University of Virginia Library

22. CHAPTER XXII.
THE UPSET.

They approached the steep side of the North Mountain,
whose ten thousand stalwart pines bent down beneath
the heavy snow-burden resting on their branches; and
commenced the ascent, lost in admiration of the scene, so
still, so desolate, but so replete with beauty.

The top of the mountain was reached, and behind them
the entire valley from east to west—from the Blue Ridge
to the spot which they had now reached—was visible.
They gazed for a moment on the snow-clad Lowlands,
followed pensively the light curling wreaths of smoke
with admiring eyes; then with the ever-merry tinkling
of the bells went rapidly down the western slope toward
the Third Hill Mountain and the little valley it embraced
in its shaggy snow-clad arms.

“It is near sunset,” said Alice, “and we have some way
to go yet, Mr. Emberton. How much time we have lost.”

“I can but felicitate myself.”

“For what reason?”

“I have had so much more of your society,” said Mr.
Emberton tranquilly, in a matter-of-course tone.

“You seem in a complimentary humor.”

“I am, my dear Miss Alice,” replied Mr. Emberton,
yawning, “the fact is, I am this evening in quite excellent
spirits; are not you?”

“Not unusually,” replied Alice.

“Are you uncomfortable? I am afraid you are not
wrapped up as well as Miss Caroline, who has for her
cavalier a much more elegant man than myself.”

“Which means,” replied Alice, “that I am expected
to say that such is not the fact.”

“No, no, my dear Miss Alice; these little conventionalities
may suit ordinary young gentlemen very well; but
not me. I am indifferent wholly to all that. In fact I'm
—exhausted; I would say blasé, but for the undeserved
contempt into which that expressive word has fallen. No,
no—on my honor, I had no intention of fishing for a compliment.
I meant simply to say, that considering riding
out a bore except with a few of my lady friends, and
consequently being somewhat unused to it, I had probably
neglected to wrap you up securely from the cold.”

“I am plenty warm, thank you—except my hands,
which I have in the hurry unaccountably neglected. They
are cold; but I will get my gloves out of my reticule.”

In performing this manœuvre, Alice also drew from the
reticule with the gloves, a piece of paper, which fell open
upon the bear-skin before Mr. Emberton's eyes. This
paper contained some verses, and—what was more unusual—a
rose bud had been wrapped in it.

“Poetry, by Jove!” said Mr. Emberton. “Excuse me,
Miss Alice, that shocking expression will escape me in
spite of my most careful attention. But who wrote these
verses—pardon me for having already unconsciously read
a portion of the first.”

Alice looked annoyed; then indifferent

“They were written by cousin Max,” she said, “and
I have no objection to your seeing them, as you have
already read a part.”

“It was unconscious, I assure you.”

“Unconscious indeed!”

“Purely,” said Mr. Emberton, taking the paper and
reading the verses with a languid expression:

purely unconscious, I assure you, Miss Alice, and did
you know my utter indifference to poetry in general, you
would at once admit my excuse. My eyes fell upon the
page without any intention on my part of reading what
was thereon written. MS. is such a bore.”

Alice had already restored the rose bud to her reticule
—feeling some dread of Mr. Emberton's bantering. That
gentleman, however, either had not seen it, or did not
think it worth his while to take notice of the fact.

He continued reading the verses:

pretty, but the accent is not indicated by italicizing the
`I;'—you will observe the author's meaning is, that he,
like the sunset, should have shuffled off this mortal coil
before leaving the mountain side!”

“You are very critical.”

“By no means. I am in an excellent humor—which
is very natural, since our sleigh is making good time.
Rapid motion always invigorates me—except the waltz,
which is an awful bore—dreadful.”

“We are going very rapidly.”

“Yes, Miss Alice; and the bells; nice music, eh?”

“I like it very much.”

“Then Selim knows his points; a spanker, is he not?”

“I don't know what you mean by a `spanker,”' said
Alice, tranquilly, “but he is well broken to the harness.”

“You are fond of sleighing, Miss Alice?”

“Exceedingly.”

“Yes?”

And after this compendious monosyllable, Mr. Emberton
fixing his reins securely in one hand, betook himself
again to reading Max's verses.

He had just reached the lines,

when an exclamation of affright from Alice made him
drop the paper, and grasp suddenly the loose rein he had
allowed to slack too much.

