CHAPTER IV.
THE PERILS OF SURF-BATHING.
When the day is young and the sky is blue, with just a flake or two of cloud low down on the horizon; when the sea, in purple slumber like a dreaming child, is brightened by the flickering glance and shadow on its rippling swell--and the surf, cresting itself in a wall of translucent green, leaps up and curls and topples over, crumbling in snow-white foam upon the sand; when the breeze, still gleeful with the memory of dew and starlit revels overnight, flits fresh and crisp beneath the early sunshine,--it is then that it is good to be a dweller by the shore: to spring from the unconsciousness of sleep into the luxury of sentient being, with softly fanning airs curling about the limbs, and wakening in them all their suppleness and strength.
Obeying the summons of the early gong, the young and vigorous of the guests of the hotel had hastened to the bathing-houses on the beach, and now came forth a gay and motley company. They were dressed in suits of red, blue, orange, green, and grey, with hats of straw or caps of oilskin, or only falling hair by way of head-dress. White ankles twinkled all along the sand, and the air was musical with laughter, as they scampered down and halted by the margin of the white sea-foam,--ladies and men distinguishable only by their hair or beard, or by less or greater bulk. They arranged themselves like a necklace of brightly coloured beads, where great and small alternated with each other. Each smaller figure was attended by one of the sturdy kind, as though they were about to dance. The surf along that coast breaks in such massive billows, that the little and the weak can scarce bear up alone against the whelming rush, or keep their footing. They are liable to be thrown down by an advancing roller, turned over when it breaks, sucked outward in the reflux, and carried beyond their depth.
The party joined hands, and then stepped out into the foam, a string of forty beads, to bind the bosom of the next big wave, so green and smooth and glassy; but as it yet came on, so huge and impressive with its crest of foam, like the tossing manes of Pharaoh's chariot-horses, the line outstepping stopped and wavered and bent, as one panic-stricken near the centre suddenly bounded back, and left the wings of the line turned sidewise and irresolute, while the wave was sweeping up indifferent to the doubts and fears of mortals. It swept upon the wings all unprepared to meet it, lifting them from their feet and throwing them down, and dabbling them in the wreck of foam and sand.
"Oh, Lucy Naylor! that was not fair!--to spring back suddenly and leave us in the lurch!" rang out from several pairs of feminine lips. "I will not bathe with you again, if you go on so." But the laughter of those who were amused at the disaster overbore the displeasure of the remonstrants; and it being Lucy's first morning, she was forgiven on promising to be more courageous.
The line formed up once more, and stepped out steadily to meet the next invader; and on he came, a smooth green hill, with the frothing and hissing water gathering on the summit like the gnashing teeth of an advancing monster. The line stood still, with spreading feet, bent knee, and breath held in. The monster was upon them, and with a little cry from here and there along the line, smothered and drowned and overwhelmed in the hissing deluge as it heaved above them, and with a thunderous roar, it broke up upon the shore behind them, and then drew back again in hurrying, seething foam, and left the line still standing. And then there was a sob or two, and a cry, followed by laughter and little screams of delight The cool sea water had drenched their shrinking frames, the saltness prickled exhilaratingly on the skin, and it was, as some one said, "just altogether too delightful."
Again the line was formed, and again. Even the timid ones had grown courageous. The least expert had learned to shoulder and resist the coming waves. The world was all coolness and freshness and sparkle, and each new wave was plunged into with a relish keener than the last, when came a new disturbance or alarm, more pressing and more vehement than even the onslaught of the billows upon the inexperienced. It sounded from the shore, a voice addressing them in accents shrill and clamorous. They ceased their sport and turned, and beheld a figure with flushed cheeks, no bonnet, her hair disordered, and her cap askew, with ribbons fluttering wildly in the breeze.
"Peter Wilkie!" it cried--"Peter Wilkie! Do ye not hear your mother crying to ye, fit to crack her voice? Let go that woman's hand, and come out ower this moment!--Peter! Do you hear me? Leave go, and come out ower. To think that I should live to see the proper up-bringing I have spared no pains to give ye, circumvented and brought to nothing by a set of shameless hempies like this!--and you just danderin' in the middle of them, like a fool goin' to the correction of the stocks!"
