preceding evening to find Iris, who was ostensibly “strolling up and
down the wall” in the moonlight with the Captain, she had found no trace
of her niece from one end of the wall to the other--from the glacis of
San Marco to the flag-staff at the Barracks. Heroically swallowing her
wrath, she had returned to the hotel a perfect coruscation of stories,
_bon-mots_, and compliments, to cover the delinquency of her niece, and
amuse the deserted Mokes; and, to tell the truth, Mokes seemed very well
amused. He was not an ardent lover.
“Where do you suppose they are?” I said, _sotto voce_, to John Hoffman.
“The demi-lune!” he answered.
A sail-boat took us first down to Fish Island, which is really a part of
Anastasia, separated from it only by a small creek. The inlet, which is
named Matanzas River south of the harbor, and the North River above it,
was dotted with porpoises heaving up their unwieldy bulk; the shores
were bristling with oysters; armies of fiddler-crabs darted to and fro
on the sands; heavy old pelicans, sickle-bill curlews, ospreys, herons,
and even bald-headed eagles flew around and about us. We ran down before
the wind within sight of the mysterious old fortification that guards
the Matanzas channel--mysterious from the total absence of any data as
to its origin. “Three hundred and fifty Huguenots met their death down
there,” said John Hoffman; “massacred under the personal supervision of
Menendez himself. Their bones lie beneath this water, or under the
shifting sands of the beach, but the river perpetuates the deed in its
name, Matanzas, or slaughter.”
“Is there any place about here where there were no massacres?” asked
Sara. “Wherever I go, they arise from the past and glare at me. Between
Spanish, Huguenot, and Indian slaughter, I am becoming quite gory.”
The Professor, who was holding on his tall hat with much difficulty in
the fresh breeze, here wished to know generally if we had read the
remarkable narrative of Cabeça de Vaca, the true discoverer of the
Mississippi, who landed in Florida in 1527.
“Alas! the G. W. again,” murmured Sara in my ear. Miss Sharp, however,
wanted “so much to hear about it” that the Professor began. But the hat
kept interfering. Once Mokes rescued it, once John Hoffman, and the
renowned De Vaca suffered in consequence. The governess wore a white
scarf around her neck, one of those voluminous things called “clouds.”
She took it off, and leaned forward with a smile. “Perhaps if you were
to tie this over your hat,” she said, sweetly offering it.
But the Professor was glad to get it, and saw no occasion for sweetness
at all. He wanted to go on with De Vaca; and so, setting the hat firmly
on the back of his head, he threw the scarf over the top, and tied the
long ends firmly under his chin. The effect was striking, especially in
profile, and we were glad when the landing at Fish Island gave us an
opportunity to let out our laughter over hastily improvised and idiotic
jokes, while, all unconscious, the Professor went on behind us, and
carried De Vaca into the thirteenth chapter.
The island began with a morass, and the boatmen went back for planks.
“‘Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds,’” said Iris, balancing herself on
an oyster shell, Mokes by her side (the Captain was absent--trust Aunt
Diana for that!). “Those verses always haunt one so, don’t they?”
Mokes, as usual in the rear, mentally speaking, wanted to know “what
verses?”
“Moore’s _Dismal Swamp_, of course. Sometimes I find myself saying it
over fifty times a day:
‘They have made her a grave too cold and damp
For a soul so warm and true;
She has gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,
Where all night long, by a fire-fly lamp,
She paddles her white canoe.’
Be sure and pronounce ‘swamp’ to rhyme exactly with ‘damp’ and ‘lamp,’”
continued Iris; “the effect is more tragic.”
“Certainly,” said Mokes, “far more.”
Passing the morass on planks, we walked down a path bordered with
Spanish-bayonets, crossed the creek on a small boat lying there, and
entered the enchanted domain. It seemed to be a large plantation run to
waste; symmetrical fields surrounded by high hedges of the sour orange,
loaded with its fruit; old furrows still visible in the never-freezing
ground; every where traces of careful labor and cultivation, which had
made the sandy island blossom as the rose. In the centre of a broad lawn
were the ruins of a mansion, the white chimney alone standing, like a
monument to the past. Beyond, a path led down to a circle of trees with
even, dense foliage; there, in the centre, shut out from the glare of
the sunshine, alone in the greenery, stood a solitary tomb, massive and
dark, without date or inscription save what the little fingers of the
lichen had written. We stood around in silence, and presently another
pleasure party came down the path and joined us--gay young girls with
sprays of orange blossoms in their hats, young men carrying trailing
wreaths of the yellow jasmine. Together we filled the green tree circle;
and one of the strangers, a fair young girl, moved by a sudden impulse,
stepped forward and laid a spray of jasmine on the lonely tomb.
