University of Virginia Library

9. IX.
COLD WATER.

A piercing shriek went up as we went down. It was
the voice of Laura, which had cast off its mourning for the
wet occasion. Susie uttered not a word, nor was Peleg
able to make any remark, facetious or otherwise, with the
widow clinging to his back, hugging and choking him
desperately.

I remember a brief tumult in the water, arms tossing,
crinoline floating, the boat keel upward, the eddies rolling

and sucking us. Then I was trying to swim with a
precious burden, raising the dripping head above water,
sinking inevitably, going down with the current, touching
gravel at last, and thanking my stars that I was
tall.

Wading, I emerged, bearing Susie in my arms, and
carried her to the bank.

“Thank Heaven!” said I, “you are safe.”

She brushed her dripping hair from her eyes, strangled
a little, and looked up.

I was bending over her, kneeling. It was very romantic.
I expected nothing less than that she would call me
her preserver, and betray at once her gratitude and her
love. She moved her lips, — her lovely but wet lips. I
listened for their faintest murmur. And this is what she
said, —

“Where 's Peleg?”

“What 's Peleg to us?” I exclaimed, sentimentally.

“He 's a good deal to us, — to me, at any rate!” she
declared; and I was obliged to tell her that Mr. Green had
got the widow on the keel of the boat, which he was hauling
to the opposite bank.

“Nobody drowned?”

“All safe, dearest!”

“You need n't call me dearest!” said Miss Thornton.
And she actually struggled from my arms.

“Susie! dearest Susie!” etc.

I don't remember the rest of my speech, and probably
should not repeat it if I could. The truth is just this: I
had fallen in love with this same Susie Thornton, and in
the excitement of the moment I was betrayed into a rather
ill-timed declaration.

“Mr. Blazay!” she exclaimed, in a strange tone, and
with a strange look, in which were expressed, as I fondly

believed, astonishment, rapture, alarm. “How can you!
— you must not! — Peleg!”

I protested. She was very much agitated. She shivered
in her drenched clothes. She laughed nervously. She ran
down the stream and fished out my hat, which had floated
ashore.

“Now we are even,” she said, with unnatural gayety.
“You have saved my life; I have saved your hat: and
one is of about as much consequence as the other! Why
did n't you let me drown? You might as well!”

“All right!” shouted Peleg, having got Laura on the
rocks. “Accidents will happen, ye know, in the best reg'lated
families.”

Susie and I set out, climbing the banks. The thunder
of the dam grew faint behind us, and, looking back, I saw
the cascade gleaming white in the twilight.

“Why, Susie, child! where have you been?” exclaimed
Mrs. Thornton, as we entered the house.

“O, we only just went over the dam, that 's all,” said
Susie.

“Over the dam!” cried mamma.

“The dam!” echoed papa.

“Dam! — dam!” clamored little brothers, eagerly running
to hear their sister's narrative of the shipwreck.

I turned to go. Mr. Thornton grasped my hand.

“No, sir!” he said, with tears in his eyes, and with a
squeeze that brought tears into mine. “You don't leave
this house to-night! You have saved our darter's life,
and d' ye s'pose we 'll see you go off in your wet clo'es?
Not 's long 's my name 's Thornton!”

I fear I was only too willing to stay. I wanted one word
of hope from Susie; and although she appeared indifferent
to my going, I did not go.

“Give him some o' my clo'es to put on, can't we, mother?”

said Mr. Thornton. “This way, Mr. Blazay; I can fit ye,
I know!”

He introduced me to the spare bedroom, and soon
brought me my outfit. I beheld with dismay the old-fashioned
garments. But the antique style was their least
objectionable feature. The dress-coat was of ample breadth,
the waistcoat of voluptuous dimensions, the pantaloons
baggy. But all were alike longitudinally scanty. They
had been cut for a very much shorter and stumpier man.
The ends of the sleeves reached a little below my elbows.
The trousers-legs barely covered my knees, and appeared decidedly
averse to making the acquaintance of the socks,
whose position in the world was so much beneath them.
Between waistbands and waistcoat I displayed a broad zone
of borrowed linen. The collar of the coat rode my back
like a horse-collar.

Mr. Thornton rubbed his hands, and appeared hugely
tickled at his success in clothing his guest. He held the
candle for me at the mirror. I looked aghast at myself as
I thought of meeting Susie. How could I think of pressing
my suit in a suit that so needed stretching?

I took courage, however, exhibited myself at the tea-table,
and joined in the merriment my ridiculous plight
occasioned.

A delightful evening ensued. Susie was in high spirits;
vivacious and as sweet as Hebe, after her bath. And,
further, my presence in the cottage did not prove a signal
for Peleg to rush in.

The heroes were sent to bed. The old folks shook hands
with me affectionately, called me their darter's preserver,
and bade me good night.

The moment I was left alone with Susie, her vivacity
subsided: she became serious and silent. I placed myself
at her side. The fragrant, dear little hand that lay idle on

her lap, I could not resist the impulse to seize and kiss.
She firmly and gently withdrew it.

Then I talked; telling her of my previous languid, artificial
life; confessing my self-conceit and my prejudices;
avowing my infinite indebtedness to her for curing me of
that folly, for inspiring me with new life, with hopes, with
happiness, and all that sort of thing.

“Mr. Blazay,” she exclaimed, shivering anew with agitation,
“why do you tell me this now?”

“Why not now?”

“It is too late!”

“Too late? It is not too late, Susie, if you love me.”

“Sir,” she cried, almost angrily, “you must not, I tell
you you shall not, speak to me of love! You have
saved my life to-night; I am grateful; but —” She hesitated.

“Say it! Say the worst!”

She lifted her face, — tearful, white, inexorable, — and
fixed her eyes upon me with a look I shall never forget.

“Mr. Blazay, I am engaged.”

This she said with that chilling resoluteness of tone
which falls upon a lover's heart like death.

I began to rave foolishly of perfidy, of the trap that
was laid for me when I came to pay my addresses to one
who was already secretly betrothed.

“Oh! but I was not when you came!”

“What!” I exclaimed, “you have engaged yourself
since?”

“I have,” said Susie.

“When? To whom?”

“The evening after you arrived, to Peleg.”

I leaped to my feet. Wrath and disgust almost stifled
love. It was the last shock to my egotism to know that
she had accepted Peleg after she had seen me! I would

have rushed from the house, but I saw Susie laughing. Distressed
as she was, she could not but laugh to see me striding
thus to and fro; and then I remembered whose garments
were drying by the kitchen fire, and whose I had on
in their place.

It was but a fitful, nervous laugh, however, and it changed
suddenly to crying. That brought me to her feet. I
claimed her; I vowed that she loved me; I knew it, and I
would not give her up; and more to the same effect.

Susie cut me short, arose in her dignity, and pointed to
the candle.

“The light is at your service, sir, whenever you wish to
retire.”

I took it, and, without bidding her good night, went, not
to bed, but to the kitchen where my clothes were drying,
carried them to my room, put them on again, returned to
the entry, placed the candle on the table, and was going.

Susie, who had been sitting in the dark, came out of the
parlor and stood before me with a face like death.

“Are you going?”

“I am going.”

“Never to come again?”

“Never to come again.”

“Good by!” she whispered, just audibly, offering me
her hand. I pressed it, I kissed it.

“Susie,” I pleaded, “say that you will not marry that
man!”

“I have pledged myself; I shall marry him,” she replied,
in a voice that smote my heart like stone.

I regarded her a moment, — so fair, so inexorable; another's,
and not mine, — then hurried from the house.