Mr Peter passed through many phases of feeling while he was being addressed. First, he was ashamed for his mother's sake. He would fain have taken no notice, and plunged with his companions into the coming wave, in hopes that others would do the same, and every one's attention be withdrawn. Then he grew angry, and endeavoured to laugh off the intrusion as a quaint absurdity; but as the old lady's voice rose higher, and an audible titter ran along the line on either side of him, he realised that he must close the scene at once, on any terms. To outface the clamour was manifestly impossible, while to yield would at least bring the scolding to an end. With a shrug and a scowl, which he strove to hide behind a cough, and an acid smile, he stepped ashore, took his mother's hand, all dripping as he was, and led her away behind the bathing-houses, where, let us hope, an understanding and a reconciliation were effected.
The interest of the bathers being thus disturbed, many began to feel chilly and to think they had had enough. Only the few who were good swimmers cared to remain, and these struck out beyond the ruin of breakers, to disport themselves above the placid depths beyond.
In the unbroken water outside, they could frolic at will, diving, floating, treading water, or swimming further seaward. Naylor, the uncle of his nieces, who have been mentioned, was one of the eagerest of all. A man no longer young, but with no sign of coming age save a thinning of the hair above his temples. Well nourished and prosperous of aspect, and five feet nine or so in height; broad-shouldered, muscular, and active, with cheery grey eyes, and a face burnt red by the sun. His spirits rose with the increasing coolness of the water, as he swam out and out; and from the sedate middle-aged person he had been on shore, he seemed changed into a hilarious youth among his new associates, challenging those near him to strange feats and gambols, laughing and shouting like a schoolboy.
Suddenly, with a cry, he threw up his hands, and sank beneath the surface.
"Not a bad imitation of a drowning man; but I wish he would not do it out here, where the water is deep. It isn't half funny. It spoils one's stroke, and makes me feel heavy and weak," some one said.
"I am not sure that it was imitation," answered another--a lady this one. "He may have a cramp. Watch when he rises."
Presently his head emerged gasping from the depths, and Miss Hillyard, the lady who had spoken, swam to him, and was able to get her fingers into his hair, just as he was beginning to sink again, and lifted his head an inch or two for a moment, calling wildly on the others at the same time to come to her assistance.
"Strike out!" she cried to the drowning man, tugging his hair again, and feeling her own poise seriously endangered by the effort. "What is the matter with you?"
"Cramp," he gasped. "Help me on my back. Perhaps I may manage to float."
"Help! Mr Sefton, help!" screamed the lady; and Mr Sefton, who was hurrying forward, was able to get a hand under the sinking man's chin on the other side, before he had drawn his other would-be rescuer under.
"Hold on now, Miss Hillyard! Don't hurry. Be calm. Steady yourself. Keep cool. We'll manage it. Trust to the water.... Good! He is up. Have a care, now. He may clutch without meaning it. Keep clear of his arms.... Steady, friend. Can't you do something for yourself?"
"I can't. Help me on my back. I cannot strike out one bit. I can hardly straighten my leg. Ugh!... Never fear, madam, I won't lay hold on you. Can you help me on my back, do you think? Never mind if you can't do it. Let go if you feel yourself sinking. One is enough to go to the bottom."
With teeth tight set, he straightened out his limbs, and held them motionless; and by-and-by they succeeded in getting him on his back, and began to tow and steer him to the shore.
Fortunately the tide had not yet turned. It was rising still; so the water helped them on their long and tardy voyage.
It was an arduous and a tedious task, and but for the tranquil coolness of the man they were trying to save, it would have been beyond their power, as they had been a long way out when the accident occurred. As they approached the surf-line, however, their labour grew lighter, and presently the heaving swell caught hold of them and swung them forward with accelerating speed, as though the hungry ocean, balked of his intended prey, had grown eager to reject the victim he had failed to drown. Surging and swinging on the translucent tide, they were borne forward more and more swiftly, and were shot at last through the curling and overarching bank of surf into shallow water, where the crowd, which had been watching on the beach, ran in and dragged the exhausted trio ashore.
"Uncle!" cried his nieces, laying hold on him, all dripping as he was, and bestowing hugs of congratulation. "You venturesome old man! How rash to go swimming out so far, this very first morning!"
"I should have been done for, if it had not been for this young lady. I would wish to thank you, madam, if I could find words; but when it is one's life that has been saved, one does not know how properly to express it."
"Pray say nothing," said Miss Hillyard, looking calm and handsome even in her dripping bathing-dress, her arms so white and strong and shapely folded on her breast, and the long dark hair hanging like a mantle down her back. "Do not say a word. Any one who was able to swim must have done the same. I am glad that I was near at the moment, and able to be of use."
