Moods
Her five minutes was sufficiently elastic to cover fifteen, for she was
ravaging her wardrobe to effect her purpose and convince her brother,
whose artistic tastes she consulted, with a skill that did her good
service in the end. Rapidly assuming a gray gown, with a jaunty jacket
of the same, she kilted the skirt over one of green, the pedestrian
length of which displayed boots of uncompromising thickness. Over her
shoulder, by a broad ribbon, she slung a prettily wrought pouch, and
ornamented her hat pilgrim-wise with a cockle shell. Then taking her
brother's alpen-stock she crept down, and standing in the door-way
presented a little figure all in gray and green, like the earth she was
going to wander over, and a face that blushed and smiled and shone as
she asked demurely--
"Please, Mark, am I picturesque and convenient enough to go?"
He wheeled about and stared approvingly, forgetting cause in effect till
Warwick began to laugh like a merry bass viol, and Moor joined him,
saying--
"Come, Mark, own that you are conquered, and let us turn our commonplace
voyage into a pleasure pilgrimage, with a lively lady to keep us knights
and gentlemen wherever we are."
"I say no more; only remember, Sylvia, if you get burnt, drowned, or
blown away, I'm not responsible for the damage, and shall have the
satisfaction of saying, 'There, I told you so.'"
"That satisfaction may be mine when I come home quite safe and well,"
replied Sylvia, serenely. "Now for the last condition."
Warwick looked with interest from the sister to the brother; for, being
a solitary man, domestic scenes and relations possessed the charm of
novelty to him.
"Thirdly, you are not to carry a boat-load of luggage, cloaks, pillows,
silver forks, or a dozen napkins, but are to fare as we fare, sleeping
in hammocks, barns, or on the bare ground, without shrieking at bats or
bewailing the want of mosquito netting; eating when, where, and what is
most convenient, and facing all kinds of weather regardless of
complexion, dishevelment, and fatigue. If you can promise all this, be
here loaded and ready to go off at six o'clock to-morrow morning."
After which cheerful picture of the joys to come, Mark marched away to
his studio, taking his friends with him.
Sylvia worked the three miracles, and at half past five, A. M. was
discovered sitting on the piazza, with her hammock rolled into a twine
sausage at her feet, her hat firmly tied on, her scrip packed, and her
staff in her hand. "Waiting till called for," she said, as her brother
passed her, late and yawning as usual. As the clock struck six the
carriage drove round, and Moor and Warwick came up the avenue in
nautical array. Then arose a delightful clamor of voices, slamming of
doors, hurrying of feet and frequent peals of laughter; for every one
was in holiday spirits, and the morning seemed made for pleasuring.
Mr. Yule regarded the voyagers with an aspect as benign as the summer
sky overhead; Prue ran to and fro pouring forth a stream of counsels,
warnings, and predictions; men and maids gathered on the lawn or hung
out of upper windows; and even old Hecate, the cat, was seen chasing
imaginary rats and mice in the grass till her yellow eyes glared with
excitement. "All in," was announced at last, and as the carriage rolled
away its occupants looked at one another with faces of blithe
satisfaction that their pilgrimage was so auspiciously begun.
A mile or more up the river the large, newly-painted boat awaited them.
The embarkation was a speedy one, for the cargo was soon stowed in
lockers and under seats, Sylvia forwarded to her place in the bow; Mark,
as commander of the craft, took the helm; Moor and Warwick, as crew, sat
waiting orders; and Hugh, the coachman, stood ready to push off at word
of command. Presently it came, a strong hand sent them rustling through
the flags, down dropped the uplifted oars, and with a farewell cheer
from a group upon the shore the Kelpie glided out into the stream.
Sylvia, too full of genuine content to talk, sat listening to the
musical dip of well-pulled oars, watching the green banks on either
side, dabbling her hands in the eddies as they rippled by, and singing
to the wind, as cheerful and serene as the river that gave her back a
smiling image of herself. What her companions talked of she neither
heard nor cared to know, for she was looking at the great picture-book
that always lies ready for the turning of the youngest or the oldest
hands; was receiving the welcome of the playmates she best loved, and
was silently yielding herself to the power which works all wonders with
its benignant magic. Hour after hour she journeyed along that fluent
road. Under bridges where early fishers lifted up their lines to let
them through; past gardens tilled by unskilful townsmen who harvested an
hour of strength to pay the daily tax the city levied on them; past
honeymoon cottages where young wives walked with young husbands in the
dew, or great houses shut against the morning. Lovers came floating down
the stream with masterless rudder and trailing oars. College race-boats
shot by with modern Greek choruses in full blast and the frankest
criticisms from their scientific crews. Fathers went rowing to and fro
with argosies of pretty children, who gave them gay good morrows.
Sometimes they met fanciful nutshells manned by merry girls, who made
for shore at sight of them with most erratic movements and novel
commands included in their Art of Navigation. Now and then some poet or
philosopher went musing by, fishing for facts or fictions, where other
men catch pickerel or perch.
