"OH, GENTLE WIND THAT BLOWETH SOUTH."
But if this girl, partly through her great yearning love, and partly
through the overshadowing of her past sufferings, was haunted by a
mysterious dread, that was not the prevailing feeling within this small
household which was now pulling itself together for a flight to the
south. Even she caught something of the brisk and cheerful spirit
awakened by all the bustle of departure; and when her father, who had
come to London Bridge station to see the whole of them off, noticed the
businesslike fashion in which she ordered everybody about, so that the
invalid should have his smallest comforts attended to, he could not help
saying, with a laugh--
"Well, Violet, this is better than starting for America all by yourself,
isn't it? But I don't think you would have been much put out by that
either."
A smart young man came up, and was for entering the carriage.
"I beg your pardon," said she, respectfully but firmly. "This carriage
is reserved."
The young man looked at both windows.
"I don't see that it is," he retorted coolly.
He took hold of the handle of the door, when she immediately rose and
stood before him, an awful politeness and decorum on her face, but the
fire of Brünhilde the warrior maiden in her eyes.
"You will please call the guard before coming in here. The carriage is
reserved."
At this moment her father came forward--not a little inclined to laugh.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but the carriage is really reserved. There was
a written paper put up--it has fallen down, I suppose--there it is."
So the smart young man went away; but was it fair, after this notable
victory, that they should all begin to make fun of her fierce and
majestic bearing, and that the very person for whose sake she had
confronted the enemy should begin to make ridiculous rhymes about her,
such as these:
"Then out spake Violet Northimus--
Of Euston Square was she--
'Lo, I will stand at thy right hand,
And guard the door with thee!'"
Violet Northimus did not reply. She wore the modesty of a victor. She
was ready at any moment to meet six hundred such as he; and she was not
to be put out, after the discomfiture of her enemy, by a joke.
Then they slowly rolled and grated out of the station, and by-and-by the
swinging pace increased, and they were out in the clearer light and the
fresher air, with a windy April sky showing flashes of blue from time to
time. They went down through a succession of thoroughly English looking
landscapes--quiet valleys with red-tiled cottages in them, bare heights
green with the young corn, long stretches of brown and almost leafless
woods, with the rough banks outside all starred with the pale, clear
primrose. There was one in that carriage who had had no lack of flowers
that spring--flowers brought by many a kindly hand to brighten the look
of the sick room; but surely it was something more wonderful to see the
flowers themselves, growing here in this actual and outside world which
had been to him for many a weary week but a dimly imagined dreamland.
There were primroses under the hedges, primroses along the high banks,
primroses shining pale and clear within the leafless woods, among the
russet leaves of the previous autumn. And then the life and motion of
the sky, the southwesterly winds, the black and lowering clouds
suddenly followed by a wild and dazzling gleam of sunlight, the grays
and purples flying on and leaving behind them a welcome expanse of
shining April blue.
The day was certainly squally enough, and might turn to showers; but the
gusts of wind that blew through the carriage were singularly sweet and
mild; and again and again Mr. Drummond, who had been raised by all this
new life and light into the very highest spirits, declared with much
solemnity that he could already detect the smell of the salt sea air.
They had their quarrels of course. It pleased a certain young lady to
treat the south coast of England with much supercilious contempt. You
would have imagined from her talk that there was something criminal in
one's living even within twenty miles of the bleak downs, the shabby
precipices, and the muddy sea which, according to her, were the only
recognizable features of our southern shores. She would not admit indeed
that there was any sea at all there; there was only churned chalk. Was
it fair to say, even under the exasperation of continual goading, that
the Isle of Wight was only a trumpery toy shop; that its "scenery" was
fitly adorned with bazaars for the sale of sham jewelry; that its
amusements were on a par with those of Rosherville gardens; that its
rocks were made of mud and its sea of powdered lime?
"By heavens," exclaimed her antagonist, "I will stand this no longer. I
will call upon Neptune to raise such a storm in the Solent as shall
convince you that there is quite enough sea surrounding that pearl of
islands, that paradise, that world's wonder we are going to visit."
"Yes, I have no doubt," said she with sweet sarcasm, "that if you
stirred the Solent with a teaspoon, you would frighten the yachtsmen
there out of their wits."
"Oh, Violet," cried another young lady, "you know you were dreadfully
frightened that night in Tobermory bay, when the equinoctial gales
caught us, and the men were tramping overhead all night long."
"I should be more frightened down here," was the retort, "because if we
were driven ashore I should be choked first and drowned afterward. Fancy
going out of the world with a taste of chalk in your mouth."
"Well, at this moment the fierce discussion was stopped by the arrival
of the train at Portsmouth; but here a very singular incident occurred.
Violet was the first to step out on to the platform.
"You have a tramway car that goes down to the pier, have you not?" she
asked of the guard.