And then the bathers dispersed to get dried and dressed, leaving the beach to the waves and the sea-birds undisturbed.
Joseph Naylor was an object of interest for the remainder of that day to all Clam Beach, as the man who had been all but drowned; but Miss Hillyard was the heroine for the rest of the season. She had saved a life, and the circumstances grew more marvellous from day to day, as each narrator in turn strove to give thrill to the only tale of peril he had ever assisted at; till at length the young lady, growing bored with the wondering respect it brought her, and which was far from being the form of admiration in which she took pleasure, began to deny the incident altogether, and assure people that it had never taken place.
CHAPTER V.
ROSE AND LETTICE.
However indifferent or even nauseous applause become familiar may ultimately grow, it is intensely agreeable while it is yet new. Only with time and habitude does it begin, like other sweets, to pall upon the healthy appetite. Miss Hillyard, on the day of her exploit, distinctly enjoyed the feeling that all eyes followed her, and that other conversation was hushed whenever she chose to speak. It was an ovation with which she was favoured on coming down to breakfast. Every one who knew her was waiting with congratulations to extol her pluck, and those who did not, were striving to be introduced.
Her friends felt an accession of importance in belonging to her; and Mrs Senator Deane of Indiana, under whose wing she was travelling, secured a carriage for a drive along the shore, so soon as breakfast was over, to keep the distinction of the heroine's intimacy secure in her own party.
Notoriety in a hotel, or anywhere else, grows cheap when the noted one is to be met upon the stairs and on doorsteps all day long, and can be accosted and questioned by every comer, while a morning of privacy could not fail to increase general interest in the whole party. The exploit was sure to be talked over without reserve in their absence, and on their return each member of the community would be affected with the general enthusiasm which his own contribution had done something to augment.
"Tell us all about it now, Rose, from the very beginning," cried Lettice Deane, catching both her hands, as soon as they had driven from the door. "I am dying to hear everything, now we are out of that inquisitive crowd--Yankees with their straight out questions, and Canucks with that wooden British way of theirs, staring without a wink and saying nothing, but drinking in everything with their eyes. Give me Western folks after all, say I. One knows what they are and how to deal with them from the first. These down-Easters, with their intelligence, and their conceit, and their determination to know all about it, make me feel like a potato-bug on the end of a pin, under a microscope. I like folks that are smart, but the cultured intelligence of Boston is just something too awful."
"But decent Canadians do not ask questions."
"I wish they would. They are always looking them--with eyes made round, ears erect, and mouth ajar. I'd like to shake some of them."
"Stuff! Lettie. I am Canadian, please remember."
"You are different. You have lived in Chicago; and that cures most things. But tell us now!--all about it. How did it begin?"
"Begin? Let me see. We were all out together in the deep water, having a social swim, and showing each other what we could do. Mr Sefton had just picked up a shell from the bottom--quite a pretty one, too, it seemed--and was swimming up to give it me, when we heard a cry; and when I turned round, I was just in time to see a hand disappearing under water. You can scarcely fancy the uncomfortable thrill it gave me. At once I remembered the octopus they say was cast ashore last week at St John's, with arms a yard or two long, all covered with suckers, and I began to think of cold slimy things in the water, twisting about me and pulling me down. It took all my nerve, and the certainty that if I yielded to panic, I should sink, to compose me; when bobbing up to the surface came a head of hair, not five yards off. That calmed me. It gave me something to do."
"How brave you are, Rose! With me, now, the sight of a drowning man would have scared me out of my wits."
"You cannot swim, Lettie. That is why you think so."
"And then? What did you do next?"
"As soon as I could get near enough, I got my fingers into his hair, and pulled--just a little, then slipped my hand under his shoulder. He got his face above water then, and he began to paddle with his hands."
"And were you not afraid?"
"Well, just a little bit, perhaps, at first. I dreaded his clutching at me. That would have made a finish of us both."
"And did he not? And how could you have prevented it, if he had tried?"
