. Carleton, smiling.
"No, Sir," said Fleda, gravely, "I don't think that, but
wont you please, Mr. Carleton, not to speak about it?"
"But are you sure," he said, sitting down on a stone hard by,
and taking one of her hands, "are you sure that you would
not like to go with us? I wish you would change your mind
about it. My mother will love you very much, and I will take
the especial charge of you till we give you to your aunt in
Paris; if the wind blows a little too rough I will always
put myself between it and you," he added, smiling.
Fleda smiled faintly, but immediately begged Mr. Carleton "not
to say anything to put it into her grandfather's head."
"It must be there already, I think, Miss Fleda; but at any
rate you know my mother must perform her promise to your aunt
Mrs. Rossitur; and she would not do that without letting your
grandfather know how glad she would be to take you."
Fleda stood silent a moment, and then with a touching look of
waiting patience in her sweet face suffered Mr. Carleton to
help her over the fence; and they went home.
To Fleda's unspeakable surprise it was found to be past four
o'clock, and Cynthy had supper ready. Mr. Ringgan with great
cordiality invited Mr. Carleton to stay with them, but he
could not; his mother would expect him to dinner.
"Where is your mother?"
"At Montepoole, Sir; we have been to Niagara, and came this
way on our return, partly that my mother might fulfil the
promise she made Mrs. Rossitur to let you know, Sir, with
how much pleasure she will take charge of your little
granddaughter, and convey her to her friends in Paris, if you
can think it best to let her go."
"Hum! she is very kind," said Mr. Ringgan, with a look of
grave and not unmoved consideration which Fleda did not in the
least like; "How long will you stay at Montepoole Sir?"
"It might be several days," Mr. Carleton said.
"Hum You have given up this day to Fleda, Mr. Carleton,
suppose you take to-morrow for the game, and come here and try
our country fare when you have got through shooting? you and
young Mr. Rossitur? and I'll think over this question and
let you know about it."
Fleda was delighted to see that her friend accepted this
invitation with apparent pleasure.
"You will be kind enough to give my respects to your mother,"
Mr. Ringgan went on, "and thanks for her kind offer. I may
perhaps I don't know avail myself of it. If anything
should bring Mrs. Carleton this way we should like to see her.
I am glad to see my friends," he said, shaking the young
gentleman's hand, "as long as I have a house to ask 'em to!"
"That will be for many years, I trust," said Mr. Carleton,
respectfully, struck with something in the old gentleman's
manner.
"I don't know, Sir!" said Mr. Ringgan, with again the
dignified look of trouble: " it may not be! I wish you
good day, Sir."