THE OLD LAKE HOUSE.
The park at "Norston's Rest" was divided by a swift stream that flowed
into it from the distant uplands, separating the highly cultivated
portions from the wilderness. Jessup's cottage was within the pleasure
grounds, but its upper windows overlooked a small but deep lake,
formed by a ravine, and the hollows of a rocky ledge, which made an
almost bottomless gulf, into which the mountain stream emptied itself,
and after losing half its volume in some underground outlet glided off
down the valley.
Nothing could be more wild and picturesque than this little lake,
embosomed, as it was, with thrifty evergreens, fine old trees, and
rocks, to which the ivy clung in luxuriant draperies. At its outlet,
where the sun shone most of the day, wild hyacinths and mats of blue
violets empurpled the banks before they appeared in any other place,
and a host of summer flowers kept up the blossom season sometimes long
after leaf-fall. Near this spot, the brightest of all the wilderness,
stood an old summer-house, built by some former lord of "The Rest."
Jessup had trained wild roses among the ivy that completely matted the
old building together, and around its base had allowed the lush
grasses to grow uncut, casting their seed, year by year, until the
most thrifty reached to the balustrades of a wooden balcony that
partly overhung the lake in its deepest part.
Nothing could be more picturesque than this old building, when the
moon shone down upon and kindled up the waters beneath it, with a
brightness more luminous than silver. The shivering ivy, the
flickering shadows of a great tree, that drooped long, protecting
branches over it, formed a picture that any artist would have got up
at midnight to look upon. Still a more practical man might have
pronounced its old timbers unsafe, and its position, half perched on a
bank, with its balcony over the water, dangerous as it was
picturesque.
Be this as it may, two persons stood within this building, after
eleven o'clock at night, revealed by the same moon that looked down on
those two wounded men, now struggling for life in the proud old
mansion and the humble cottage. It was curved like the blade of a
sickle then. Now, its rounded fulness flooded the whole wilderness,
breaking up its darkness into massive shadows, all the blacker from
contrast with the struggling illumination.
The waterfall at the head of the lake was so far off that its noise
gave no interruption to the voices of these two persons when they met,
for Storms had arrived earlier than the girl, and lay apparently
asleep on one of the fixed seats, when Judith Hart came in, breathless
with fast walking, and gave forth sharp expletives of disappointment
when she supposed the summer-house empty.
"Not here. The wretch--the coward! I knew it--I knew it! He never
meant to come. Does he think I will trapse all this way, and wait for
him? If I do, may I--Ha!"
The girl stopped at the door, through which she was angrily repassing,
with the invective cut short on her lips.
"Hallo! Is it you, Judith? I began to think you wasn't coming, and
dropped asleep. But, upon my soul, I was dreaming about you all the
time."
"Here you are!" said the girl, coming slowly back. "How was one to
know--lying there like a log? That isn't the way one expects to be met
after a walk like this!"
"Why, what's the matter? The walk is just nothing for an active girl
like you, but I hope you had no trouble in getting out."
"I've had trouble in everything; nothing but trouble, since I first
knew you, and I've just come to tell you, that, according to my idea,
you are a treasonable, traitorous--"
"Judith Hart!"
"Cut that off short. I come here to have my say, and nothing more.
From this night out you and I are two. Remember that. I'm not to be
taken in a second time."
Storms arose from the bench, and shook himself, as if he had really
been asleep.
"What on earth are you grumbling about, Judith Hart? What has a fellow
been doing since nightfall that you come down upon him with a crash
like this, after keeping him on the wait in this damp hole till his
limbs are stiff as ramrods!"
"They'll be stiffer before I'm fool enough to believe you again, you
may be sure of that."
"Hoity-toity! What's the row? Who has forgotten to fee the barmaid, I
wonder? Or is it that the mistress begins to suspect that there has
been more stealing out than she knows of, or I either?"
The young man said this in a half-jeering tone, that drove the girl
wild.
"You say that! You dare to say that!" drawing her wrathful face close
to his, till both their evil countenances were defined by the
moonlight. "I tell you now that such words are as much as your life is
worth."
Storms laughed, sunk both hands into the pockets of his velveteen
jacket, and laughed again, leaning against the wall of the old
summer-house.
"There, there, Judith! Enough of that! I don't want to be tempted into
doing you a harm; far from it. But neither man nor woman must threaten
Dick Storms. No one but a lass he is sweet upon would dare do it."
"Dare! I like that!"
"But I don't like it. Once for all, tell me what this is all about."
"You know, as well as I do, that it is everywhere about that you were
plighted to the girl up yonder when her father was hurt."
"But you know that there isn't a word of truth in it."
"Not true! Not true! Oh, Richard, I have seen with my own eyes."
Judith lifted her finger threateningly, and shook it close to the
young man's face.
"Well, what have you seen?" questioned Dick, a little hoarsely; and
even in the moonlight the girl could detect a slow pallor stealing
over his face.
"I have been at the inn yonder longer than you know of," she said.
"This isn't the first time I've been in the park at night."
