All the engines in the sheds at the time, and whose music had lulled me to sleep o" nights, blew the bride a royal fanfare as she entered her first, _engaged_, and further c.o.c.k-a-doodled "good luck" as the train steamed out.
Most keenly of all I remember that it was piteously lonely, and as dreary as though the sun had lost its power, when the panting engine had climbed the hill from the sleepy little town, and dropped out of hearing on the down grade from the old valley of ripening peach and apricot, bearing the girl for ever away from the slow, meandering grooves of life of which her vigorous young soul was weary.
A meeting of the munic.i.p.al council claimed Uncle Jake that night, Andrew went over to discuss the situation with Jack Bray, and the loneliness of the old dining-room was insupportable to grandma and me.
Joy and beauty seemed to have fled from the scented nights beside the river,--even the whistle and rush of the trains breathed a forlorn note to my bereaved fancy, and there was a tear in grandma"s eye as she said--
"Well, she"s really gone for altogether--she that I helped into the world and rared with my own hand, and named after the Dawn in which she came. That"s the order of life. It"s always the same--you can"t keep any one for always. I couldn"t abear it here now--it seems as if everything in life was done, and there"s no need for me to stay if Ernest puts Andrew in the way of this electrical engineerin" he"s so mad for. Jake can board somewhere. He don"t care about things so much.
I"ll go to Dawn: thank G.o.d she wants me, an" I"ve got plenty to take me away if she gets tired of me, as young folks often do of the old, and which is only natural after all. I can let or sell the place, an"
w"en I"m gone it will be enough for Dawn if ever she"s threw on the world like I was. Everythink seems fair with her now, but this is a life of ups an" downs, and there"s no tellin" what may happen."
L"ENVOI.
What interest can there be in the play after the knight has settled affairs with the lady, or in the story-book when the heroine and hero have gone on a honeymoon preparatory to living happily ever after?--and that is what befell my tale in Noonoon.
I listen no more to the splendid music of the locomotives as they roar across the queer old bridge, nor watch the red light flashing from their coaling doors as they climb the Blue Mountain ascent and fire as they go. Their far-carrying rumble has been succeeded by the more thunderous voice of the sea on the rock-walled coast of my native land.
Four months have elapsed since the wedding in Noonoon, yet Ernest is still content to let his athletic ambitions remain in abeyance while he squanders his time in the sweet dalliance of love. Squander, I say; but on reviewing the expired years, how sanely sweet the youthful hours we dallied shine from amid the years we toiled, fumed, cursed, sweated, and strove to step past our brother in the bootless race for pleasure, opulence, or popularity!
Being able to indulge in the insignia of wealth, even without being the good fellow he is, Ernest finds it is of little significance that his hair is "what fond mothers term auburn," while Dawn"s triumphs were a.s.sured from the outset. As mistress of a fine town mansion, with good looks, with smart ideas of dress, and smarter ability to verbally hold her own in any set, it goes without saying that her grandmother having "kep" a accommodation" is not remembered against her to any harmful extent in everyday life, where a large percentage of folks in all cliques have to survive the knowledge of their progenitors having been worse things than irreproachable proprietors and conductors of most exemplary accommodation houses for those who travel.
As Ada Grosvenor is not a girl in a book but in everyday life, I cannot record that she has married a man worthy of her. Such an one would have to be a leader of men--a prime minister, reformer, or other prominent worker in the cause of humanity--and as these do not abound in the quiet whirlpools of existence, I can only hope that she does not drop in for a too impossible noodle, as is frequently the fate of n.o.ble women. "Dora" Eweword would have done very well to discharge the clodhopping work of her earthly journey--could have made her bread-and-b.u.t.ter and carried her parcels, but if I can depend on Andrew"s letters, which breathe more heavily of generosity than of grammar and gracefulness, this eligible and strapping young member of Noonoon society has been rejected a second time, so that Mrs Bray"s fears that he would be made over conceited by adulation from marriageable girls seems to have been unnecessary.
Noonoon is enshrined in my heart as one of the pleasantest valleys on earth, so during enforcedly idle hours it has given me delight to paint its beauty, however feebly, and to put some of the doings of some of its folk in a story, that others might possibly enjoy them too. But I put the MSS. aside till, as the good country doctor so much esteemed in his circle expresses it, I shall have "pegged out,"
and the heroine and hero of the plot shall then judge whether it is fit or not for publication. It has interested me to write, but
"My life has crept so long on a broken wing . . . . . . . .
That I come to be grateful at last for a little thing,"
and those whose lives are strong, fruitful, and successful may have no patience with the sentimental meanderings of an old woman who has outlived joy and usefulness.
And now, may the Lady of my tale, as her life progresses from dawn to noon, high noon to afternoon, dusk, evening, and night, have the Knight of her choice and peace always beside her, till new dawns break in other worlds beyond this place of fears and phantoms.
THE END.