 | II.
ARCHY'S ADVENTURES. Lucy Arlyn |  |
2. II.
ARCHY'S ADVENTURES.
BACK through the village went the discarded
lover on his miserable errand.
Up a long, lonesome road he turned, over the
hills. A clear moon shone in the heavens; the village below
him lay deep down in the dewy valley; while, before him,
solemn mountains lifted their silent crags in the misty distance.
A group of Lombardy poplars, away on the left, reared
their gloomy tops above the surrounding foliage, and guided
Archy to the house he was to visit. The poplars fronted a
cross-road, and bordered an avenue leading up to a large
brown mansion-house in the midst of shady grounds. Over
sleeping fruit-trees and still garden-walks lay the white mantle
of the moonshine: a fountain trickled musically somewhere,
not far off; and, all around, the air was fragrant with the
breath of flowers.
Poor Archy's heart swelled with a tumult of conflicting
emotions as he walked in among the great gloomy poplars,
bearing Lucy's letter. There in that fine house lived her
a poor widow's son, ever to think of loving her? But
Guy was a wild youth, and her intercourse with him was
secret; and maybe he would break her heart, as it was said
he had broken more than one poor heart before: thinking
of which, Archy's soul was filled with bitterness and burning
jealousy; and he felt, in his hatred of Guy, that he could bind
him to his flying-machine (if it was only finished), and send
him up into eternal clouds, without mercy.
As he approached, however, his hate was changed to fear.
He had always felt an instinctive dread of grand folks generally,
and of the Banningtons in particular. The colonel was
a terrible man, with frightful paralytic limbs; and Guy was a
reckless fellow, who kept a number of large fierce dogs, which
Archy looked and hearkened for now, pausing among the poplars
with thrills of terror.
But the dogs were chained in their kennels that summer
night. No savage growl or sudden onset of wolfish brutes
leaping out from shadowy places threatened the timorous letter-bearer.
He hastened to a side-door, where he saw a light,
and was admitted by the housekeeper. He had escaped the
dogs; but now Guy, scarcely less formidable, was to be confronted.
In a small library-room, furnished with richly carved bookcases,
the walls hung with pictures, and fantastically adorned
with implements and insignia of war and sport, — horse-pistols,
foils, rifles, spurs, a short sword, a long sword, a military
a cigar in his mouth, wreaths of smoke about his head,
and a book lying open in the lamplight beside him, Archy
found his dreaded rival.
A well-proportioned youth, with a broad, shapely head covered
by a mass of carelessly tossed, wavy brown hair; eyebrows
strong, and beautifully arched; blue eyes; imperious
mouth; decidedly a sanguine and impetuous temperament,
but by no means so wicked-looking as Archy's imagination
had pictured him, — such was the proud and ill-reputed Guy.
Archy, who had expected to be met by haughtiness and
scorn, was almost charmed into admiration by the youth's
easy politeness and radiant manner; but, when he saw the
expression of triumphant joy that shone in his handsome
face as he ran his eye over the letter, his bitterness and burning
jealousy returned, and he glared at him darkly from a
corner.
“Archibald is your name?” cried the pleasant Guy.
“Yessir,” muttered Archy.
“Archibald, I thank you ever so much: give me your
hand.”
Archy would have put out his hand; but he saw that Guy's
had money in it, and he shrank back.
“I didn't come over here for pay. I come to please Miss
Arlyn.”
“I like you the better for that. But you won't refuse a
little present.” And, returning the money to his pocket, Guy
of blades, which fascinated the eye of the genius, and proved
too great a temptation to be resisted.
Archy accepted the gift, therefore, and departed: but, all the
way back, the memory of Guy's radiant face tortured his soul;
and the knife weighed heavier and heavier in his conscientious
pocket, until, arrived in sight of his mother's cottage, he
plucked it forth, and angrily threw it into a clump of sumachs
by the fence.
The sound of a foot on the iron scraper aroused the widow
as she sat knitting and waiting; and, with tears of hope and
fondness beaming in her eyes, she sprang to meet her son.
His prolonged absence had been to her convincing evidence
of the success of his suit. She saw Lucy smile sweetly as
she accepted him; and for the last two hours she had imagined
the happy lovers seated familiarly side by side on the sofa in
Mrs. Pinworth's parlor, exchanging tender confidences, and
laying plans for the future. What else could keep him so
long? And now, candle in hand, she smilingly opened the
door to welcome and congratulate him.
“Well, my son! what's the good news?” she fondly asked
as Archy staggered in.
The genius made no answer; but his hat was pitched in an
attitude of despair over his brow, and great weights of grief
hung upon the corners of his mouth.
“Why, Archy! what's the matter?”
“Nothin'!” muttered Archy in a cracked, uncertain
voice.
