"The dusk is, indeed, misleading. We are the forlorn creatures who have no resources. Won"t you please take us in?"
"Take you in! What do you take us for? I a.s.sure you we are very simple, honest people."
"In that case I shall have no fears, but clamber in at once. I feel as if I had been on a twenty-mile tramp."
"What an implied compliment to our exhilarating society!"
"Indeed there is--a very strong one. I"ve been so immensely exhilarated that, in the re-action, I"m almost faint."
"Maggie," cried Amy, "do take care of Burt; he"s going to faint."
"He must wait till we come to the next brook, and then we"ll put him in it."
"Webb," said Amy, looking over her shoulder at the young man, who was now following the carriage, "is there anything the matter with you, also?"
"Nothing more than usual."
"Oh, your trouble, whatever it may be, is chronic. Well, well, to think that we poor women may be the only survivors of this tremendous expedition."
"That would be most natural--the survival of the fittest, you know."
"I don"t think your case serious. Science is uppermost in your mind, as ever. You ought to live a thousand years, Webb, to see the end of all your theories."
"I fear it wouldn"t be the millennium for me, and that I should have more perplexing theories at its end than now."
"That"s the way with men--they are never satisfied," remarked Miss Hargrove. "Mr. Clifford, this is your expedition, and it"s getting so dark that I shall feel safer if you are driving."
"Oh, Gertrude, you have no confidence in me whatever. As if I would break your neck--or heart either!" Amy whispered in her friend"s ear.
"You are a very mysterious little woman," was the reply, given in like manner, "and need hours of explanation." Then, to Webb: "Mr. Clifford, I"ve much more confidence in you than in Amy. Her talk is so giddy that I want a sober hand on the reins."
"To which Mr. Clifford do you refer?" asked Burt.
"Oh, are you reviving? I thought you had become unconscious."
"I"m not wholly past feeling."
"I want one to drive who can see his way, not feel it," was the laughing response.
Amy, too, was laughing silently, as she reined in the horses. "What are you two girls giggling about?" said Burt, becoming a little uncomfortable. "The idea of two such refined creatures giggling!"
"Well," exclaimed Webb, "what am I to do? I can"t stand up between you and drive."
"Gertrude, you must clamber around and sustain Burt"s drooping spirits."
"Indeed, Amy, you must know best how to do that," was the reply. "As guest, I claim a little of the society of the commander-in-chief. You had it coming over."
"I"ll solve the vexed question," said Burt, much nettled, and leaping out.
"Now, Burt, the question isn"t vexed, and don"t you be," cried Amy, springing lightly over to the next seat. "There are Fred and Alf, too, with the gun. Let us all get home as soon as possible, for it"s nearly time for supper already. Come, I shall feel much hurt if you don"t keep me company."
Burt at once realized the absurdity of showing pique, although he felt that there was something in the air which he did not understand. He came back laughing, with much apparent good-nature, and saying, "I thought I"d soon bring one or the other of you to terms."
"Oh, what a diplomat you are!" said Amy, with difficulty restraining a new burst of merriment.
They soon reached the summit, and paused to give the horses a breathing.
The young moon hung in the west, and its silver crescent symbolized to Miss Hargrove the hope that was growing in her heart. "Amy," she said, "don"t you remember the song we arranged from "The Culprit Fay"? We certainly should sing it here on this mountain. You take the solo."
Amy sang, in clear soprano:
""The moon looks down on old Cro" Nest, She mellows the shades on his s.h.a.ggy breast, And seems his huge gray form to throw In a silver cone on the wave below.""
"Imagine the cone and wave, please," said Miss Hargrove; and then, in an alto rich with her heart"s deep feeling, she sang with Amy:
""Ouphe and goblin! imp and sprite!
Elf of eve! and starry fay!
Ye that love the moon"s soft light, Hither--hither wend your way; Twine ye in a jocund ring; Sing and trip it merrily, Hand to hand and wing to wing, Round the wild witch-hazel tree.""
"If I were a goblin, I"d come, for music like that," cried Burt, as they started rapidly homeward.
"You are much too big to suggest a culprit fay," said Amy.
"But the description of the fay"s charmer is your portrait," he replied, in a low tone:
""But well I know her sinless mind Is pure as the angel forms above, Gentle and meek, and chaste and kind, Such as a spirit well might love.""
"Oh, no; you are mistaken, I"m not meek in the least. Think of the punishment:
""Tied to the hornet"s shardy wings, Toss"d on the p.r.i.c.ks of nettles" stings;"
you know the rest."
"What witchery has got into you to-night, Amy?"
"Do you think I"m a witch? Beware, then. Witches can read men"s thoughts."
"That last song was so good that I, for one, would be glad of more," cried Webb.
"You men must help us, then," said Miss Hargrove, and in a moment the wild, dim forest was full of melody, the rocks and highlands sending back soft and unheeded echoes.
Burt, meantime, was occupied with disagreeable reflections. Perhaps both the girls at last understood him, and had been comparing notes, to his infinite disadvantage. His fickleness and the dilemma he was in may have become a jest between them. What could he do? Resentment, except against himself, was impossible. If Amy understood him, in what other way could she meet any approach to sentiment on his part than by a laughing scorn?
If Miss Hargrove had divined the past, or had received a hint concerning it, why should she not shun his society? He was half-desperate, and yet felt that any show of embarra.s.sment or anger would only make him appear more ridiculous. The longer he thought the more sure he was that the girls were beginning to guess his position, and that his only course was a polite indifference to both. But this policy promised to lead through a th.o.r.n.y path, and to what? In impotent rage at himself he ground his teeth during the pauses between the stanzas that he was compelled to sing. Such was the discord in his heart that he felt like uttering notes that would make "night hideous."
He was still more distraught when, on their return, they found Mr.
Hargrove"s carriage in waiting, and Amy, after a brief conference with her friend in her room, came down prepared to accompany Miss Hargrove home after supper. In spite of all his efforts at ease and gayety, his embarra.s.sment and trouble were evident. He had observed Miss Hargrove"s pallor and her effort to keep up at Fort Putnam, and could not banish the hope that she sympathized with him; but now the young girl was demurely radiant. Her color had come again, and the l.u.s.tre of her beautiful eyes was dazzling. Yet they avoided his, and she had far more to say to Webb and the others than to him. Webb, too, was perplexed, for during the day Amy had been as bewildering to him as to Burt. But he was in no uncertainty as to his course, which was simply to wait. He, with Burt, saw the girls to the carriage, and the latter said good-night rather coldly and stiffly. Alf and Fred parted regretfully, with the promise of a correspondence which would be as remarkable for its orthography as for its natural history.