The afterglow of sunset was long. The dilated moon, rising from the
waters of the Bay, shone pale at first; but as it climbed the shoulder
of the mountain _Wave-of-the-Sea_ and its light fell upon the farther
margin of the lake, its clear disk was pure argent.
Champney looked his approval. It was the kind of night he had been
hoping for. He walked leisurely down the road from The Gore for the
night was warm. It was already past eight, but he lingered, purposely, a
few minutes longer on the lake shore until the moonlight should widen on
the waters. Then he went on to the grounds.
He entered by the lane and crossed the lawn to an arching rose-laden
trellis near the bay window; beneath it was a wooden bench. He looked up
at the window. The blinds were closed. So far as he could see there was
no light in all the great house. Behind the rose trellis was a group of
stately Norway spruce; he could see the sheen of their foliage in the
moonlight. He took his banjo out of its case and sat down on the bench,
smiling to himself, for he was thoroughly enjoying, with that enjoyment
of youth, health, and vitality which belongs to twenty-one, this rustic
adventure. He touched the strings lightly with preliminary thrumming. It
was a toss-up between "Annie Rooney" and "Oft in the stilly night." He
decided for the latter. Raising his eyes to the closed blinds, behind
which he knew the witch was hiding, he began the accompaniment. The soft
_thrum-thrum_, vibrating through the melody, found an echo in the
whirring wings of all that ephemeral insect life which is abroad on such
a night. The prelude was almost at an end when he saw the blinds begin
to separate. Champney continued to gaze steadily upwards. A thin bare
arm was thrust forth; the blinds opened wide; in the dark window space
he saw Aileen, listening intently and gazing fixedly at the moon as if
its every beam were dropping liquid music.
He began to sing. His voice was clear, fine, and high, a useful first
tenor for two winters in the Glee Club. When he finished Aileen deigned
to look down upon him, but she made no motion of recognition. He rose
and took his stand directly beneath the window.
"I say, Miss Aileen Armagh-and-don't-yer-forget-it, that isn't playing
fair! Where's my token?"
There was a giggle for answer; then, leaning as far out as she dared,
both hands stemmed on the window ledge, the child began to sing. Full,
free, joyously light-hearted, she sent forth the rollicking Irish melody
and the merry sentiment that was strung upon it; evidently it had been
adapted to her, for the words had suffered a slight change:
"Och! laughin' roses are my lips,
Forget-me-nots my ee,
It's many a lad they're drivin' mad;
Shall they not so wi' ye?
Heigho! the morning dew!
Heigho! the rose and rue!
Follow me, my bonny lad,
For I'll not follow you.
"Wi' heart in mout', in hope and doubt,
My lovers come and go:
My smiles receive, my smiles deceive;
Shall they not serve you so?
Heigho! the morning dew!
Heigho! the rose and rue!
Follow me, my bonny lad,
For I'll not follow you."
It was a delight to hear her.
"There now, I'll give yer my token. Hold out yer hands!"
Champney, hugging his banjo under one arm, made a cup of his hands.
Carefully measuring the distance, she dropped one rosebud into them.
"Put it on yer heart now," was the next command from above. He obeyed
with exaggerated gesture, to the great delight of the serenadee. "And
yer goin' to keep it?"
"Forever and a day." Champney made this assertion with a
hyper-sentimental inflection of voice, and, lifting the flower to his
nose, drew in his breath--
"Confound you, you little fiend--" he sneezed rather than spoke.
The sneeze was answered by a peal of laughter from above and a
fifteen-year-old's cracked "Haw-haw-haw" from the region of the Norway
spruces. Every succeeding sneeze met with a like response--roars of
laughter on the one hand and peal upon peal on the other. Even the
kitchen door began to give signs of life, for Hannah and Ann made their
appearance.
The strong white pepper, which Romanzo managed to procure from Hannah,
had been cunningly secreted by Aileen between the imbricate petals, and
then tied, in a manner invisible at night, with a fine thread of pink
silk begged from Ann. It was now acting and re-acting on the lining of
the serenader's olfactory organ in a manner to threaten final
decapitation. Champney was still young enough to resent being made a
subject of such practical joking by a little girl; but he was also
sufficiently wise to acknowledge to himself that he had been worsted
and, in the end, to put a good face on it. It is true he would have
preferred that Romanzo Caukins had not been witness to his defeat.
The sneezing and laughter gradually subsided. He sat down again on the
bench and taking up his banjo prepared, with somewhat elaborate effort,
to put it into its case. He said nothing.
"Say!" came in a sobered voice from above; "are yer mad with me?"
Ignoring both question and questioner, he took out his handkerchief,
wiped his face and forehead and, returning it to his pocket, heaved a
sigh of apparent exhaustion.
"I say, Mr. Champney Googe, are yer mad with me?"
To Champney's delight, he heard an added note of anxiety. He bowed his
head lower over the banjo case and in silence renewed his simulated
struggle to slip that instrument into it.
"Champney! Are yer _rale_ mad with me?" There was no mistaking the
earnestness of this appeal. He made no answer, but chuckled inwardly at
the audacity of the address.
"Champ!" she stamped her foot to emphasize her demand; "if yer don't
tell me yer ain't mad with me, I'll lave yer for good and all--so now!"
"I don't know that I'm mad with you," he spoke at last in an aggrieved,
a subdued tone; "I simply didn't think you could play me such a mean
trick when I was in earnest, dead earnest."
"Did yer mane it?"
"Why, of course I did! You don't suppose a man walks three miles in a
hot night to serenade a girl just to get an ounce of pepper in his nose
by way of thanks, do you?"
"I thought yer didn't mane it; Romanzo said yer was laughing at me for
telling yer 'bout the lords and ladies a-making love with their
guitars." The voice indicated some dejection of spirits.
"He did, did he! I'll settle with Romanzo later." He heard a soft
brushing of branches in the region of the Norway spruces and knew that
the youth was in retreat. "And I'll settle it with you, too, Miss Aileen
Armagh-and-don't-you-forget-it, in a way that'll make you remember the
tag end of your name for one while!"
This threat evidently had its effect.
"Wot yer going to do?"
He heard her draw her breath sharply.
"Come down here and I'll tell you."
"I can't. She might catch me. She told me I'd got to stay in my room
after eight, and she's coming home ter-night. Wot yer going to do?"
Champney laughed outright. "Don't you wish you might know, Aileen
Armagh!" He took his banjo in one hand, lifted his cap with the other
and, standing so, bareheaded in the moonlight, sang with all the
simulated passion and pathos of which he was capable one of the few love
songs that belong to the world, "Kathleen Mavoureen"; but he took pains
to substitute "Aileen" for "Kathleen." Even Ann and Hannah, listening
from the kitchen porch, began to feel sentimentally inclined when the
clear voice rendered with tender pathos the last lines:
"Oh! why art thou silent, thou voice of my heart?
Oh! why art thou silent, Aileen Mavoureen?"
Without so much as another glance at the little figure in the window, he
ran across the lawn and up the lane to the highroad.