“Why, yes there is!” cried the alarmed and sympathizing
widow. “Say! she hasn't mittened ye, has she?”
Whereupon Archy's feelings burst forth in loud weeping
and lamentation; in the midst of which, he sobbed out the
story of his woe.
“I thought, of course, you was talkin' over the weddin'
with her all this time! Well, Archy, she ain't wuth breakin'
your heart about. She's an unfeelin' coquette; and that's the
long and short on't!”
“Don't blame her,” said Archy, saturating his sleeve.
“She never thought I'd be sich a silly fool as to — to want
to marry her!”
“But why didn't you come right home and tell me?
What kep' ye so?”
“I — I — didn't feel like comin' any sooner.”
“Poor boy!” murmured the widow.
She did not question him further on that point. Archy
was glad of that; for he felt that Lucy's secret was sacred;
and, moreover, it would have given him too much pain to relate
what he knew of her indiscretion. Mrs Brandle was already
sufficiently severe, heaping reproaches and proverbs upon the
offending girl.
“`A woman's mind, the wintry wind!'” said she. “If
you'd been a little more offish, she'd have thought more on ye;
and maybe she'll come round yet, Archy. `Foller love, and
it will flee; flee love, and it will foller thee.'”
“No, she won't! she'll foller somebody else,” replied the
genius dolefully.
“Some rich man, I s'pose she thinks, because she's perty!
`Many a one, for land, takes a fool by the hand.' But don't
you care, my son. `He that's poor when he's married shall
be rich before he's buried;' and there's enough other gals
that'll have ye, good as she.”
“No, no, not as good as she! and I don't ever want to be
rich now!”
“Come, you mustn't give up so. I'll tell ye what,
Archy,” said the widow, trying to think of something to cheer
him, “you'll make a fortin' yet out of that ten-mile-an-hour
horse-propellin' carriage. The idee of havin' a horse turnin'
a treadmill and ride is the cutest thing, arter all!”
“The horse-propeller may go to grass, for all I care. I
sha'n't tech it agin!”
“Oh, yes, you will! don't talk so, Archy. And there's the
dog-churn: I've been thinkin' we can use that the way you
said, — tie a piece of meat jest out of reach of Carlo's nose,
so's't when he tries to git it he'll haf to turn the wheel.
Come, we'll git out the churn to-morrow, and try it.”
“Cant't now,” said Archy.
“Can't? Why not?”
“'Cause I used the wheels.”
“What for?”
“To make that darned” —
“Don't swear, my son,” interposed Mrs. Brandle.
“That double - motioned punkin - parin' machine,” said
Archy.
“And why don't you finish that?”
“'Cause I can't till punkins git ripe, so I can try one.”
“There was your labor-savin' corn-husker you had last
year — what ever become o' that?”
“'Twouldn't work.”
“Wouldn't work! Why not?”
“Cause all ears o' corn don't happen to be of a bigness;
which I didn't think on at fust.”
“But your flyin'-machine, my son” —
“I don't care for the flyin'-machine! It never'll go. I
shall take that, and the horse-propeller, and the punkin-parer,
and every thing else, and burn 'em all up together!” said the
disconsolate Archy.
“Well, well, my son,” — the widow took his head in her
lap to comfort him, — “no wonder you feel kind o' down in
the mouth to-night. But you'll be in better sperits to-morrow.
You'd better go to bed now perty soon, and git a good
night's rest. `Airly to bed, and airly to rise, makes a man
healthy, wealthy, and wise.' You'll be bright as a dollar in
the mornin', I'll prophesy!”
Archy went to his room, sat by the window, and looked
across the moonlit silent fields towards Lucy's home. His
heart was very heavy still. He could not think of sleep; he
could not get breath enough to sigh with in the little chamber.
But the night was dewy and cool, and it invited him forth.
Stealing from the house, he crossed the orchard, and wandered
down the road, past the mill-pond, and through the
the moonshine, dashing over dark rocks; and the voice of the
waters sounded mournful and lonesome to his soul. He wondered
if they had ever sounded so to anybody before, and
thought of himself as the only miserable being in the universe.
Lucy, he thought, was happy: Lucy was sleeping there in
the still cottage, which he had come all this distance with his
aching heart just to look at once more, and sigh hopelessly for
her. The moon shone brightly upon the white gable, and silvered
the lilacs and quinces that screened the lower windows
of the house. Archy knew her room: and, climbing the
garden fence, he entered softly among the shrubbery, and laid
himself down upon the earth, beneath the starry heavens,
where he could watch her windows; wishing he might lie
there and watch there until his soul sank into the oblivion of
that blessed sleep from which there is no awaking. Foolish,
foolish Archy, not to know that in a few days his flying-machine
would once more have an interest for him, and that
even Guy's pocket-knife would give life a flavor!
