THE LADY AND THE CAVALIER
The day was fine, and the landscape lay clean and sharply defined
under the blue sky and white clouds. I sped along in a cheerful mood,
well pleased with what my good cycle had so far done for me. Again I
passed the open gate of the Putney estate, and glanced through it at
the lodge. I saw no one, and was glad of it--better pleased, perhaps,
than I could have given good reason for. When I had gone on a few
hundred yards I was suddenly startled by a voice--a female voice.
"Well! well!" cried some one on my right, and turning, I saw, above a
low wall, the head and shoulders of the young lady with the dark eyes
with whom I had parted an hour or so before. A broad hat shaded her
face, her eyes were very dark and very wide open, and I saw some of
her beautiful teeth, although she was not smiling or laughing. It
was plain that she had not come down there to see me pass; she was
genuinely astonished; I dismounted and approached the wall.
[Illustration: "I dismounted and approached the wall"]
"I thought you were miles and miles on your way!" said she. It
occurred to me that I had recently heard a remark very like this, and
yet the words, as they came from the slender girl and from this one,
seemed to have entirely different meanings. She was desirous,
earnestly desirous, to know how I came to be passing this place at
this time, when I had left their gate so long before, and, as I was
not unwilling to gratify her curiosity, I told her the whole story of
the accident the day before, and of everything which had followed it.
"And you went all the way back," she said, "to inquire after that
Burton girl?"
"Do you know her?" I asked.
"No," she said, "I do not know her; but I have seen her often, and I
know all about her family. They seem to be of such little consequence,
one way or the other, that I can scarcely understand how things could
so twist themselves that you should consider it necessary to go back
there this morning before you really started on your day's journey."
I do not remember what I said, but it was something commonplace, no
doubt, but I imagined I perceived a little pique in the young lady. Of
course I did not object to this, for nothing could be more flattering
to a young man than the exhibition of such a feeling on an occasion
such as this.
But if she felt any pique she quickly brushed it out of sight, for, as
I have said before, she was a young woman who had great command of
herself. Of course I said to her that I was very glad to have this
chance of seeing her again, and she answered, with a laugh:
"If you really are glad, you ought to thank the Burton girl. This is
one of my favorite walks. The path runs along inside the wall for a
considerable distance and then turns around the little hill over
there, and so leads back to the house. When I happened to look over
the wall and saw you I was truly surprised."
The ground was lower on the outside of the wall than on the inside,
and as I stood and looked almost into the eyes of this girl, as she
leaned with her arms upon the smooth top of the wall, the idea which
the gardener's wife put into my head came into it again. This was a
beautiful face, and the expression upon it was different from
anything I had seen there before. Her surprise had disappeared, her
pique had gone, but a very great interest in the incident of my
passing this spot at the moment of her being there was plainly
evident. As I gazed at her my blood ran warmer through my veins, and
there came upon me a feeling of the olden time--of the days when the
brave cavalier rode up to the spot where, waiting for him, his lady
sat upon her impatient jennet.
Without the least hesitation, I asked:
"Do you ride a wheel?"
She looked wonderingly at me for a moment, and then broke into a
laugh.
"Why on earth do you ask such a question as that? I have a bicycle,
but I am not a very good rider, and I never venture out upon the
public road by myself."
"You shouldn't think of such a thing," said I; and then I stood
silent, and my mind showed me two young people, each mounted, not upon
a swift steed, but upon a far swifter pair of wheels, skimming onward
through the summer air, still rolling on, on, on, through country
lanes and woodland roads, laughing at pursuit if they heard the
trampling of eager hoofs behind them, with never a telegraph wire to
stretch menacingly above them, and so on, on, on, their eyes
sparkling, their hearts beating high with youthful hope.
Again, through the tender mists of the afternoon, I saw them returning
from some secluded Gretna Green to bend their knees and bow their
heads before the lord of the fair bride's home.
When all this had passed through my brain, I wondered how such a pair
would be received. I knew the gardener and his wife would welcome
them, to begin with; Brownster would be very glad to see them; and I
believe the mother would stand with tears of joy and open arms, in
whatever quiet room she might feel free to await them. Moreover, when
the sterner parent heard my tale and read my pedigree, might he not
consider good name on the one side an equivalent for good money on the
other?
I looked up at her; she did not ask me what I had been thinking about
nor remark upon my silence. She, too, had been wrapped in revery; her
face was grave. She raised her arms from the wall and stood up.
It was plainly time for me to do something, and she decided the point
for me by slightly moving away from the wall. "Some time, when you are
riding out from Walford," she said, "we should be glad to have you
stop and take luncheon. Father likes to have people at luncheon."
"I should be delighted to do so," said I; and if she had asked me to
delay my journey and take luncheon with them that day I think I should
have accepted the invitation. But she did not do that, and she was not
a young lady who would stand too long by a public road talking to a
young man. She smiled very sweetly and held out her hand over the
wall. "Good-bye again," she said. As I took her hand I felt very much
inclined to press it warmly, but I refrained. Her grasp was firm and
friendly, and I would have liked very much to know whether or not it
was more so than was her custom.
I was mounting my wheel when she called to me again. "Now, I suppose,"
she said, "you are going straight on?"
"Oh yes," I replied, with emphasis, "straight on."
"And the name of the hotel where you will stay to-night," said she,
"it is the Cheltenham. I forgot it when I spoke to you before. I do
not believe, really, it is more than three miles beyond the other
little place where you thought of stopping."
Then she walked away from the wall and I mounted. I moved very slowly
onward, and as I turned my head I saw that a row of straggling bushes
which grew close to the wall were now between her and me. But I also
saw, or thought I saw, between the leaves and boughs, that her face
was towards me, and that she was waving her handkerchief. If I had
been sure of that, I think I should have jumped over the wall, pushed
through the bushes, and should have asked her to give me that
handkerchief, that I might fasten it on the front of my cap as, in
olden days, a knight going forth to his adventures bound upon his
helmet the glove of his lady-love.
But I was not sure of it, and, seized by a sudden energetic
excitement, I started off at a tremendous rate of speed. The ground
flew backward beneath me as if I had been standing on the platform of
a railroad car. Not far ahead of me there came from a side road into
the main avenue on which I was travelling a Scorcher, scorching. As he
spun away in front of me, his body bent forward until his back was
nearly horizontal, and his green-stockinged legs striking out behind
him with the furious rapidity of a great frog trying to push his head
into the mud, he turned back his little face with a leer of triumphant
derision at every moving thing which might happen to be behind him.
[Illustration: "I THOUGHT FOR A FEW MOMENTS"]
At the sight of this green-legged Scorcher my blood rose, and it was
with me as if I had heard the clang of trumpets and the clash of arms.
I leaned slightly forward; I struck out powerfully, swiftly, and
steadily; I gained upon the Scorcher; I sent into his emerald legs a
thrill of startled fear, as if he had been a terrified hare bounding
madly away from a pursuing foe, and I passed him as if I had been a
swift falcon swooping by a quarry unworthy of his talons.
On, on I sped, not deigning even to look back. The same spirit
possessed me as that which fired the hearts of the olden knights. I
would have been glad to meet with another Scorcher, and yet another,
that for the sake of my fair lady I might engage with each and humble
his pride in the dust.
"It is true," I said to myself, with an inward laugh, "I carry no
glove or delicate handkerchief bound upon my visor--" but at this
point my mind wandered. I went more slowly, and at last I stopped and
sat down under the shade of a way-side tree. I thought for a few
minutes, and then I said to myself, "It seems to me this would be a
good time to take one of those capsules," and I took one. I then
fancied that perhaps I ought to take two, but I contented myself with
one.