Up the road, about a mile beyond the college and the Harmon house, there
was a wilderness of ferns and sumac trees, ending in a stately pine
grove that marked the place where road and river met. Thither Blue and
Red were sent on the evening of Trenholme's picnic. They were dressed in
their new frocks, and had been started at the time all the picnic-goers
were passing up the road. They walked alone, but they were consigned to
Mrs. Bennett's care at the place of assembly. Several carriages full of
guests passed them.
"I'm growing more shy every moment," said Blue.
"So am I," sighed Red.
Young girls will make haunting fears for themselves out of many things,
and these two were beset with a not unnatural fear of young men who
would talk to them about flora and fauna. Sophia had told them that they
looked like ninnies when they appeared not to know what people meant,
and they could not endure the thought.
Sighed Blue at last, "Do you think it would be dreadfully wicked not to
go?"
All the guests had passed them by this time, for they had loitered
sadly. It was not that they were not proud of their clothes; they were
as proud as peacocks, and minced along; but then it was enough just to
wear one's fine clothes and imagine that they might meet somebody who
would admire them.
"Oh, Blue," said Red suddenly, withholding her steps, "suppose we didn't
go, and were to walk back just a little later, don't you think we might
meet--?" There was no name, but a sympathetic understanding. It was
Harkness of whom they thought.
"I'm sure he's a great deal better looking than young Mr. Brown, and I
think it's unkind to mind the way he talks. Since Winifred had her teeth
done, I think we might just bow a little, if we met him on the road."
"I think it would be naughty," said Red, reflectively, "but nice--much
nicer than a grown-up picnic."
"Let's do it," said Blue. "We're awfully good generally; that ought to
make up."
The sunset cloud was still rosy, and the calm bright moon was riding up
the heavens when these two naughty little maidens, who had waited out of
sight of the picnic ground, judged it might be the right time to be
walking slowly home again.
"I feel convinced he won't come," said Blue, "just because we should so
much like to pass him in these frocks."
Now an evil conscience often is the rod of its own chastisement; but in
this instance there was another factor in the case, nothing less than a
little company of half tipsy men, who came along from the town,
peacefully enough, but staggering visibly and talking loud, and the
girls caught sight of them when they had come a long way from the
pleasure party and were not yet very near any house. The possibility of
passing in safety did not enter their panic-stricken minds. They no
sooner spied the men than they stepped back within the temporary shelter
of a curve in the road, speechless with terror. They heard the voices
and steps coming nearer. They looked back the long road they had come,
and perceived that down its length they could not fly. It was in this
moment of despair that a brilliant idea was born in the mind of Red. She
turned to the low open fence of the little cemetery.
"Come, we can pretend to be tombs," she cried, and whirled Blue over the
fence. They climbed and ran like a streak of light, and before the
drunkards were passing the place, the girls were well back among marble
gravestones.
Some artistic instinct warned them that two such queer monuments ought
to be widely apart to escape notice. So, in the gathering dimness, each
knelt stock still, without even the comfort of the other's proximity to
help her through the long, long, awful minutes while the roisterous
company were passing by. The men proceeded slowly; happily they had no
interest in inspecting the gravestones of the little cemetery; but had
they been gazing over the fence with eager eyes, and had their designs
been nothing short of murderous upon any monument they chanced to find
alive, the hearts of the two erring maidens could not have beat with
more intense alarm. Fear wrought in them that sort of repentance which
fear is capable of working. "Oh, we're very, very naughty; we ought to
have gone to the picnic when Sophia was so good as to buy us new
frocks," they whispered in their hearts; and the moon looked down upon
them benevolently.
The stuff of their repentance was soon to be tested, for the voice of
Harkness was heard from over the Harmon fence.
"Oh, Glorianna! there was never such sculptures. Only want wings. Hats
instead of wings is a little curious even for a funeral monument."
The two girls stood huddled together now in hasty consultation. "We
didn't mean to be sculptures," spoke up Red, defending her brilliant
idea almost before she was aware. "There's nothing but stand-up slabs
here; we thought we'd look something like them."
"We were so frightened at the men," said Blue. They approached the fence
as they spoke.
"Those men wouldn't have done you one mite of harm," said the dentist,
looking down from a height of superior knowledge, "and if they had, I'd
have come and made a clearance double quick."
They did not believe his first assertion, and doubted his ability to
have thus routed the enemy, but Blue instinctively replied, "You see, we
didn't know you were here, or _of course_ we shouldn't have been
frightened."
"Beautiful evening, isn't it?" remarked the dentist.
"Yes, but I think perhaps,"--Red spoke doubtfully--"we ought to be going
home now."