"He did not once attempt to clutch--seemed most careful, indeed, to keep his hands away. Lettie! He is a perfect gentleman, that man!--and brave, I am sure, He thanked me so politely--by-and-by, when he got his face clear of the water for a bit--as politely as if we had both been on dry land--for attempting to assist him; but said he thought I had better let go, as I could not possibly swim ashore with him, and he could do nothing for himself, owing to cramp in his legs. Then Sefton joined us, and together we got him on his back. You cannot imagine how cheerful and composed he was, all through. He actually smiled when our eyes met. Not a struggle did he make, or an attempt to lay hold, which made it far more possible for us to deal with him. If he had struggled, you know, we should certainly have been drowned, all three."
"Don't talk of it, Rose. It is just splendid the way you managed it all, and I am glad to think the man must be a pretty good sort; for you will have to know him, I suppose, after saving his life, and you will be introducing him to mother and me and Fanny. Pity he is so old. Thirty or forty, is he not, mother?"
"More'n forty, I reckon. Rising forty-five, if he wears well. But even fifty ain't old for a marrying man--if he's well off, that is. My senator was not much younger when we made it up between us. I don't hold with very young men myself. They're real hard to break in for runnin' in double harness, and the money's still to make, ginnerally speakin'. And after the girl has slaved and pinched all through her best years, helping to make the fortune, she finds herself too old when it's made to get much good out of it. Don't you be a fool, Lettie, like my sister Barbara. She vowed she'd have a man to please her eye, even if he should vex her heart.... And she got him! And she never had a day's peace from the week their honeymoon ended. She died a brokenhearted woman, with nary bit of life or good looks left in five years' time."
"Pshaw, mother! If you've told that story once, you've told it fifty times. The fellow I agree to take will have to be well off, as well as young and good-looking. See if he isn't!"
"You'll have to look sharp then, Lettie. After twenty-five, a girl has to take what offers, or go without."
"You shut, Fan! School-girls are growing real forward, it seems to me."
CHAPTER VI.
WITH THE SMOKERS.
Joseph Naylor found himself a notoriety for that day, as much as the heroine who had saved his life. It was notoriety, however, with a difference, as compared with hers--less incense-like and intoxicating, though perhaps more tonic.
The Hebrew prophetess makes it the culmination of Sisera's overthrow that he, a warrior, should have been done to death by a woman; and even for the non-combatant there is something ungrateful to manly pride in owing life to a member of the weaker sex. The debt is too heavy to be repaid; and it is conventionally settled that obligation between the sexes should lie the other way. It could scarcely be agreeable to his self-love to feel himself pointed out among his fellows as the man who had gone in swimming that morning, and who would have drowned himself, if a brave young lady had not gone to his rescue and fished him out.
Mrs Carraway surveyed him through her glasses in the interval between her omelet and the robin-on-toast which constituted her breakfast. The sight of a should-have-been drowned gentleman communicated a marine flavour to the little bird, suggestive of oyster-sauce with boiled turkey,--a dish which was not on the bill of fare, and therefore the more delicious. She sent her colonel, after breakfast, to make friends with the interesting creature, and get exact particulars of how it had occurred, at first hand,--rather to the botheration of that tranquil warrior, who, since he had made his home in the Colonies, had for the most part practised an affable silence. If natives who approached him were to his liking, he accepted their advances, and graciously permitted himself to be courted; if they were not, he kept stolidly oblivious of their existence, no matter how pressing their overtures of friendship might be.
It is by no means a bad way of getting easily through life, provided you can persuade people that you are worth courting. That is the difficulty. People worth knowing can generally find better sport than cultivating your Worship; but even if they do attempt it, the game will grow monotonous ere long, on the one side as well as the other. One can fancy that Royalty itself must yawn behind a fan at times, in weariness of uninterrupted adulation.
It was a bore to so reserved a gentleman as Colonel Carraway to break through his own ice; however, he lighted a cigar and strolled away to the gallery facing the north, and always shady, where inmates addicted to tobacco were wont to smoke. Naylor had arrived there before him, and stood the centre of a group in which Judge Petty and Vice-Chancellor Chickenpip vied with each other in displaying their forensic gift of unwearied question-asking--a talent which they made it manifest had not grown rusty from disuse since their elevation to the bench.
"I never experienced the sensation of drowning," the Judge was observing. "Being unable to swim, I never was in danger of it."
"And yet," said the Vice-Chancellor, with a shrug at the little paradox, and eyeing the perpetrator with condescending superiority through his spectacles, as the self-constituted wit is apt to do when his neighbour attempts a sally, "we teach our boys to swim in order to prepare them against such dangers."