The cause of the young girl's exclamation was apparent.
Max and Caroline in passing over the ice, now rendered
unsafe by the gradual thawing it had throughout the day
been subjected to, had almost broken through the bending
crust, near the very centre of the stream. They were
now plainly visible on a little knoll beyond, making signs
to the second sleigh not to cross at the same spot.

It was too late. Mr. Emberton's horse thundered down
the bank and rushed upon the smooth surface. The consequence
was that the animal's forelegs broke through
the ice, and the sleigh was in a moment nearly submerged.
Max whirled his horse round and hurried back to the rescue
of the party, just as Mr. Emberton, by a violent blow
of his whip, forced his horse, the sleigh, and all through
the icy water, and the broken ice, to the bank.

Caroline received the trembling Alice in her arms, turning
pale at her sister's narrow escape. Had the water
been deeper, a most serious accident might have been the
consequence.

“Oh, Alice!” cried Caroline, wiping her eyes.

“I'm not hurt, sister,” rejoined Alice, recovering her
lost color.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“And you, Mr. Emberton?” said Caroline, turning round
suddenly to that gentleman, who was almost covered with
ice.

“Thank you,” said Mr. Emberton, “perfectly sound—
arrived safe. My luck was always execrable, you know.”

“We made signs, sir,” said Max, austerely, “you
might have seen them.”

“I did not, sir.”

“You might have seriously injured Miss Courtlandt, sir.”

Mr. Emberton's eye flashed at the haughty tone of the
young man's voice.

“Miss Courtlandt was under my charge, sir,” he replied,
endeavoring to assume his habitual coolness.

“I beg that you will have more care when such shall
be the case in future, sir,” said Max, indignant at Mr.
Emberton's coolness and indifference.

Mr. Emberton, by a powerful effort, suppressed the
angry reply which rose to his lips, and said satirically:

“You are I suppose, Miss Alice's knight as well as
Miss Caroline's, and I have no right to quarrel with you.
But I would respectfully suggest that you were partly
the occasion of our accident.”

“I, sir!”

“Certainly: but for being busily engaged reading some
agreeable verses of yours, I should doubtless have seen
the signs which were used, it seems, in such profusion to
warn me.”

Alice blushed, and looked at Max timidly.

“I do not understand you, sir,” said the young man,
coldly.

“He was reading your verses, `The Mountain-side,'
cousin Max,” said Alice, softly, “they happened to—”

“Is it possible you allowed them to be made a laughing
stock in your presence, cousin Alice,” said Max, in a
tone of profound mortification, “and by Mr. Emberton?
Cousin Alice!”

Alice opened her lips to refute this charge on the young
man's part; but Mr. Emberton interrupted her.

“A laughing stock, sir?” he said, “by no means! I
was admiring the said verses, and really was not bored
more than I am usually by poetry; I think I may venture
to say even less than usual. I particularly admired
one of the stanzas which I chanced to read just as I went
beneath the ice—devilish cold day for a bath; excuse me
ladies! I was reading your verses very attentively when

our accident happened, and to prove to you that they
made a deep impression on me, I will repeat the lines in
question. They were
Fine verses, expressive verses: very expressive! For
you will observe that not only the sunset but Miss Alice
and myself were very nearly:
And that reminds me that my arm hurts like thunder;
really ladies I shall never break myself of this dreadful
habit. Pardon, pardon!”

Mr. Emberton having achieved this explanation, which
served the double purpose of affording him a safety valve
for his satirical humor, and of turning the whole affair
into a jest, carefully wrapped his companion's feet in the
warm bear-skin, and touching his panting and foaming
animal with the whip, again set forward toward the Parsonage
beyond the mountain.

They arrived without further accident, just as the last
light of sunset fading away like a rosy blush before the
approach of night, waned slowly from the western sky;
and to Mr. Emberton's great satisfaction and delight, the
young ladies made quite a jest of the accident. In truth
Alice had scarcely received a wetting, wrapped as she
had been in her thick bear-skin; Mr. Emberton, on the
contrary, had had his arm badly bruised by the concussion
with the ice.

They took leave of the family now—both the young
men—and Max was about to get into his sleigh when he
felt a finger on his shoulder.