[Illustration: TOMB ON FISH ISLAND.]
“‘Et in Arcadia ego,’” said John, who stood behind me. “Do you remember
that picture of the gay flower-decked Arcadians coming through a forest
with song and laughter, and finding there a solitary tomb with that
inscription? This is Arcadia, and we too have found the tomb.”
Strolling on down the island, we came to a long arched walk of
orange-trees trained into a continuous arbor.
“What a lovely wild old place!” said Iris. “What is its history? Does
any body know?”
“It has not been occupied for nearly a century, I am told,” said Aunt
Diana.
“Who would have expected traces of such careful cultivation down on this
remote island?” I said, as a new vista of symmetrical fields opened out
on one side.
“There you make the common mistake of all Northerners, Miss Martha,”
said John Hoffman. “Because the country is desolate and thinly settled,
you suppose it to be also wild and new, like the Western States and
Territories. You forget how long this far peninsula has been known to
the white man. These shores were settled more than a century before
Plymouth or Jamestown, and you can scarcely go out in any direction
around St. Augustine without coming upon old groves of orange and fig
trees, a ruined stone wall, or fallen chimney. Poor Florida! she is full
of deserted plantations.”
“But does any one know the story of the place?” repeated Iris, who
preferred any diversion to Mokes’s solo.
“Why insist upon digging it up?” said Sara. “Let it rest in the purple
haze of the past. The place has not been occupied for a hundred years.
We see this beautiful orange walk; yonder is a solitary tomb. Can we not
fill out these shadowy borders without the aid of prosaic detail?”
The Professor, who had been digging up vicious-looking roots, now joined
us. “When I was here some years ago,” he began, in his loud, distinct
tones, “I made a point of investigating--”
“Let _us_ make a point of leaving,” murmured Sara, taking me off down
the walk. John Hoffman followed, so did Iris, and consequently Mokes,
likewise Aunt Di. Miss Sharp longed to stay, but did not quite dare; so
she compromised by walking on, as far as her feet were concerned, all
the rest of her, however, looking back with rapt attention. “Yes? How
interesting! Pray go on.”
The Professor went on; we heard his voice in the rear. “It was called El
Verjel (the garden), and its orange grove was the glory of St.
Augustine--”
“Hurry!” whispered Sara, “or we shall hear the whole.”
We hastened out into the sunny meadows, catching “killed by
lightning”--“1790”--“he sent his oranges to London;” then the voice died
away in the distance. John Hoffman kept with us, and we wandered on,
looking off over the Matanzas, sweeping on to the south, dotted with
sails, and the black dug-outs of the Minorcan fishermen anchored along
shore. The tide was out, and the coast-line bare and desolate.
[Illustration: A DESERTED PLANTATION.]
“Nothing that H. H. ever wrote excels her ‘When the tide comes in,’” I
said. “Do you remember it?
‘When the tide goes out,
The shore looks dark and sad with doubt’--
and that final question,
‘Ah, darling, shall we ever learn
Love’s tidal hours and days?’”
“You believe, then, that love has its high and low tides?” said John,
lighting a fresh cigar.
“Low tide,” said Sara, half to herself--“low tide always.” She was
looking at the bare shore with a sadness that had real roots down
somewhere.
“_Very_ low, I suppose,” commented John; “every thing is always very
high or very low with you ladies. You are like the man who had a steamer
to sell. ‘But is it a low-pressure engine?’ asked a purchaser. ‘Oh yes,
_very_ low,’ replied the owner, earnestly.”
Sara flushed, and turned away.
“Do you do it on purpose, I wonder?” I thought, with some indignation,
as I glanced at John’s imperturbable face. I was very tender always with
Sara’s sudden little sadnesses. I think there is no one who comprehends
a girl passing through the shadow-land of doubt and vague questioning
that lies beyond youth so well as the old maid who has made the journey
herself, and knows of a surety that there is sunshine beyond. Obeying a
sudden impulse, I asked the question aloud. Sara was in front of us, out
of hearing.
“Do I do what on purpose, Miss Martha? Tell anecdotes?”
“You know what I mean very well, Mr. Hoffman. Her sadness was real for
the moment; why wound her?”
“Wound her! Is a woman wounded by a trifling joke?”
“But her nature is peculiarly sensitive.”
“You mistake her, I think, Miss Martha. Sara St. John is coated over
with pride like an armor; she is invulnerable.”
I could not quite deny this, so I veered a little. “She is so lonely,
Mr. Hoffman!” I said, coming round on another tack.
