"It was in the summer of 1872. I was a clerk in a bank then, at Rivermouth, and the directors had given me a vacation. I hired a crazy old horse and started on a journey through New Hampshire. I didn"t have any destination; I merely purposed to ride on and on until I got tired, and then ride home again. The weather was beautiful, and for the first three or four days I never enjoyed myself better in my life. The flowers were growing, the birds were singing--the robins in the sunshine and the whippoorwills at dusk--and the hours were not long enough for me. At night I slept in a tumble-down barn, or anywhere, like a born tramp. I had a mountain brook for a wash-basin and the west wind for a towel. Sometimes I invited myself to a meal at a farm-house when there wasn"t a tavern handy; and when there wasn"t any farm-house, and I was very hungry, I lay down under a tree and read in a book of poems."
"Oh, that was just delightful!" said Ruth, knitting the fingers of both hands over one knee and listening to him with a child-like abandon which Lynde found bewitching.
"On the fourth day--there are some persons crossing on the ice," said Lynde, interrupting himself.
"Never mind the persons on the ice!"
"On the fourth day I came to a wild locality among the Ragged Mountains, where there was not a human being nor a house to be seen. I had got up before breakfast was ready that morning, and I was quite anxious to see the smoke curling up from some kitchen chimney. Here, as I mounted a hill-side, the saddle-girth broke, and I jumped off to fix it. Somehow, I don"t know precisely how, the horse gave a plunge, jerked the reins out of my hands, and started on a dead run for Rivermouth."
"That wasn"t very pleasant," suggested Ruth.
"Not a bit. I couldn"t catch the animal, and I had the sense not to try. I climbed to the brow of the hill and was not sorry to see a snug village lying in the valley."
"What village was that?"
"I don"t know to this day--with any certainty. I didn"t find out then, and afterwards I didn"t care to learn. Well, I shouldered my traps and started for the place to procure another horse, not being used to going under the saddle myself. I had a hard time before I got through; but that I shall not tell you about. On my way to the village I met a young girl. This young girl is the interesting part of the business."
"She always is, you know."
"She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen--up to that time.
She was dressed all in white, and looked like an angel. I expected she would spread wing and vanish before I could admire her half enough; but she did not. The moment she saw me she walked straight to the spot where I stood, and looked me squarely in the face."
"Wasn"t that rather rude--for an angel?"
"You wouldn"t have thought so. She did it like a young G.o.ddess with the supreme prerogative to flash herself that way on mortals by the roadside."
"Oh, she was a young G.o.ddess as well as an angel."
"After she had looked me in the eye a second," continued Lynde, not heeding the criticism, "she said--what do you suppose she said?"
"How can I imagine?"
"You could not, in a thousand years. Instead of saying, "Good-morning, sir," and dropping me a courtesy, she made herself very tall and said, with quite a grand air, "I am the Queen of Sheba!" Just fancy it. Then she turned on her heel and ran up the road."
"Oh, that was very rude. Is this a true story, Mr. Lynde?"
"That is the sad part of it, Miss Ruth. This poor child had lost her reason, as I learned subsequently. She had wandered out of an asylum in the neighborhood. After a while some men came and took her back again--on my horse, which they had captured in the road."
"The poor, poor girl! I am sorry for her to the heart. Your story began like a real romance; is that all of it! It is sad enough."
"That is all. Of course I never saw her afterwards."
"But you remembered her, and pitied her?"
"For a long time, Miss Ruth."
"I like you for that. But what has this to do with me? You said"--
"The story touched on you indirectly?"
"Yes."
"Well, so it does; I will tell you how. This poor girl was beautiful enough in your own fashion to be your sister, and when I first saw you"--
"Monsieur," said the guide, respectfully lifting a forefinger to his hat as he approached, "I think it looks like rain."
The man had spoken in English. Ruth went crimson to the temples, and Lynde"s face a.s.sumed a comical expression of dismay.
"Looks like rain," he repeated mechanically. "I thought you told me you did not understand English."
"Monsieur is mistaken. It is Jean Macquart that does not spik English."
"Very well," said Lynde; "if it is going to rain we had better be moving. It would not be pleasant to get blockaded up here by a storm--or rather it would! Are the animals ready?"
"They are waiting at the foot of the path, monsieur."
Lynde lost no time getting Ruth into the saddle, and the party began their descent, the guide again in charge of the girl"s mule. On the downward journey they unavoidably faced the precipices, and the road appeared to them much steeper than when they ascended.
"Is it wind or rain, do you think?" asked Lynde, looking at a wicked black cloud that with angrily curled white edges was lowering itself over the valley.
"I think it is both, monsieur."
"How soon?"
"I cannot know. Within an hour, surely."
"Perhaps we were wrong to attempt going down," said Lynde.
"Monsieur might be kept at Couttet"s one, two--three days. But, if monsieur wishes, I will go on and tell the friends of mademoiselle that you are detained."
"Oh, no!" cried Ruth, filled with horror at the suggestion. "We MUST return. I shall not mind the rain, if it comes."
As she spoke, a loose handful of large drops rustled through the pine-boughs overhead, and softly dashed themselves against the rocks.
"It has come," said Lynde.
"I have my waterproof," returned the girl. "I shall do very well. But you"--
The sentence was cut short by a flash of lightning, followed by a heavy peal of thunder that rolled through the valley and reverberated for one or two minutes among the hills. The guide grasped the reins close up to the bits, and urged the mule forward at a brisk trot. The sky cleared, and for a moment it looked as if the storm had drifted elsewhere; but the party had not advanced twenty paces before there was a strange rustling sound in the air, and the rain came down. The guide whipped off a coa.r.s.e woollen coat he wore, and threw it over the girl"s shoulders, tying it by the sleeves under her chin.
"Oh, you must not do that!" she cried, "you will catch your death!"
"Mademoiselle," he replied, laughing, as he gave another knot to the sleeves, "for thirty-eight years, man and boy, I have been rained upon and snowed upon--and voila!"
"You"re a fine fellow, my friend, if you do speak English," cried Lynde, "and I hope some honest girl has found it out before now."
"Monsieur," returned the man, signing himself with the cross, "she and the little one are in heaven."