While he lay there, the dull tramp of hoofs and the muffled
grinding of light wheels through the sand caught his ear. A
vehicle stopped by the fence. A man alighted, tied his horse,
and, climbing into the garden, passed within three yards of
Archy lying darkly on the ground. The genius crouched and
trembled, and listened for dogs; for, as the form moved by
him in the moonlight, he recognized the proud, confident, dangerous
Guy.
But no dogs came snuffing after; and, stilling his wild heart-beats,
Archy watched. And now he almost cried out with
agony, so bitter was his woe, so sharp his jealous pangs; for,
when the wild youth shook the boughs of the rustling lilac
under Lucy's window, a beautiful head with curls stole out of
the shadows of the chamber, and appeared in the moonlight,
looking down into the gloom.
The genius crept away, but hid again by the fence, as two
forms, issuing together from the garden, passed into the street,
and silently mounted the vehicle. Then again was heard the
dull tramp of hoofs, with the muffled grinding of wheels along
the sandy street; and Archy was alone under the stars.
“O Lucy, Lucy! you give your love to that bad man,
who don't know the vally on't; and he'll break your heart
wus'n you have broke mine!”
Having uttered this prophecy as he recrossed the bridge,
Archy returned home, and went to bed. He fell asleep almost
immediately, and dreamed that a flock of wild flying-machines
alighted on his mother's door-yard, where Lucy fed
them out of her new flower-boxes; and that Guy Bannington
was changed into a dog-churn, but still insisted on smoking
his cigar while Carlo was turning him.
It was late the next morning when he awoke. The birds
were singing before his window, and the sun was shining upon
his bed.
“Well, my son!” said Mrs. Brandle, greeting him with
a cheerful smile as he made his appearance: “you have had
milked the cow and fed the pig, so's't you can go to work on
your horse-propeller right arter breakfast.”
Archy was touched by his mother's kindness, but lugubriously
shook his uncombed head at the horse-propeller and
breakfast. He went to the shop in a little while; and Mrs.
Brandle, hearing the noise of hammering and sawing, peeped
softly in to see what he was doing. He was finishing some
flower-boxes commenced the day before.
“Oh!” said the widow, in a kind, half-reproachful tone,
“are ye to work on them? What's your notion, my
son?”
“I told her I would finish 'em and take 'em over to-day,”
said Archy.
Firm in his resolution to keep his promise, he put the boxes
carefully together, and set off with them that forenoon.
Reaching Mrs. Pinworth's house, he placed the boxes on
the piazza, and was hurrying away, when a voice spoke to
him; and, looking round, he saw Lucy's face at a window.
She beckoned him back, met him on the piazza, and gave him
her hand.
“Ye want me to put dirt in the boxes for ye?” asked the
genius.
“No, Archy, but to thank you. Perhaps I shall not see
you many times more,” she said in a low voice.
“O Lucy! Be you goin'?”
“Hush, Archy! They mustn't hear. I shall always
and you will be happy.”
While Archy was choking, and trying to say something,
she disappeared. It was all like a dream to him, — her pale
face, her anxious and distressed look, her sweet, gentle voice.
Reluctantly he left the piazza, and returned home.
“My son!” cried Mrs. Brandle with a beaming countenance,
“you can't guess who has been here?”
“Who has?” asked Archy.
“Guy Bannington,” smiled the widow.
“What did he want?” asked the genius with darkening
countenance.
“What do you think? Sich a nice chance it is for you,
my son! Col. Bannington, you know, — he can't walk; and
Aaron Burble, that takes care on him and sees to things, has
too much to do; and they jest want to git you to wheel him
about in his chair. They keep the dogs chained up; and you
can be to hum mor'n half the time, Guy says, and git good
pay; and the work won't be nothin' but fun!”
The widow was all smiles; but Archy's face did not brighten.
“'Sfer suthin' 'sides that Guy wants me!” he muttered,
but refused to state the nature of the diabolical business in
which he suspected that he was to be employed.
“Don't you go to gittin' any sich notions into your head,”
said Mrs. Brandle. “`An easy fool is a knave's tool,' as the
old sayin' is; but you're smart enough to look out for yourself;
and I don't imagine Guy is half so bad as some folks
him; for he's jest as perlite as he can be.”
That was gall to Archy, who scowlingly knocked in the
crown of his straw hat over his forehead, and looked glum.
After dinner, however, he was persuaded to go and call
on Colonel Bannington. The colonel's wheeled chair decided
him. He came home quite cheerful, having accepted the
situation; reclaimed the discarded pocket-knife from the sumachs;
and immediately set to work to construct a new and
improved patent hand-carriage for invalids.
| II.
ARCHY'S ADVENTURES. Lucy Arlyn | |