University of Virginia Library

41. CHAPTER XLI.
USE OF COATS IN A STORM.

It was a very picturesque group seated that day beneath the
golden trees; and the difference in the appearance of each member
of the party made the effect more complete.

Redbud, with her mild, tender eyes, and gentle smile and sylvan
costume, was the representative of the fine shepherdesses of
former time, and wanted but a crook to worthily fill Marlow's
ideal; for she had not quite

her slender waist was encircled by a crimson ribbon, quite as
prettily embroidered as the zone of the old poet's fancy, and
against her snowy neck the coral necklace which she wore was
clearly outlined, rising and falling tranquilly, like May-buds woven
by child-hands into a bright wreath, and launched on the
surface of some limpid stream.

And Fanny—gay, mischievous Fanny, with her mad-cap
countenance, and midnight eyes, and rippling, raven curls—
Fanny looked like a young duchess taking her pleasure, for the
sake of contrast, in the woods—far from ancestral halls, and
laughing at the follies of the court. Her hair trained back—as
Redbud's was—in the fashion called La Pompadour; her red-heeled
rosetted shoes—her silken gown—all this was plainly

the costume of a courtly maiden. Redbud was the country;
Fanny, town.

Between Verty and Ralph, we need not say, the difference
was as marked.

The one wild, primitive, picturesque, with the beauty of the
woods.

The other richly dressed, with powdered hair and silk stockings.

This was the group which sat and laughed beneath the fine old
tulip trees, and gazed with delight upon the splendid landscape,
and were happy. Youth was theirs, and that sunshine of the
breast which puts a spirit of joy in everything. They thought
of the scene long years afterwards, and saw it bathed in the
golden hues of memory; and sighed to think that those bright
days and the child-faces had departed—faces lit up radiantly
with so much tenderness and joy.

Do not all of us? Does the old laughter never ring again
through all the brilliant past, so full of bright, and beautiful, and
happy figures—figures which illustrated and advanced that past
with such a glory as now lives not upon earth? Balder the
beautiful is gone, but still Hermoder sees him through the gloom
—only the form is dead, the love, and joy, and light of brilliant
eyes remains, shrined in their memory. Thus, we would fain
believe that no man loses what once made him happy—that for
every one a tender figure rises up at times from that horizon, lit
blue and gold, called youth: some loving figure, with soft,
tender smiles, and starlike eyes, and arms which beckon slowly
to the weary traveller. The memory of the old youthful scenes
and figures may be deadened by the inexorable world, but still
the germ remains; and this old lost tradition of pure love, and
joy, and youth, comes back again to bless us.

The young girls and their companions passed the hours very
merrily upon the summit of the tall hill, from which the old
border town was visible far below, its chimneys sending upward

slender lines of smoke, which rose like blue and golden staves of
olden banners, then were flattened, and so melted into air.

Winchester itself had slowly sunk into gloom, for the evening
was coming on, and a storm also. The red light streamed from
a mass of clouds in the west, which resembled some old feudal
castle in flames; and the fiery furzes of the sunset only made the
blackness of the mass more palpable.

Then this light gradually disappeared: a murky gloom settled
down upon the conflagration, as of dying fires at midnight, and
a cool wind from the mountains rose and died away, and rose
again, and swept along in gusts, and shook the trees, making
them grate and moan.

Verty rose to his feet.

“In five minutes we shall have a storm,” he said. “Come,
Redbud—and Miss Fanny.”

Even as he spoke, the far distance pushed a blinding mass
toward them, and a dozen heavy drops began to fall.

“We cannot get back!” cried Ralph.

“But we can reach the house at the foot of the hill!” said
Fanny.”

“No time to lose!”

And so saying, Verty took Redbud's hand, and leaving Fanny
to Ralph, hastened down the hill.

Before they had gone twenty steps, the thunder gust burst on
them furiously.

The rain was blinding—terrible. It scudded along the hill-side,
driven by the wind, with a fury which broke the boughs,
snapped the strong rushes, and flooded everything.

Redbud, who was as brave a girl as ever lived, drew her chip
hat closer on her brow, and laughed. Fanny laughed for company,
but it was rather affected, and the gentlemen did not
consider themselves called upon to do likewise.