"And they rashly tempt them in consequence, and so, not unfrequently, get drowned. For myself, I have all my life had a cat's antipathy to water--always excepting, of course, my morning tub."
"So your lordship's detractors of the blue-ribbon sect have sometimes insinuated," chuckled the other, delighted to be disagreeable by way of jest, however threadbare in form the jest might be. The Vice-Chancellor owed his reputation for smartness to his talent for ill-nature. The dullest can appreciate malice, while wit which is merely sportive requires a sense of humour to understand it.
The Judge was familiar with the idiosyncrasy of his learned brother. "What need one expect from a pig but a grunt!" was his inward exclamation; but he was wise enough not to give it utterance. He merely moved nearer to Naylor, thereby half turning his back upon the other.
"I have always felt curious," he said, "to know what drowning, or, indeed, dying in any form, could be like--without personal experiment, that is. How did it feel, Mr Naylor? What were your sensations?"
"It did not get the length of drowning with me this time. I was a deal too busy struggling for my life, I can tell you, to take much heed of sensations. When at last I got my nose above water, and felt the young lady's fingers twisted in my hair, she was behaving in such splendid style that I could think of nothing but her efforts to help me. If she had not kept cool, you know, instead of drawing me up she would have been drawn down herself; and, crippled and sinking as I was, I could have done nothing to save her. My mind was completely absorbed in watching her efforts, admiring her nerve, and wondering if she would really succeed in keeping afloat. As for saving me, I did not think it possible; for, all the time, that racking cramp kept dragging my leg together, in spite of my straining efforts to stretch it, and drawing me to the bottom like tons of lead. Those cramps are hideous things; and then, after she and Mr Sefton had taken me in tow, and the anxiety for her safety grew less absorbing, the drowning man's instinct of clutching came upon me, and it was all I could do to keep still, and let myself be saved. You are perfectly right, Judge, to keep clear of the possibility of such an experience; but still, this experience was quite different from the feeling of drowning--the helpless struggling and sinking down and away, the yielding of what sustains you on every side, till the idea of up and down is lost in dizziness, while the held-in breath seems bursting you asunder. You bear it for hardly a minute, but that minute lasts an age; and then--and then--no one can describe what follows. You are confused, and benumbed, and melting into nothing. I have gone through it.
"A ship I sailed in, when I was a young man, was run down one foggy night off the coast of Cuba. It was my watch on deck, and that is how I am here to tell the tale. The look-out gave no warning till we were close under the bow of a Spanish man-of-war bearing straight down on us. I shouted to port the helm. It was too late. The Spaniard was into us with a crash. He stove in our quarter, and sent us to the bottom. I was knocked down by the falling rigging, and found myself in the water, entangled among cordage, and drowning as I have described. I know nothing more--nothing till I found myself coming to, on board that foreign ship. The deathly sickness! The longing to sink back into unconsciousness! The dim dull misery and tingling in every limb! as the stagnant blood began once more to circulate. I hope you will never know them. It is bad to drown, but it is far, far worse to be brought to. It was days before I was myself again; but I had plenty of time to recruit. The ship was bound for the Philippines, and it was not till she reached Manilla that I was set ashore."
"Ah! then you have travelled, sir," said the Vice-Chancellor, scrutinising him with the condescension of a superior person recognising an interesting trait in an ordinary mortal. "Yet you have had time to make your fortune at home, and now you are embarking in politics, I hear. You deserve credit for the comprehensiveness of your energy, and will no doubt bring unusual information to bear on public affairs; but politics is as stormy a sea, and one more difficult to navigate than the one you know. It would be a pity, after weathering so many dangers, to make shipwreck there. We want good men in Parliament, but we want them on the right side."
"Is that the side of the patriots, Chancellor?--the men who went into office to save the country, and who made their own fortunes instead? The tide has turned, and left them high and dry on the bank, or in the offices they appointed themselves to fill."
It was a young man who spoke--fair-haired and broad-shouldered, with a complexion burnt to the colour of bricks by the exposure of outdoor life. His clothes were not new, but they fitted him, and there was that look of rest and balance in his limbs which leisure and exercise alone can give,--so different from the smug constraint with which life in chambers and offices stamps the man of affairs.
The Vice-Chancellor turned with the haughty stare of a schoolmaster on the urchin who has spoken out of turn. Colonel Carraway looked disgusted at the bad taste which could drag politics into social intercourse; and politics flavoured with personality as well, to judge by the thrill in the speaker's voice. Senator Deane rolled his cigar round to the other cheek, and--never mind, it is a dirty habit.