He started back a pace, then turned upon her. The cunning of his
nature rose uppermost; he spoke to her low and earnestly.
"Then you must know that I don't want the lass, and wouldn't take her
at any price, though I don't care to say that."
"Perhaps you deny going to the gardener's cottage at all?"
"No, I don't. Why should I? If you were watching me, so much the
better. I wish you had listened to every word I said to her; hating
her as you do, it would have done you good, and set all this nonsense
at rest."
"But you went?"
"Yes, I went."
"And--and--"
"And told her, then and there, that nothing should force me to wed
her. She had set the old man and the young master to nagging me about
it. Neither they nor she gave me an hour's peace."
"Oh, Richard! Richard! Is this true?"
"But for my love of you, I might have given in--"
"I don't care that for such love," cried the girl, tearing a leaf of
ivy from a spray that had crept through the broken window, and dashing
it to the floor. "I want you to love me better than all the world
beside. No halving. I want that, and nothing else."
"And haven't you got it? When did you see me walking out with her, or
meeting her here like this?"
"She wouldn't come."
"Wouldn't she?"
Storms laughed as he repeated the audacious insinuation, "Wouldn't
she?"
Judith threw off her defiant attitude, and the sharp edge left her
speech, which became almost appealing.
"Richard Storms! Was it for my sake?"
"I won't answer you; you don't deserve it, suspicioning a fellow like
that."
"I am sorry."
"Yes, after pushing me on to--to anything rather than be nagged, at
home and up yonder, about wedding the girl, you come here, when I
expected a pleasant meeting, with your scolding and threats. It's
enough to drive a man into marrying out of hand."
"No, no, Dick! You wouldn't do that."
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"If you ever try this on again, I may. One doesn't stand threats, even
from the sweetheart he loves better than everything else--that is, if
he is a man worth having." "But I didn't threaten you! I only--"
"Said what you must never say again, if you don't want to see me
wedded down in yon church, with a farm of my own, and a fortune
waiting, which they are willing to pay down, and ask no questions. A
pretty lass pining for me too."
"Pretty! Oh, Richard, this is too bad! You have told me a hundred
times that of the two, I was--"
The girl broke off and turned away her face.
"And I have told you the truth, else they would have had me fast
before this. Both the young master and the old man were threatening me
with the law. You might have heard them."
"No. I was never near enough."
"Well, they did, though; and but for you, I might have given in."
"But you never--never will!"
"So long as you keep quiet, I'll stand out."
"Oh, Richard, no mouse was ever so quiet as I will be. Now, say, was
it all for my sake?"
"What else could it be?"
"I don't know. Only it is so strange. And Richard! Richard! I will die
before--You understand--I would die rather than harm you."
"That is my own brave lass. Now you are like yourself, and we can part
friends--better friends than ever."
"Part! It is not so late."
"But the moon is up, and you will be seen by the village people. They
must have no jibes to cast on my wife when you and I are wed."
The girl's eyes flashed in the moonlight, which came broadly through a
glass door that led upon the old wooden balcony.
A smile crept over Storms' subtle lips. He was rather proud of his
victory over this beautiful Amazon. The brilliant loveliness of her
face in the softening light was so like that of Ruth Jessup, that he
astonished the handsome virago by taking her head between his hands,
and kissing her with something like tenderness.
His heart recoiled from this caress the next moment, as the prodigal
son may have loathed the husks he eat, when he was famishing for corn;
but Judith sat down upon the hard wooden seat, and covering her face
with both hands, broke into a passion of delicious tears.
This outbreak of tenderness annoyed the young man, who was hating
himself for this apostacy from the only pure feeling that had ever
ennobled his heart, and he said, almost rudely, "Come, come, there is
nothing to cry about; I am sorry, that's all."
"Sorry!" repeated the girl, lifting her happy, tearful face into the
moonlight. "Ah, well, I will go home, now. Good-night, if you will not
go with me a little way."
"We must not be seen together," answered Richard, opening the door for
her to pass out; "only remember, I have trusted you."
The girl went to the door, hesitated a moment, and stepped back.
"Will you kiss me again, Richard? It shall be the seal of what I
promised."
"Don't be foolish, girl," said Dick, stooping his head that she might
kiss him. "You women are all alike; give them an inch and they will
take an ell. There, there; good-night."
Storms stood behind the half-open door, and watched the barmaid as she
took the little path which led to the postern gate which Ruth had used
on the morning of her wedding-day. A key to this gate had been
intrusted to the young man, and he had duplicated it for the girl who
had just left him.
When Judith was quite beyond his vision, Storms retired back into the
summer-house, and examined it with strange scrutiny. There was but one
window, a single sash that opened into the balcony, answering for a
second door, which was quite sufficient to light the little apartment.
Through this window the moonlight fell like a square block of marble,
barred with shadows. To Storms it took the form of a tombstone lying
at his feet, and he stepped back with a sort of horror, as if some
evil thought of his had hardened into stone which he dared not tread
upon; going cautiously around it, and gliding along the wall, but with
his eyes turned that way, he escaped from the building.