“Because she so chooses.”
“It may not be ‘choose.’ Mr. Hoffman, why should _you_ not try to--”
Here I looked up and caught the satirical smile on my companion’s face,
and, vexed with myself, I stopped abruptly.
“You are a good friend, Miss Martha.”
“She has need of friends, poor girl!”
“Why poor?”
“In the first place she _is_ poor, literally.”
“Poverty is comparative. Who so poor as Mokes with his millions?”
“Then she is poor in the loss of her youth; she is no longer young, like
Iris.”
“‘Oh, saw ye not fair Iris going down into the west’--a minute ago,”
said John, glancing after a vanishing blue ribbon. A suspicion, and not
for the first time either, crossed my mind. “So it is little Iris, after
all,” I thought. “Oh, man, man, how can you be so foolish!” Then aloud,
“I must go forward and join the others,” I said, with a tinge of
annoyance I could not conceal. John looked at me a moment, and then
strode forward. I watched him; he joined Sara. I followed slowly. “There
is a second tomb farther down the island,” he was saying as I came up;
“it is even more venerable than the first; a square inclosure of
coquina, out of which grows an ancient cedar-tree which was probably
planted, a mere slip, after the grave was closed. Will you walk that way
with me, Miss St. John?” And with bared head he stood waiting for her
answer.
[Illustration: ORANGE WALK.]
“Thank you,” said Sara, “I do not care to walk farther.”
He bowed and left her.
Half an hour later, as Sara and I were strolling near the far point of
the island, we caught through the trees a glimpse of Iris seated in the
low, crooked bough of a live-oak, and at her feet John Hoffman,
reclining on the white tufted moss that covered the ground. “Absurd!” I
said, angrily.
“Why absurd? Is she not good and fair? To me there is something very
bewitching about Iris Carew. She is the most graceful little creature;
look at her attitude now, swinging in that bough! and when she walks
there is a willowy suppleness about her that makes the rest of us look
like grenadiers. Then what arch dark eyes she has, what a lovely
brunette skin, the real brune! Pretty, graceful little Iris, she is
always picturesque, whatever she does.”
“But she is a child, Sara, while he--”
“Is John Hoffman,” replied Sara, with a little curl of her lip. “Come,
Martha, I want to show you some Arcadians.”
“Arcadians?”
“Yes. Not the people who found the tomb in the forest, but some real
practical Arcadians, who enjoy life as Nature intended.”
“Who knows what she intended? I am sure I don’t,” I said, crossly.
Near the ruins of the mansion we found the Arcadians, a young man with
his wife and child, living in a small out-building which might have been
a cow-house. It was not more than ten feet square, the roof had fallen
in, and was replaced by a rude thatch of palmetto leaves; there was no
window of any kind, no floor save the sand, and for a door only an old
coverlet hung up and tied back like a curtain. Within we could see a low
settle-bed with some ragged coverings, a stool, powder, shot, and
fishing tackle hung up on one side, and an old calico dress on the
other; without was a table under a tree, a cupboard hung on the outside
of the house, containing a few dishes, and the ashes of the family fire
near at hand. Two thin dogs and a forlorn calf (oh, the cadaverous
cattle of Florida!) completed the stock of this model farm.
“They eat and cook out-of-doors all the year round, I suppose. What a
home! Did any one ever see such poverty,” I said, “and such indolence?
They do not even take the trouble to make a door.”
“What do they want of a door? There is nothing to keep out but Nature.
And as for poverty, they seem happy enough,” replied Sara.
They did. The woman came to meet us with her brown baby, and the young
husband took his gun and went out to find his supper--partridge from the
wood, probably, and oysters from the beach. They had lived there three
years, the woman said. Her name was Anita, her husband’s Gaspar, the
baby was Rafaello. No, they did not work much. They had a few
sweet-potatoes yonder, and sometimes she braided palmetto and took it
down to the city to sell. Gaspar had a dug-out, and sometimes he sold
fish, but not often. They had every thing they wanted. Did she know any
thing about this old place? No, she did not. Couldn’t she find out? Yes,
she supposed she could; her people had lived along the Matanzas for
years; but she never took the trouble to ask. Should she send that brown
baby to school when it grew larger?
“To school?” And the young mother laughed merrily, showing even, white
teeth, and tossing up the little Rafaello until he crowed with glee.
“None of us-uns goes to school, my lady.”
“But what will he do, then?”
“Do? Why, live here or somewhars, jes as we’re doing,” replied Anita.
“That’s all _he_ wants.”
“A great many people come over here in the season, do they not?” I
asked, abandoning my educational efforts.