"Those Canadians," he observed to his neighbour, "get as hot over their politics as we do. 'What can there be to quarrel about in their small concerns?' say you? The same as in our big affairs--place and plunder, you may be sure. That's about all."
Joseph Naylor turned round to see who it was whose remark had brought the Chickenpip oration to a halt. "What! Walter Blount! You here! Where have you dropped from? The very last man I expected to see. And yet no one but you would have let his political zeal break out on so slight provocation. That comes of not being a native. You take the fever of politics the hotter for being new to it."
"But you are contesting our Riding just now."
"The more need to let alone for the present moment, so as to come fresh to the conflict. Party bickerings grow stale to the mind if one is always harping on them. Time enough to let out when I get back there. This is the seaside. But what brings you here?" resting his eyes admiringly on the other's sturdy limbs. "I see no sign of the relaxed system which is said to need bracing sea-air."
The young man did not change colour. The dusky vermilion of his sunburnt skin was incapable of a heightened tint; but he looked confused under the twinkling laughter of the other's eye. "I shall be selling out this Fall, so I thought I might run down here to the sea before moving West."
"West? Are you dreaming of making a fortune on the prairies?--turning farmer in earnest. Have you killed all the bears in your present neighbourhood, and exterminated the deer?"
"There will be neither bear nor deer within twenty miles before two years are over. The new railway runs right across my farm, and the speculators are prospecting all over the neighbourhood. I am offered a good price for my land. I shall sell, and go West somewhere, where settlers are fewer and game more abundant. No! prairie farming would not suit me. Even an improved farm in a good part of Ontario would be better than that; but I prefer the woods."
The circle round Naylor had now broken into groups occupied with their own talk, leaving him free to pursue his private gossip with his friend. He settled himself on a bench, buried his hands in his pockets, pushed out his feet in front, and blew a mighty cloud of smoke from his German pipe. "I declare I'm tired, Walter, with so much talking this morning. Now for a good old smoke! Where's your pipe?"
Walter sat down beside him and filled his pipe slowly and absently, as if his thoughts were on other things. Then he cleared his voice, lighted the pipe, and with as much off-handness as he could assume observed between the whiffs--
"Your family are with you, Mr Naylor?"
"My family is always with me. I carry the whole of it under my hat," he answered, looking his questioner straight in the eye, with a twinkle which plainly said, "Speak out if you have anything to say. I do not intend to help you."
The young man coughed. The smoke of his pipe had lost its way, and seemed trying for an outlet down his throat. "Mrs Naylor and her daughters are here, I understand?" he said at last.
"Yes."
There was a lengthened silence. "Yes" is not an answer to which the next observation can readily be attached. The questioner removed his pipe, and began nervously to examine what could be making it draw so badly; while the other watched him in silent amusement, tempered with a touch of good-natured pity.
"I wonder," Blount said at last, digging the charge carefully out of his pipe, and so making it unnecessary to raise his eyes to the other's face,--"I wonder what they will say to see me here?"
"Difficult to imagine," came the answer from the thickest of a bank of smoke.
"I fear I am not a favourite with Mrs Naylor."
"She told you not to call any more, I believe? That was pretty plain."
"Was it not too bad of her? What can she have against me? She has known me ever since I came to the country, and she used to be like a mother to me."
"That was imprudent. Now she sees it, I suppose. A mother of girls may become mother-in-law to some young fellow one day, and Mrs Naylor may feel that she ought to reserve herself for that. When girls leave school, you see, circumstances alter."
"I am sure I showed no unwillingness to take her for my mother-in-law."
"That was the trouble. She could have taken you for a son--a full son, understand--and you might have been brother to the girls, if that would have pleased you. But it didn't."
"How could it? Would it have satisfied you--to take a nice girl to picnics, and hold her shawl while another fellow danced with her?"
"Put it that way, and it does seem hard. But what is a mother to do? Her daughters' prospects ought to be her chief care."
"Do you think it is right to be mercenary, then? Is money to stand for everything? Is the fellow to count for nothing?"
"By no means! A good fellow it must be--a nice fellow and a gentleman if possible, or the girl's life is spoiled. No amount of money could make her happy with a ruffian or a cad. But you must remember that Mrs Naylor's girls are young yet, and I cannot blame her for wishing to look about before fixing their position for life."
