As we approached the garden gate, I saw a servant from the house waiting there. He carried a message from my mother--a message for me.
"My mistress wishes you to go home, Master George, as soon as you can. A letter has come by the coach. My master means to take a post-chaise from London, and sends word that we may expect him in the course of the day."
Mary"s attentive face saddened when she heard those words.
"Must you really go away, George," she whispered, "before you see what I have got waiting for you at home?"
I remembered Mary"s promised "surprise," the secret of which was only to be revealed to me when we got to the cottage. How could I disappoint her? My poor little lady-love looked ready to cry at the bare prospect of it.
I dismissed the servant with a message of the temporizing sort. My love to my mother--and I would be back at the house in half an hour.
We entered the cottage.
Dame Dermody was sitting in the light of the window, as usual, with one of the mystic books of Emanuel Swedenborg open on her lap. She solemnly lifted her hand on our appearance, signing to us to occupy our customary corner without speaking to her. It was an act of domestic high treason to interrupt the Sibyl at her books. We crept quietly into our places.
Mary waited until she saw her grandmother"s gray head bend down, and her grandmother"s bushy eyebrows contract attentively, over her reading.
Then, and then only, the discreet child rose on tiptoe, disappeared noiselessly in the direction of her bedchamber, and came back to me carrying something carefully wrapped up in her best cambric handkerchief.
"Is that the surprise?" I whispered.
Mary whispered back: "Guess what it is?"
"Something for me?"
"Yes. Go on guessing. What is it?"
I guessed three times, and each guess was wrong. Mary decided on helping me by a hint.
"Say your letters," she suggested; "and go on till I stop you."
I began: "A, B, C, D, E, F--" There she stopped me.
"It"s the name of a Thing," she said; "and it begins with F."
I guessed, "Fern," "Feather," "Fife." And here my resources failed me.
Mary sighed, and shook her head. "You don"t take pains," she said. "You are three whole years older than I am. After all the trouble I have taken to please you, you may be too big to care for my present when you see it. Guess again."
"I can"t guess."
"You must!"
"I give it up."
Mary refused to let me give it up. She helped me by another hint.
"What did you once say you wished you had in your boat?" she asked.
"Was it long ago?" I inquired, at a loss for an answer.
"Long, long ago! Before the winter. When the autumn leaves were falling, and you took me out one evening for a sail. Ah, George, _you_ have forgotten!"
Too true, of me and of my brethren, old and young alike! It is always _his_ love that forgets, and _her_ love that remembers. We were only two children, and we were types of the man and the woman already.
Mary lost patience with me. Forgetting the terrible presence of her grandmother, she jumped up, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the concealed object out of her handkerchief.
"There!" she cried, briskly, "_now_ do you know what it is?"
I remembered at last. The thing I had wished for in my boat, all those months ago, was a new flag. And here was the flag, made for me in secret by Mary"s own hand! The ground was green silk, with a dove embroidered on it in white, carrying in its beak the typical olive-branch, wrought in gold thread. The work was the tremulous, uncertain work of a child"s fingers. But how faithfully my little darling had remembered my wish!
how patiently she had plied the needle over the traced lines of the pattern! how industriously she had labored through the dreary winter days! and all for my sake! What words could tell my pride, my grat.i.tude, my happiness?
I too forgot the presence of the Sibyl bending over her book. I took the little workwoman in my arms, and kissed her till I was fairly out of breath and could kiss no longer.
"Mary!" I burst out, in the first heat of my enthusiasm, "my father is coming home to-day. I will speak to him to-night. And I will marry you to-morrow!"
"Boy!" said the awful voice at the other end of the room. "Come here."
Dame Dermody"s mystic book was closed; Dame Dermody"s weird black eyes were watching us in our corner. I approached her; and Mary followed me timidly, by a footstep at a time.
The Sibyl took me by the hand, with a caressing gentleness which was new in my experience of her.
"Do you prize that toy?" she inquired, looking at the flag. "Hide it!"
she cried, before I could answer. "Hide it--or it may be taken from you!"
"Why should I hide it?" I asked. "I want to fly it at the mast of my boat."
"You will never fly it at the mast of your boat!" With that answer she took the flag from me and thrust it impatiently into the breast-pocket of my jacket.
"Don"t crumple it, grandmother!" said Mary, piteously.
I repeated my question:
"Why shall I never fly it at the mast of my boat?"
Dame Dermody laid her hand on the closed volume of Swedenborg lying in her lap.
"Three times I have opened this book since the morning," she said.
"Three times the words of the prophet warn me that there is trouble coming. Children, it is trouble that is coming to You. I look there,"
she went on, pointing to the place where a ray of sunlight poured slanting into the room, "and I see my husband in the heavenly light. He bows his head in grief, and he points his unerring hand at You. George and Mary, you are consecrated to each other! Be always worthy of your consecration; be always worthy of yourselves." She paused. Her voice faltered. She looked at us with softening eyes, as those look who know sadly that there is a parting at hand. "Kneel!" she said, in low tones of awe and grief. "It may be the last time I bless you--it may be the last time I pray over you, in this house. Kneel!"
We knelt close together at her feet. I could feel Mary"s heart throbbing, as she pressed nearer and nearer to my side. I could feel my own heart quickening its beat, with a fear that was a mystery to me.
"G.o.d bless and keep George and Mary, here and hereafter! G.o.d prosper, in future days, the union which G.o.d"s wisdom has willed! Amen. So be it.
Amen."
As the last words fell from her lips the cottage door was thrust open.
My father--followed by the bailiff--entered the room.
Dame Dermody got slowly on her feet, and looked at him with a stern scrutiny.