“Yes, pleasant days folks come.”
“Do you think the ladies are pretty?”
“Sometimes,” replied Anita, with a critical air.
“Wouldn’t you like to look as they do?”
“Oh no,” replied our “nut-brown mayde,” with a broad, contented smile.
“And the gentlemen. What do you think of them?”
“Eh? the mens, did you say? Oh, they’re so wimpsy!” And bursting into a
peal of laughter, the mother tossed up the baby again until he too
joined in the merriment over the “wimpsyness,” whatever that was, of the
tourists from the North.
“Do you know, I feel as though Calhoun himself was laughing at me from
his grave,” I said, as we walked away. “Your Arcadians, Sara, have made
me more conscious of my bodily defects than a whole regiment of fine
city people. What a shape that woman had! what eyes! what teeth! But
what did she mean by wimpsy?”
“Very likely she meant Mokes. He is certainly limpsy; then why not
wimpsy? There he is, by-the-way.”
So he was, sitting with (of all persons in the world!) the governess.
“In 1648 there were three hundred householders resident in St.
Augustine, Mr. Mokes,” we heard her say as we drew near.
“Must have wanted to--beast of a place,” commented Mokes. He looked up
doubtfully as we went by, but not having decided exactly how
strong-minded Sara might be, he concluded not to venture; the governess
at least never posed a fellow with startling questions.
“Poor Mokes!” I said.
“Oh yes, very poor!”
“I was thinking of his forlorn love affair, Sara.”
[Illustration: JOHN AND IRIS.]
[Illustration: NEW LIGHT-HOUSE, ANASTASIA ISLAND.]
“Iris may still be Mrs. Mokes.”
“Oh no!”
“Do not be too sure, Martha. In my opinion--nay, experience--a young
girl is far more apt to be dazzled by wealth than an older woman. The
older woman knows how little it has to do with happiness, after all; the
young girl has not yet learned that.”
The _Osceola_ carried us northward again, and then around into a creek
where was the landing-place of Anastasia Island.
“This Anastasia was a saint,” I said, as we strolled up the path leading
to the new light-house. “She belonged to the times of Diocletian, and we
know where to find her, which is more than I can say of Maria Sanchez
over in the village.”
“And who is this Maria Sanchez?” inquired Aunt Diana, in her affable,
conversational tone. Aunt Di always asked little questions of this kind,
not because she cared to know, but because she esteemed it a duty to
keep the conversation flowing.
“Ah! that is the question, aunt--who was she? There are persons of that
name in the town now, but this creek bore the name centuries ago;
wherefore, nobody knows. Maria is a watery mystery.”
The new light-house, curiously striped in black and white like a
barber’s pole, rose from the chaparral some distance back from the
beach, one hundred and sixty feet into the clear air; there was nothing
to compare it with, not a hill or rise of land, not even a tall tree,
and therefore it looked gigantic, a tower built by Titans rather than
men.
“Let us go up to the top,” said Iris, peeping within the open door. We
hesitated: one hundred and sixty feet of winding stairway may be
regarded as a crucial test between youth and age.
“Oh, Aunt Di, not you, of course! nor you either, Miss Sharp, nor the
Professor, nor Cousin Martha,” said Iris, heedlessly. “You can all sit
here comfortably in the shade while the rest of us run up; we shall not
stay long.”
Upon this instantly we all arose and began to climb up those stairs. Sit
there comfortably in the shade, indeed! Not one of us!
The view from the summit seemed wonderfully extensive--inland over the
level pine-barrens to the west; the level blue sea to the east; north,
the silver sands of the Florida main-land; and south, the stretch of
Anastasia Island, its backbone distinctly visible in the slope of the
low green foliage.
“How soft and blue the ocean looks!” said Iris. “I should like to sail
away to the far East and never come back.”
“If I only had my yacht here now, Miss Iris!” said Mokes, gallantly.
“But we should want to come back some time, you know. Egypt and the
Nile--well, they are dirty places; although I--er--I always carry every
thing with me, it is almost impossible to live properly there.”
We all knew what Mokes meant; he meant his portable bath. He aped
English fashions, and was always bringing into conversation that blessed
article of furniture, which accompanied him every where in charge of his
valet. So often indeed did he allude to it that we all felt, like the
happy-thought man, inclined to chant out in chorus, to the tune of the
_Mistletoe Bough_,
“Oh, his portable ba-ath!
Oh, his por-ta-ble ba-ath!”
“You have, I am told, Mr. Mokes, the finest yacht in this country,” said
John Hoffman.
Well, it wasn’t a bad one, Mokes allowed.