"It is hard to be passed over merely for being the first comer. And they may happen on worse subjects as well as better."
"Quite true. There is a proverb about a girl who was so particular about the stick she went to cut, that she came to the end of the wood before she could make up her mind, and then she had to content herself with a crooked one, or go without. However, proverbial philosophy goes for nothing, you know; people like to try for themselves. Still, there is excuse for a mother wishing not to bury her accomplished daughter in the backwoods, as wife to a wild huntsman. One can understand that it would be pleasant for you, after being out all day with your gun and your dog, to find your dinner laid, and a pretty young wife beside a cosy fire waiting for you; but you cannot call it unreasonable if the lady's friends wish to secure her a less solitary home. When you are out, what will she have to amuse her but needle and thread? the chickens and the cows? You would not like to think of her sitting in the kitchen talking to the help; and yet you know they will be the only human creatures she will have to speak to when you are away."
"I told you I was selling out. She can choose her home anywhere between Gaspé and Vancouver."
"You would not like to live in a town, and a girl must have been bred on a farm to live happily on one afterwards."
"You leave the husband out of the calculation. Do you think she could be happy even in London or New York with a fellow she did not care for?"
"That is true; but she need not marry unless she cares."
"While even in the bush, if she liked the fellow, and he was fond of her, I think they might both be completely happy."
"I am with you there, my lad. Not a doubt of it,"--and he buried his hands deeper in his pockets, and bent his head forward to look at his boots, drawing a deep breath, and smoking harder than ever.
"Then why--Do you not think, Mr Naylor, you could bring your sister-in-law to see it in that light? You have always been a friend to me, since the first day I met you."
"Always your friend. Be sure of it. But I doubt my influence with Mrs Naylor; and, if I had any, I doubt if I ought to interfere. Girls cannot know their own minds till they have seen something of the world. They may mistake a passing fancy for real regard; and if they have married in the meantime, there are two lives spoiled, instead of one just a little scorched--and that only for the moment, perhaps," he added, after a pause. Then pulling himself together,--"But what makes you talk like this to a crusty old bachelor? You cannot expect sympathy in your love-affairs from one who has resisted the illusions of sentiment as successfully as I have, surely?"
"I don't know. People are not bachelors and old maids for being harder than their neighbours, I suspect. I often fancy it is the other way. But at least you are not against my trying, are you? You will not do anything to make my chances less than they are already?"
"No, Blount; I'll do nothing against you. I could almost wish the girl took a fancy to you, for I believe you are real; and if she does, I will do nothing to dissuade her. Money and position are not everything, by any means."
CHAPTER VII.
A TABLEAU.
Mrs Deane and her party returned early from their drive. The loungers on the galleries saw them alight. They also saw Naylor come hurriedly forward, uncovered beneath the penetrating glare of noon, which singled out the scattered hairs of white among the brown about his temples, and made them glitter in a way not grateful to the feelings of a well-preserved bachelor in middle life--if he had but known it.
Why can a man not stick fast at five-and-thirty?--at least till he marries? He is at his best then physically, though mentally--if he has a mind worth mentioning--he may go on improving for another decade, if not longer. There is so much in life, and in one's self, worth knowing, and which is not found out till after the time when the knowledge would have been most precious has slidden by. The soul grows slower than the body, and may only be coming into bloom when those weariful crow-feet are beginning to gather round the eyes. But girls cannot be expected to see all this. How should they, when youth in themselves is held the crown and perfume of all their charm?
Still Naylor passed fairly well beneath the scrutiny of curious eyes--"the man who had been all but drowned that morning." He looked active, and even athletic, if somewhat gone to flesh. There was honesty in the steadfast grey eye, and modest self-possession in the fresh-coloured face. There was an earnestness, too, at the moment, which lent his bearing the dignity which is seldom attainable by the well-fed man of middle age and medium stature.
"Miss Hillyard," he said, "I have not had the happiness of being introduced to you; but surely, under the debt I owe you from this morning, you will allow me to offer you my grateful thanks."
"Mr Naylor," she answered, holding out her hand, "pray say nothing more about it. You have thanked me already, you know. But I am happy to make your acquaintance. I only did what any bather must have done who was near enough. I feel a little proud, I acknowledge, of my success, and pleased to have been of use; but do not talk of debts and gratitude: it sounds oppressive."