"Ain't going to-day, miss," was the answer. "Boats can't come in to
Southsea--the sea is very high. You'll have to go to Portsea, miss."
Now, what was this man's amazement on seeing this young lady suddenly
burst out laughing as she turned and looked into the carriage.
"Did you hear that?" she cried. "The Solent is raging! They can't come
near Southsea! Don't you think, Mrs. Warrener, that it will be very
dangerous to go to Portsea?"
"I'll tell you what it is," said Mrs. Warrener with a malicious smile,
"if a certain young lady I know were to be ill in crossing, she would be
a good deal more civil to her native country when she reached the other
side."
But in good truth, when they got down to Portsea there was a pretty
stiff breeze blowing; and the walk out on the long pier was not a little
trying to an invalid who had but lately recovered the use of his limbs.
The small steamer, too, was tossing about considerably at her moorings;
and Violet pretended to be greatly alarmed because she did not see
half-a-dozen lifeboats on board. Then the word was given; the cables
thrown off; and presently the tiny steamer was running out to the windy
and gray-green sea, the waves of which not unfrequently sent a shower of
spray across her decks. The small party of voyagers crouched behind the
funnel, and were well out of the water's way.
"Look there now," cried Mr. Drummond, suddenly pointing to a large bird
that was flying by, high up in the air, about a quarter of a mile
off--"do you see that? Do you know what that is? That is a wild goose, a
gray lag, that has been driven in by bad weather; _now_ can you say we
have no waves, and winds, and sea in the south?"
Miss Violet was not daunted.
"Perhaps it is a goose," she said coolly. "I never saw but one flying---
you remember you shot it. What farm-yard has this one left?"
"Oh, for shame, Violet," Mrs. Warrener called out, "to rake up old
stories!"
She was punished for it. The insulted sportsman was casting about for
the cruelest retort he could think of, when, as it happened, Miss Violet
bethought her of looking round the corner of the boiler to see whether
they were getting near Ryde; and at the same moment it also happened
that a heavy wave, striking the bows of the steamer, sent a heap of
water whirling down between the paddle-box and the funnel, which caught
the young lady on the face with a crack like a whip. As to the shout of
laughter which then greeted her, that small party of folks had heard
nothing like it for many a day. There was salt water dripping from her
hair; salt water in her eyes; salt water running down her tingling and
laughing cheeks; and she richly deserved to be asked, as she was
immediately asked, whether the Solent was compounded of water and marl
or water and chalk, and which brand she preferred.
Was it the balmy southern air that tempered the vehemence of these
wanderers as they made their way across the island, and getting into a
carriage at Ventnor, proceeded to drive along the Undercliff? There was
a great quiet prevailing along these southern shores. They drove by
underneath the tall and crumbling precipices, with wood pigeons
suddenly shooting out from the clefts, and jackdaws wheeling about far
up in the blue. They passed by sheltered woods, bestarred with anemones
and primroses, and showing here and there the purple of the as yet
half-opened hyacinth; they passed by lush meadows, all ablaze with the
golden yellow of the celandine and the purple of the ground ivy; they
passed by the broken, picturesque banks where the tender blue of the
speedwell was visible from time to time, with the white glimmer of the
starwort. And then all this time they had on their left a gleaming and
wind-driven sea, full of motion, and light, and color, and showing the
hurrying shadows of the flying clouds.
At last far away, secluded and quiet, they came to a quaint little inn,
placed high over the sea, and surrounded by sheltering woods and hedges.
The sun lay warm on the smooth green lawn in front, where the daisies
grew. There were dark shadows--almost black shadows--along the
encircling hedge and under the cedars; but these only showed the more
brilliantly the silver lighting of the restless, whirling, wind-swept
sea beyond. It was a picturesque little house, with its long veranda
half-smothered in ivy and rose bushes now in bud; with its tangled
garden about, green with young hawthorn and sweetened by the perfume of
the lilacs; with its patches of uncut grass, where the yellow cowslips
drooped. There was an air of dreamy repose about the place; even that
whirling and silvery gray sea produced no sound; here the winds were
stilled, and the black shadows of the trees on that smooth green lawn
only moved with the imperceptible moving of the sun.
Violet went up stairs and into her room alone; she threw open the small
casements, and stood there looking out with a somewhat vague and distant
look. There was no mischief now in those dark and tender eyes; there was
rather an anxious and wistful questioning. And her heart seemed to go
out from her to implore these gentle winds, and the soft colors of the
sea, and the dreamy stillness of the woods, that now they should, if
ever that was possible to them, bring all their sweet and curative
influences to bear on him who had come among them. Now, if ever! Surely
the favorable skies would heed, and the secret healing of the woods
would hear, and the bountiful life-giving sea winds would bestir to her
prayer! Surely it was not too late!