All manner of sights and sounds greeted Sylvia, and she felt as if she
were watching a Panorama painted in water colors by an artist who had
breathed into his work the breath of life and given each figure power to
play its part. Never had human faces looked so lovely to her eye, for
morning beautified the plainest with its ruddy kiss; never had human
voices sounded so musical to her ear, for daily cares had not yet
brought discord to the instruments tuned by sleep and touched by
sunshine into pleasant sound; never had the whole race seemed so near
and dear to her, for she was unconsciously pledging all she met in that
genuine Elixir Vitae which sets the coldest blood aglow and makes the
whole world kin; never had she felt so truly her happiest self, for of
all the costlier pleasures she had known not one had been so congenial
as this, as she rippled farther and farther up the stream and seemed to
float into a world whose airs brought only health and peace. Her
comrades wisely left her to her thoughts, a smiling Silence for their
figure-head, and none among them but found the day fairer and felt
himself fitter to enjoy it for the innocent companionship of maidenhood
and a happy heart.
At noon they dropped anchor under a wide-spreading oak that stood on the
river's edge, a green tent for wanderers like themselves; there they ate
their first meal spread among white clovers, with a pair of squirrels
staring at them as curiously as human spectators ever watched royalty at
dinner, while several meek cows courteously left their guests the shade
and went away to dine at a side-table spread in the sun. They spent an
hour or two talking or drowsing luxuriously on the grass; then the
springing up of a fresh breeze roused them all, and weighing anchor they
set sail for another port.
Now Sylvia saw new pictures, for, leaving all traces of the city behind
them, they went swiftly countryward. Sometimes by hayfields, each an
idyl in itself, with white-sleeved mowers all arow; the pleasant sound
of whetted scythes; great loads rumbling up lanes, with brown-faced
children shouting atop; rosy girls raising fragrant winrows or bringing
water for thirsty sweethearts leaning on their rakes. Often they saw
ancient farm-houses with mossy roofs, and long well-sweeps suggestive of
fresh draughts, and the drip of brimming pitchers; orchards and
cornfields rustling on either hand, and grandmotherly caps at the narrow
windows, or stout matrons tending babies in the doorway as they watched
smaller selves playing keep house under the "laylocks" by the wall.
Villages, like white flocks, slept on the hillsides; martinbox
schoolhouses appeared here and there, astir with busy voices, alive
with wistful eyes; and more than once they came upon little mermen
bathing, who dived with sudden splashes, like a squad of turtles
tumbling off a sunny rock.
Then they went floating under vernal arches, where a murmurous rustle
seemed to whisper, "Stay!" along shadowless sweeps, where the blue
turned to gold and dazzled with its unsteady shimmer; passed islands so
full of birds they seemed green cages floating in the sun, or doubled
capes that opened long vistas of light and shade, through which they
sailed into the pleasant land where summer reigned supreme. To Sylvia it
seemed as if the inhabitants of these solitudes had flocked down to the
shore to greet her as she came. Fleets of lilies unfurled their sails on
either hand, and cardinal flowers waved their scarlet flags among the
green. The sagittaria lifted its blue spears from arrowy leaves; wild
roses smiled at her with blooming faces; meadow lilies rang their
flame-colored bells; and clematis and ivy hung garlands everywhere, as
if hers were a floral progress, and each came to do her honor.
Her neighbors kept up a flow of conversation as steady as the river's,
and Sylvia listened now. Insensibly the changeful scenes before them
recalled others, and in the friendly atmosphere that surrounded them
these reminiscences found free expression. Each of the three had been
fortunate in seeing much of foreign life; each had seen a different
phase of it, and all were young enough to be still enthusiastic,
accomplished enough to serve up their recollections with taste and
skill, and give Sylvia glimpses of the world through spectacles
sufficiently rose-colored to lend it the warmth which even Truth allows
to her sister Romance.
The wind served them till sunset, then the sail was lowered and the
rowers took to their oars. Sylvia demanded her turn, and wrestled with
one big oar while Warwick sat behind and did the work. Having blistered
her hands and given herself as fine a color as any on her brother's
palette, she professed herself satisfied, and went back to her seat to
watch the evening-red transfigure earth and sky, making the river and
its banks a more royal pageant than splendor-loving Elizabeth ever saw
along the Thames.
Anxious to reach a certain point, they rowed on into the twilight,
growing stiller and stiller as the deepening hush seemed to hint that
Nature was at her prayers. Slowly the Kelpie floated along the shadowy
way, and as the shores grew dim, the river dark with leaning hemlocks or
an overhanging cliff, Sylvia felt as if she were making the last voyage
across that fathomless stream where a pale boatman plies and many go
lamenting.
The long silence was broken first by Moor's voice, saying--
"Adam, sing."
If the influences of the hour had calmed Mark, touched Sylvia, and made
Moor long for music, they had also softened Warwick. Leaning on his oar
he lent the music of a mellow voice to the words of a German Volkslied,
and launched a fleet of echoes such as any tuneful vintager might have
sent floating down the Rhine. Sylvia was no weeper, but as she listened,
all the day's happiness which had been pent up in her heart found vent
in sudden tears, that streamed down noiseless and refreshing as a warm
south rain. Why they came she could not tell, for neither song nor
singer possessed the power to win so rare a tribute, and at another
time, she would have restrained all visible expression of this