 | IV.
A LOVE-CHASE. Lucy Arlyn |  |
4. IV.
A LOVE-CHASE.
THE next day, Archy's situation was a sinecure.
The colonel was too ill to leave his bed.
The birds were singing, the dew was on the
flowers, the fountain lisped and laughed, the golden ball
danced in the sun; and Archy sat on the marble curb, whistling.
The approach of Guy reminded him that he was miserable;
and, slipping out of sight a certain pocket-knife he was
playing with, he put on a gloomy countenance, and waited.
Guy had not yet employed him in any diabolical affair;
but now, the genius thought, his temptation was coming.
But the young man only wished to inquire what had happened
to his father just before he rode up the previous evening;
and, having obtained the unpleasant information, he
walked hastily to the kennel, released Ranger, and departed,
with his canine companion leaping and capering around him
in high glee.
Down towards the little village nestled in the misty valley,
with its few chimney-smokes rising soft and thin in the morning
air; through the cool elm-shaded streets, past the mill,
Ranger and his master.
The approach of a caller created a fluttering among the inmates;
one running to peep through the blinds, another hastening
to the glass, and both whispering hurriedly.
“It's Guy Bannington's dog!”
“Dear me! how we do look!”
“I can't see him in this dress, mother! You must go to
the door.”
“Mercy on me, Sophy! I must fix my hair! Run and
put on your” —
Rat-tat! went the knocker.
Then all was hushed. Guy waited. Ranger wagged his
tail on the piazza floor. After a delay of a few minutes, a
tall, spare, prim female, with an air of faded gentility, opened
the door.
“Mr. Bannington!” she said with polite surprise. “I
thought I heard a knock! Will you walk in?” — retreating
backwards with smiling, precise dignity.
“Thank you, Mrs. Pinworth. I wish to see Miss Arlyn.”
The lady's expression changed instantly.
“Come in!” She led the way to a small gloomy parlor.
“Be seated, Mr. Bannington.” Instead of going to call
Lucy, she placed herself stiff and stately in a chair facing the
visitor. “Mr. Bannington, I am grieved and astonished!”
Guy raised his eyebrows. “Can I afford you any consolation,
madam?”
“When I need consolation, I shall apply to the proper
source for it,” — Mrs. Pinworth cast a holy look at the ceiling.
“I can now no longer doubt your designs upon my
niece, Mr. Bannington.”
“My design at this time is to speak with her a few minutes,
I beg to remind you,” observed Guy.
“Ours is one of the oldest and most respectable families in
the State, you are aware, sir!” said the lady. “If disgrace
comes into it now, it will be through my niece. She is a
vain, headstrong, wilful girl; and ever since her father left
her in my charge” —
“Madam,” Guy interrupted her, “I'd much rather just
now see Miss Arlyn than hear your remarks about her.”
There was something in his manner, civil as it was, which
cut. The lady quivered and gasped a little; then said, —
“I've never objected to your seeing Lucy in my daughter's
presence, sir. But she is not a fit person to be your wife, —
you never had any intention of making her your wife, — and
I will not let her be trifled with.”
Wrath and scorn flashed up in the young man's face; but
he calmly measured his words.
“Whatever my intentions are, I know that Lucy Arlyn is
worthy to be the wife of a much better man than I pretend
to be. I repeat, I wish to speak with her; and, for once,
not in the presence of your estimable daughter.”
Mrs. Pinworth rose with a spiteful air.
“Lucy is not at home, sir.”
“Then I assure you, madam, there is nothing to detain
me under your hospitable roof,” said Guy, rising also. “Will
you be so kind as to inform me where she is?”
“There's no telling any thing about her since you turned
her head. She acts unaccountably. Religious counsel has
no influence. I've labored with her in vain!”
“It is just possible, Mrs. Pinworth, that your style of
labor is not quite the thing. Good-morning!” And Guy
bowed himself from the door.
“Is he gone?” called Sophy, rushing to the stairs above
in elegant dishabille. “Strange you couldn't entertain him
just a minute till I came!”
“It was Lucy he wanted! So you can just take off that
dress again, and go and wash the dishes!”
Guy stood upon the bridge, irritated and irresolute. The
day was perfectly beautiful. Around the alder-tops, and over
the stream, a pair of king-birds were catching flies, — darting
hither and thither, or skimming close to the foam and bubbles;
and now, alit, watching with mild eyes from the dead boughs
of a bald old birch-tree by the water. Not far above, the
mill-dam poured its snowy and reverberating cascade. The
air was tingling with sweet life. The pure blue of the sky
was set off by dazzling white clouds. Beyond the valley
swelled the green mountain-slopes, with forests of billowy
foliage, undulating far away to the purple and violet peaks
which seemed melting into ether.
Not long could he look and listen, and breathe the delicious
peace and beauty. He was considering what he should do,
when he observed Ranger snuffing the planks, and moving off
upon the sand, with his long ears sweeping almost to the
ground. Following to the end of the bridge, he discovered
the prints of shoes, slender, lightly impressed; shoes, possibly
(he thrilled to think), worn by the dearest feet in the
world. Ranger, as if in sympathy with his master, scented
the delicate lingering aroma of those prints, and gladly, at a
word and gesture, bounded off on the track.
Guy followed up into the main street of the village, to an
open staircase, at the entrance of which there was what is
termed a “shingle,” with a cocked thumb and a knowing
finger directing the way to the office of “Elphaz Pelt, attorney
and counsellor-at-law, up stairs.”