“I don’t know which I would rather own,” pursued John, “your yacht or
your horses. Why, Sir, your horses are the pride of New York.”
I glanced at John; he was as grave as a judge. Mokes glowed with
satisfaction. Iris listened with downcast eyes, and Aunt Diana, who had
at last reached the top stair, gathered her remaining strength to smile
upon the scene. Mokes came out of his shell entirely, and graciously
offered his arm to Aunt Diana for the long descent.
But Aunt Di could--“excuse me, Mr. Mokes”--really hold on “better by the
railing;” but “perhaps Iris--”
Yes, Iris could, and did.
John looked after the three as they wound down the long spiral with a
smile of quiet amusement.
“All alike,” he said to me, with the “old-comrade” freedom that had
grown up between us. “La richesse est toujours des femmes le grand
amour, Miss Martha.”
“Don’t quote your pagan French at me,” I answered, retreating outside,
where on the little platform I had left Sara gazing out to sea. She was
looking down now, leaning over the railing as if measuring the dizzy
height.
“If I should throw myself over,” she said, as I came up, “my body would
go down; but where would my soul go, I wonder?”
“Don’t be morbid, Sara.”
“Morbid? Nonsense! That is a duty word, a red flag which timid people
always hang out the moment you near the dangerous ground of the great
hereafter. We must all die some time, mustn’t we? And if I should die
now, what difference would it make? The madam-aunt would think me highly
inconsiderate to break up the party in any such way; Iris would shed a
pretty tear or two; Mokes would really feel relieved; the Professor
would write an account of the accident for the _Pith-and-Ponder
Journal_, with a description of the coquina quarry thrown in; Miss Sharp
would read it and be ‘so interested;’ and even you, Martha, would
scarcely have the heart to wish me back again.” Tears stood in her eyes
as she spoke, her face had softened with the sad fancies she had woven,
and for the moment the child-look came back into her eyes, as it often
comes with tears.
“And John Hoffman,” I said, involuntarily. I knew he was still within
hearing.
“Oh, he would decorously take his prayer-book and act as chief mourner,
if there was no one else,” replied Sara, with a mocking little laugh.
“Come down!” called Aunt Di’s voice from below; “we are going to the
coquina quarry.”
I lingered a moment that John might have full time to make his escape,
but when at length we went inside, there he was, leaning on the railing;
he looked full at Sara as she passed, and bowed with cold hauteur.
“It is useless to try and make any body like her,” I thought as I went
down the long stairway. “Why is it that women who write generally manage
to make themselves disagreeable to all mankind?”
We found Miss Sharp seated on a stair, half-way down, loaded with
specimens, shells, and the vicious-looking roots of Fish Island.
“I am waiting for Professor Macquoid,” she explained, graciously. “He
came as far as this, and then remembering a rare plant he had forgotten
to take up, he went back for it, leaving the other specimens with me. I
have no doubt he will soon return; but pray do not wait.”
[Illustration: MISS SHARP WAITING FOR THE PROFESSOR.]
We did not; but left her on the stair.
Sara and I strolled over to the old light-house--a weather-beaten tower
standing almost in the water, regularly fortified with walls, angles,
and loop-holes--a lonely little stronghold down by the sea. It was a
picturesque old beacon, built by the Spaniards a long time ago as a
look-out; when the English came into possession of Florida, in 1763,
they raised the look-out sixty feet higher, and planted a cannon on the
top, to be fired as a signal when a vessel came in sight. The light
that we had so often watched flashing and fading in the twilight as we
walked on the sea-wall was put in still later by the United States
government; in old times a bonfire was lighted on top every night.
[Illustration: OLD LIGHT-HOUSE, ANASTASIA ISLAND.]
“I like this gray old beacon better than yonder tall, spying, brand-new
tower,” I said. “This is a drowsy old fellow, who sleeps all day and
only wakes at night, as a light-house should, whereas that wide-awake
striped Yankee over there is evidently keeping watch of all that goes on
in the little city. Iris must take care.”
“Do you think he can spy into the demi-lune?” said Sara, smiling.
At the coquina quarry we found the Professor, scintillating all over
with enthusiasm. “A most singular conglomerate of shells cemented by
carbonate of lime,” he said, putting on a stronger pair of glasses--“a
recent formation, evidently, of the post-tertiary period. You are aware,
I suppose, that it is found nowhere else in the world? It is soft, as
you see, when first taken out, but becomes hard by exposure to the air.”
Knee-deep in coquina, radiating information at every pore, he stood--a
happy man!
“And Miss Sharp?” I whispered.
“On the stair,” replied Sara.