A MEETING
IT was midday in the month of August, the sun ablaze upon wood and
field. Only under the trees and hedges the shadows lay blue and
still,--intensely, deeply blue, the warm restful blue of summer
shadows. Overhead stretched another blue, a vault of brilliant azure,
a vast cup-shaped dome, spreading downwards from the illimitable space
above, to the hazy distant hills, to the far-off peacock-blue sea,
sun-kissed and radiant. The warm earth breathed forth the languorous
yet wide-eyed repose of perfect summer. Here was Nature at the
maturest moment of her beauty,--the fields golden with full-eared
corn, waiting in the richness of their dower for the first stroke of
the sickle; the moors purple with heather, and rich with a hidden
wealth of whortleberries; the hedges hung with clusters of scarlet
brambleberries, even now tinged with the deeper hue of ripeness.
On a gate, set, after the general manner of gates in the west of
England, between two hedges, one to the right and another to the left,
sat our friend John. From the gate, a view stretched before him, which
many an artist might have been excused for attempting to seize and
transfer to canvas.
In the foreground stood a birch tree, a slender, dainty, silver-barked
thing, rising straight out of a purple mass of heather. Its fairy
lightness was backgrounded by a wood of firs, while past it, to the
right, you got a stretch of undulating moorland across a valley, a
strip of blue sea, and a hazy coast line of white cliffs.
“It really might be called a fine view,” said John aloud. And then he
broke off, for a voice had sounded behind him,--a very young voice, a
clear treble.
“There’s a man sitting on the gate.” The statement was made with the
frank obviousness of childhood.
John swung himself off the said gate, and turned. This latter
proceeding was distinctly simpler to accomplish from the safety of
solid earth than from the topmost of five bars. Doubtless his guardian
angel prompted the action, for, on the moment of turning, his heart
jumped, leaped, and pounded in a manner peculiarly perilous. Picture
his danger with a heart in this condition had he retained his former
attitude.
On the other side of the gate, coming across the grass, and not more
than twenty paces from him, was a lady accompanied by two small boys.
She was a young lady, tall and slender, in a white linen frock, and a
big shady straw hat. Her hair beneath it was red gold, like burnished
copper, a vivid note of colour. The two boys, one on either side of
her, were clad in emerald green knickerbockers, and soft white shirts.
Floppy straw hats were on their heads. Beneath the hats you caught a
glimpse of copper-coloured hair. A vivid, vital enough picture they
presented. The smaller boy, four years old or thereabouts, gazed
solemn-eyed towards the gate; the other, some two years or so his
senior, pointed towards our John, his face eager, alive. A stranger was
a bit of a rarity in those parts, it would appear.
John saw the woman turn towards the child, caught a hint of murmured
words. The boy dropped the pointing hand. Doubtless she had made
the suggestion--delicately put of course--that it is not altogether
the best of manners to point at strangers, however unexpected their
appearance, as if they were some curious beast newly escaped from the
Zoo.
The lapse of time, from the first acclamation of John’s position on
the gate, to the dropping of that accusing finger, had been of the
briefest, nevertheless it had allowed for a few further steps to be
taken across the grass, and the distance between John and the three
had, at the outset, been none so great. It was clearly obvious that the
intention of the three was to pass through the gate. Seeing this, John
bent to the fastening. By good luck it was not padlocked. Had it been,
it would have spoiled the dainty march of the procession, actually as
well as figuratively. He swung the gate open, raising his hat at the
same moment. She bent her head, a slight though entirely courteous
gesture, gave “thank-you” in a low round voice.
“Now Heaven be praised,” murmured John, “that she did not say
‘thanks.’” By which token it will be seen that John was a trifle
fastidious as to modes of expression.
The two boys, having defeated the difficulties of elastic beneath
the chin, had likewise removed their hats. They accomplished the
restoration of them to their heads with extraordinary dignity. John,
beholding the feat, marvelled. Then the little cavalcade of three
passed on across the heather.
John gazed after them.