Then Ranger appeared puzzled; snuffed in and out;
bounded up stairs, and returned; until Guy determined to
call on the squire.
“Where's Elphaz?” he inquired of a red-haired law-student
writing at a desk, who with cringing politeness informed
him that Squire Pelt had gone out. “I'll wager,”
said Guy, “it's some young woman that takes him from his
office at this time of day.”
“Shouldn't wonder!” chuckled the red-haired youth;
“for there was one here, — the prettiest girl there is in this
town too!”
“I should like to know whom you call the prettiest girl,
Abner.”
Flattered by this familiar appeal to his taste from the son
of his master's wealthiest client, Abner fawned up to him,
rubbing his hands, and said, “I mean Lucy Arlyn!”
Guy turned on his heel.
“Ranger, you're worth a million dollars!” And, leaving
Abner to scratch his wondering red head, he hurried down
stairs.
Going out of the doorway, he was met by Squire Pelt
coming in; a lean-looking, angular man, with a clean-shaven,
gristly countenance, barren of flesh, but unctuous with suavity;
a thin, metallic voice, disagreeable to the ear; and a pair
of grayish twinkling eyes, with a cast which gave them the
appearance of winking shrewdly at each other across the
bridge of his nose.
“What can I do for my friend Guy?” asked the lawyer
with overflowing affability. With a hasty excuse, Guy shook
him off. “Always at your command,” — Elphaz bowed and
flourished, and with one eye (the other seemed looking across
the way for a client) followed Guy, while Guy followed Ranger.
Down from a gorge in the eastern hills comes a mountain
brook, falling into the river just above the mill-pond; along
the course of which runs a road, winding between the torrent
and the cliffs which shut in the ravine. This road Ranger
took, leading his master by waysides still shaded and glistening
with dew; under wild banks overgrown with briers, and
crowned by dark hemlocks, high up and solitary; amid scattered
and through cool sweet depths of shade, odorous with pines,
and musical with the noise of the water-course.
In these wild scenes, Guy shook off his troubles. He felt
free and glad as the crows clamoring in the tree-tops. Gleams
of hope and peace smiled to him through gloomy ways, like
the soft, barred sunshine falling aslant, far off in the woods,
upon silent trunks and boughs. The course of true love
never did run smooth; but his was gushing and joyous as
that mountain stream, — all opposition no more to it then
than the rocks that broke the torrent into music and silver.
On the wet grass and moist soil of the road he finds Lucy's
foot-prints: they lose themselves to sight in the woods; but
the hound follows them still. Here she has descended to the
bed of the brook; and again appears a footprint in the washed
sand. There are marks upon a decaying log, where moss has
been gathered — by her hands. On this broad ledge, that
slopes from under the roots of leaning twin-beeches and dips
into the shimmering water, she has surely sat down, and perhaps
dabbled her bare feet. Ranger snuffs from the rippling
rim up to the naked roots which the great freshets wash; then
hurries on. At length, he reaches a spot where he appears
baffled for a minute; starts on; returns, and starts again,
snuffing to the water's edge; then leaps to the dry backs
of bowlders between which the current gushes; finds there
the scent; and bounds to the farther bank, followed by his
master.
The way grew difficult now, obstructed by thickets, in
which the dog disappeared. Suddenly were heard cries of
terror, then a great splashing; and Guy ran forward in time
to see Ranger recrossing the brook on a log, and a human
being struggling in the water. He rushed in great trepidation
down the bank, but felt suddenly relieved when he saw
that it was not Lucy.
A man in black clothes got up in the channel, slipping on
the slimy stones until he obtained a footing.
“Brother,” he said, standing knee-deep, bareheaded, and
drenched in the brook, “are you a friend to humanity?”
His plight was so ludicrous, and the question so comical
under the circumstances, that Guy could hardly have helped
laughing had the man been in serious danger.
“If you are, perform the charitable act of catching my hat,
which is going down stream.”
Guy fished out the beaver with some trouble, and carried it
across the tree-trunk to the stranger, who stood by this time
on the other bank, letting himself drip, and looking melancholy.
“What were you in there for?”
“The question I was just asking.” He shook the water
from his nose, poked the wet hair out of his eyes, and put on
his hat. “No doubt, it was for a wise purpose. Perhaps I
needed the bath. Or — the meaning of it comes to me —
I ought not to have crossed the stream.”
“I was afraid my dog had something to do with the accident.”
“I acknowledge no such thing as accident. The dog
was simply an instrument to bring about what was necessary.
I was crossing on the log one way, when the dog went to
cross the other way. I lost my faith for a moment, and cried
out; but he was true to his mission, and tumbled me into the
water.” And the stranger with perfect gravity proceeded to
wring out his wet garments.
Guy had not time to laugh; for now the cry of the hound
was heard musical in the woods.
Under a wild cherry-tree, at the base of a rock, through a
cleft of which the brook poured down, her elbow on her knee,
her bonnet on the ground, her lap full of mosses, — seeing
visionary things in the bubbling and beaded water, — sat
Lucy; when Ranger dashed out of the undergrowth, and came
bounding and barking towards her. She did not move from
her place; and there Guy found her, a picture ravishing to a
lover's soul, with the sunlight on the boughs above her, the
cascade tumbling its foam at her feet, and the hound licking
her hands.
| IV.
A LOVE-CHASE. Lucy Arlyn | |