"I cannot take it so easily as that, Miss Hillyard. If you had not laid hold on me as you did, I should have gone under. I felt myself sinking when you touched me. I should have been down before Sefton reached me--I am sure of that. You saved my life: it is an obligation which I never can repay."
Rosa flushed a little, and looked down. There were a good many pair of female eyes in the gallery turned upon her, as she felt, with interest, and just a suspicion of envy, which could not but be gratifying. Still, it was embarrassing to stand out there on the gravel when the carriage had driven off, a cynosure for the eyes of all the people above; and just a trifle stagey, with this bareheaded gentleman presenting his acknowledgments with demonstrative respect. Queen Elizabeth would have liked it; but then, she was a public character: and besides, we prefer nowadays to keep our theatricals and our private life apart. At the same time, it was pleasant to hear this earnest and respectful gentleman assure her that she had saved his life: he looked so manly and so strong. It made her think well of herself to have been able to help him; and his clear grey eyes looked so truthful and brave in their level gaze, that she wondered how their parts in the morning's episode should have been so strangely reversed, and felt how safe she would have been in his company had the accident happened to herself.
As for him, standing before her and looking in her face, it seemed as if the years must have rolled back upon themselves,--the long savourless years since his youth,--the years which had been so bitter when first he had passed through his sore probation of sorrow; and then, when the lacerated spirit had learned to endure, had grown dull and insipid. He had felt himself alone, and that the joy of life was not for him; that others might love, but he must stand aside, an onlooker at the feast at which no place was laid for him. This new stirring in his benumbed emotions seemed like the summers he remembered long ago in the South, when the plants, made torpid by the arid heat, forget to grow, waiting through rainless weeks beneath a brazen sky. Then come the showers at last, and the roses put out buds and bloom anew, till winter comes to nip them.
He could not withdraw his eyes from the beautiful face before him. As he looked, it seemed transformed into another--another, yet still the same. This was more mature and strong; but that other might have been so too, if it had been given him to see it later. The soft brown eyes were the same, which lighted when she spoke, with the same blueness in the white, a lingering remainder from the freshness and purity of childhood. The hair was less dark than hers whom he remembered so well, and it had a crisper wave, which caught the falling sunbeams here and there, and flashed them brightly back like burnished bronze. There was rich warm colour, too, in the cheek, while that other had been pale; but the difference accorded with the change of scene between the bracing airs of the North and the thick hot languor of Louisiana. This face had vigour and maturity; the other had been more tender and more frail. Its charm had lain in a drooping softness claiming support, and promises for the future as yet unfulfilled; while this was in the glory of all her beauty, sufficient for herself in her supple strength--a companion for manhood, as the other had been the clinging cherished one for youth.
The silence had now lasted for nearly a minute. Rosa became uneasily aware that she was contributing a tableau for the entertainment of her fellow-guests, which might be interpreted as "Love at first sight," or a modern and burlesque rendering of "Pharaoh's daughter and the infant Moses," according to their several humours. She looked up in her companion's face, with rising colour in her own, and the flicker of a smile about her lips, while she held out her hand.
"You are staying here, Mr Naylor, are you not?" she said. "We shall see each other again. I am pleased to know you. Now I must follow Mrs Deane," and she turned and went up the stairs.
Naylor awoke from his reverie, and found himself alone. He felt how few and bald had been his expressions of obligation; and he had come forward prepared to deliver himself so fully, and in such carefully chosen words, when the near view of her face had raised long-buried recollections, and confused him with a sense of doubleness in the presence before him, and left his memory blank. The tender girl he had been parted from long ago, seemed associated and blended with the personality of this beautiful deliverer before him; and in an effort to disentangle the old impressions from the new, the precious moment for uttering his little speech had slipped away. Now he was alone, feeling how tongue-tied and thankless he must have appeared, and how impossible it would be to make another opportunity for delivering his speech.
And yet the speech might not be necessary now. She had received him very graciously, and had even said that she was pleased to know him--said it twice--and that they would meet again. "What more could he want?" he thought; "and was he not an ass to fancy that any set phrases of his could give pleasure to so glorious a creature?--and shabby at heart, to think that any string of words could lessen the obligation under which he stood? He must never forget the debt, or dream that by word or act it could be lessened; rather, he must treasure the recollection, and watch and be ready, if haply he might, some day, be privileged to serve or succour in return."
So thinking, he turned on his heel and went his way, leaving the spectators in the gallery to find some other object to divert their leisure.