“Oh, me!” cried Verty, “you'll be drenched, Redbud! I
must do something for your shoulders. They are almost bare!”

And before Redbud could prevent him, the young man drew off
his fur fringed coat and wrapped it round the girl's shoulders,
with a tenderness which brought the color to her cheek.

Redbud in vain remonstrated—Verty was immovable; and to
divert her, called her attention to the goings on of Ralph.

This young gentleman had no sooner seen Verty strip off his
coat for Redbud, than with devoted gallantry he jerked off his
own, and threw it over Miss Fanny; not over her shoulders only,
but her head, completely blinding her: the two arms hanging
down, indeed, like enormous ears from the young girl's cheeks.

Having achieved this feat, Mr. Ralph hurried on—followed
Verty and Redbud over the log, treating Miss Fanny much after
the fashion of the morning; and so in ten minutes they reached
the house at the foot of the hill, and were sheltered.

Fanny overflowed with panting laughter as she turned and
threw the coat back to Ralph.

“There, sir!” she cried, “there is your coat! How very gallant
in you! I shall never—no, sir, never forget your devotedness!”

And the young girl wrung the water from her curls, and
laughed.

“Nothing more natural, my dear,” said Ralph.

“Than what?”

“My devotedness.”

“How?”

“Can you ask?”

“Yes, sir, I can.”

“Would you have me a heathen?”

“A heathen!”

“Yes, Miss Fanny; the least which would be expected of a
gentleman would be more than I have done, under the circumstances,
and with the peculiar relationship between us.

“Oh, yes, cousinship!”

“No, madam, intended wedlock.”

“Sir!”

“Come, don't blush so, my heart's delight,” said Ralph, “and
if the subject is disagreeable, that is, a reference to it in this public
manner, I will say no more.”

“Hum!”—

“There, now—”

“I think that your impudence—”

“Is very reasonable,” said Ralph, filling up the sentence; “but
suppose you dry your feet, and yourself generally, as Miss Redbud
is doing. That is more profitable than a discussion with
me.”

This advice seemed excellent, and Fanny determined to follow
it, though she did not yield in the tongue contest without a number
of “hums!” which finally, however, died away like the
mutterings of the storm without.

The good-humored old woman to whom the humble mansion
belonged, had kindled a bundle of twigs in the large fire-place;
and before the cheerful blaze the young girls and their cavaliers
were soon seated, their wet garments smoking, and the owners of
the garments laughing.

The good-humored old dame would have furnished them with
a change, but this was declared unnecessary, as the storm seemed
already exhausted, and they would, ere long, be able to continue
their way.

Indeed, the storm had been one of those quick and violent
outbursts of the sky, which seem to empty the clouds instantly
almost, as though the pent up waters were shut in by a floodgate,
shattered by the thunder and the lighting. Soon, only a few
heavy drops continued to fall, and the setting sun, bursting in
splendor from the western clouds, poised its red ball of fire upon
the horizon, and poured a flood of crimson on the dancing
streamlets, the glittering grass, and drenched foliage of the hill-side.

Redbud rose, smiling.

“I think we can go now,” she said, I am afraid to stay any
longer—my clothes are very wet, and I have not health enough
to risk losing any.”

With which the girl, with another smile, tied the ribbon of
her chip hat under her chin, and looked at Verty.

That gentleman rose.

“I wish my coat had been thicker,” he said, “but I can't
help it. Yes, yes, Redbud, indeed we must get back. It
would'nt do for you to get sick.”

“And me, sir!” said Fanny.

“You?” said Verty, smiling.

“Yes, sir; I suppose it would do for me?”

“I don't know.”

“Hum!”

“I can tell you, dear,” said Ralph, “and I assure you the
thing would not answer under any circumstances. Come, let us
follow Miss Redbud.

They all thanked the smiling old dame, and issuing from the
cottage, took their way through the sparkling fields and along the
wet paths toward home again. They reached the Bower of
Nature just at twilight, and entering through the garden were
about to pass in, when they were arrested by a spectacle on the
rear portico, which brought a smile to every lip.

Mr. Jinks was on his knees before Miss Sallianna there.