She was a little mortified to find that he saw the full force of the
suggestion.
"Yes, I suppose your mother'll be looking for you."
They both explained, merely to set him right, that this would not be the
case, as they had started to Principal Trenholme's picnic.
He asked, with great curiosity, why they were not there, and they
explained as well as they could, adding, in a little burst of
semi-confidence, "It's rather more fun to talk to you across a fence
than sit up and be grand in company."
He smiled at them good-naturedly.
"Say," said he, "if your mother let you stay out, 'twas because you were
going to be at the Trenholme party. You're not getting benefit of clergy
here, you know."
"We're going;"--loftily--"we're only waiting to be sure there's no more
drunken people."
"I was just about to remark that I'd do myself the pleasure of escorting
you."
At this they whispered together. Then, aloud--"Thank you very much, but
we're not afraid; we're often out as late in papa's fields. We're
afraid mamma wouldn't like it if you came with us."
"Wouldn't she now?" said Harkness. "Why not? Is she stuck up?"
Blue felt that a certain romance was involved in acknowledging her
parents' antipathy and her own regret.
"Rather," she faltered. "Papa and mamma are rather proud, I'm afraid."
It was a bold flight of speech; it quite took Red's breath away. "And
so,"--Blue sighed as she went on--"I'm afraid we mustn't talk to you any
more; we're very sorry. We--I'm sure--we think you are very nice."
Her feeling tone drew from him a perfectly sincere reply, "So I am; I'm
really a very nice young man. My mother brought me up real well." He
added benevolently, "If you're scared of the road, come right through my
place here, and I'll set you on your own farm double quick."
It was with pleasurable fear that the girls got through the fence with
his help. They whispered to each other their self-excuses, saying that
mamma would like them to be in their own fields as quickly as possible.
The moonlight was now gloriously bright. The shrubs of the old garden,
in full verdure, were mysteriously beautiful in the light. The old house
could be clearly seen. Harkness led them across a narrow open space in
front of it, that had once been a gravel drive, but was now almost green
with weeds and grasses. On the other side the bushes grew, as it seemed,
in great heaps, with here and there an opening, moonlit, mysterious. As
they passed quickly before the house, the girls involuntarily shied like
young horses to the further side of Harkness, their eyes glancing
eagerly for signs of the old man. In a minute they saw the door in an
opening niche at the corner of the house; on its steps sat the old
preacher, his grey hair shining, his bronzed face bathed in moonlight.
He sat peaceful and quiet, his hands clasped. Harkness next led them
through, a dark overgrown walk, and, true to his promise, brought them
at once to the other fence. He seemed to use the old paling as a gate
whenever the fancy took him. He pulled away two of the rotten soft wood
pales and helped the girls gallantly on to their father's property.
"Charmed, I'm sure, to be of use, ladies!" cried he, and he made his
bow.
On the other side of their own fence, knee-deep in dry uncut grass, they
stood together a few paces from the gap he had made, and proffered their
earnest thanks.
"Say," said Harkness, abruptly, "d'you often see Miss White up to your
house?"
"Eliza, do you mean?" said they, with just a slight intonation to
signify that they did not look upon her as a "Miss." Their further
answer represented the exact extent of their knowledge in the matter.
"She didn't come much for a good while, but last week she came to tea.
It is arranged for mamma to ask her to tea once in a while, and we're
all to try and be nice to her, because--well, our sister says, now that
people pay her attentions, she ought to have a place where she can come
to, where she can feel she has friends."
"How d'ye mean--'pay her attentions'?"
"That was what we heard sister Sophia say," they replied, pursing up
their little lips. They knew perfectly well what the phrase meant, but
they were not going to confess it. The arts of those who are on the
whole artless are very pretty.
"Say, d'ye think Miss White's got the least bit of a heart about her
anywheres?"
"We don't know exactly what you mean"--with dignity--"but one of the
ladies who boards at the hotel told mamma that Eliza _always_ behaves
_admirably_'; that's part of the reason we're having her to tea."
"Did she, though? If having about as much feeling as this fence has is
such fine behaviour--!" He stopped, apparently not knowing exactly how
to end his sentence.
The girls began to recede. The grass grew so thin and dry that they did
little harm by passing through it. It sprang up in front of their feet
as they moved backwards in their white dresses. All colour had passed
from the earth. The ripple of the river and the cry of the
whip-poor-will rose amid the murmur of the night insects.
"Do you sometimes come down here of an evening?" asked the young man.
"At sunset it's real pleasant."
"Sometimes," answered Blue. Her soft voice only just reached him.