Hills of the Shatemuc Part 166

"Ryle?"

"Yes! -- I believe that's the name."

"For a man called Jean Lessing?"

"I don't know anything about Lessing -- I think Ryle was the other name --You were against Ryle."

"Lessing was Mr. Herder's brother-in-law."

"I don't remember Mr. Herder's brother-in-law -- though I believe Mr. Herder _did_ have something to do with the case, or some interest in it."

"How did you know anything about it?"

"You haven't answered me," said Elizabeth, laughing and colouring brightly.

"One question is as good as another," said Winthrop smiling.

"But one answer is much better than another," said Elizabeth in a little confusion.

"The suit against Ryle was very successful. I recovered for him some ninety thousand dollars."

"Ninety thousand dollars!" -- Her thoughts took somewhat of a wide circle and came back.

"The amount recovered is hardly a fair criterion of the skill employed, in every instance. I must correct your judgment."

"I know more about it than that," said Elizabeth. "How far your education has gone! -- and mine is only just beginning."

"I should be sorry to think mine was much more than beginning.

Now do you know we must go down? -- for I must be at Mountain Spring to meet the stage-coach."

"How soon?" said Elizabeth springing up.

"There is time enough, but I want not to hurry you down the hill."

He had put her sunbonnet on her head again and was retying it.

"Mr. Landholm --"

"You must not call me that," he said.

"Let me, till I can get courage to call you something else."

"How much courage does it want?"

"If you don't stop," said Elizabeth, her eyes filling with tears, "I shall not be able to say one word of what I want to say."

He stood still, holding the strings of her sunbonnet in either hand. Elizabeth gathered breath, or courage, and went on.

"A little while ago I was grieving myself to think that you did not know me -- now, I am very much ashamed to think that you do." --

He did not move, nor she.

"I know I am not worthy to have you look at me. My only hope is, that you will make me better."

The bonnet did not hide her face this time. He looked at it a little, at the simplicity of ingenuous trouble which was working in it, -- and then pushing the bonnet a little back, kissed first one cheek and then the lips, which by that time were bent down almost out of reach. But he reached them; and Elizabeth was obliged to take her answer, in which there was as much of gentle forgiveness and promise as of affection.

"You see what you have to expect, if you talk to me in this strain," said he lightly. "I think I shall not be troubled with much more of it. I don't like to leave you in this frame of mind. I would take you to Mountain Spring in the boat -- if I could bring you back again."

"I could bring myself back," said Elizabeth. They were going down the hill; in the course of which, it may be remarked, Winthrop had no reason to suppose that she once saw anything but the ground.

"I am afraid you are too tired."

"No indeed I am not. I should like it -- if there is time."

"Go in less time that way than the other."

So they presently reached the lower ground.

"Do you want anything from the house?" said Winthrop as they came near it.

"Only the oars -- If you will get those, I will untie the boat."

"Then I'll _not_ get the oars. I'll get them on condition that you stand still here."

So they went down together to the rocks, and Elizabeth put herself in the stern of the little boat and they pushed off.

To any people who could think of anything but each other, October offered enough to fill eyes, ears, and understanding; that is, if ears can be filled with silence, which perhaps is predicable. Absolute silence on this occasion was wanting, as there was a good deal of talking; but for eyes and understanding, perhaps it may safely be said that those of the two people in the Merry-go-round took the benefit of _everything_ they pa.s.sed on their way; with a reduplication of pleasure which arose from the throwing and catching of that ball of conversation, in which, like the herb-stuffed ball of the Arabian physician of old, -- lay perdu certain hidden virtues, of sympathy. But Shahweetah's low rocky sh.o.r.e never offered more beauty to any eyes, than to theirs that day, as they coasted slowly round it. Colours, colours! If October had been a dyer, he could not have shewn a greater variety of samples.

There were some locust trees in the open cedar-grown field by the river; trees that Mr. Landholm had planted long ago. They were slow to turn, yet they were changing. One soft feathery head was in yellowish green, another of more neutral colour; and blending with them were the tints of a few reddish soft- tinted alders below. That group was not gay. Further on were a thicket of dull coloured alders at the edge of some flags, and above them blazed a giant huckleberry bush in bright flame colour; close by that were the purple red tufts of some common sumachs -- the one beautifully rich, the other beautifully striking. A little way from them stood a tulip tree, its green changing with yellow. Beyond came cedars, in groups, wreathed with bright tawny grape vines and splendid Virginia creepers, now in full glory. Above their tops, on the higher ground, was a rich green belt of pines -- above _them_, the changing trees of the forest again.

Here shewed an elm its straw-coloured head -- there stood an ash in beautiful grey-purple; very stately. The cornus family in rich crimson -- others crimson purple; maples shewing yellow and flame-colour and red all at once; one beauty still in green was _orange-tipped_ with rich orange. The birches were a darker hue of the same colour; hickories bright as gold.

Then came the rocks, and rocky precipitous point of Shahweetah; and the echo of the row-locks from the wall. Then the point was turned, and the little boat sought the bottom of the bay, nearing Mountain Spring all the while. The water was gla.s.sy smooth; the boat went -- too fast.

Down in the bay the character of the woodland was a little different. It was of fuller growth, and with many fewer evergreens, and some addition to the variety of the changing deciduous leaves. When they got quite to the bottom of the bay and were coasting along close under the sh.o.r.e, there was perhaps a more striking display of Autumn's glories at their side, than the rocks of Shahweetah could shew them. They coasted slowly along, looking and talking. The combinations were beautiful.

There was the dark fine bright red of some pepperidges shewing behind the green of an unchanged maple; near by stood another maple the leaves of which were all seemingly withered, a plain reddish light wood-colour; while below its withered foliage a thrifty poison sumach wreathing round its trunk and lower branches, was in a beautiful confusion of fresh green and the orange and red changes, yet but just begun. Then another slight maple with the same dead wood-coloured leaves, into which to the very top a Virginia creeper had twined itself, and that was now brilliantly scarlet, magnificent in the last degree. Another like it a few trees off -- both reflected gorgeously in the still water. Rock oaks were part green and part sear; at the edge of the sh.o.r.e below them a quant.i.ty of reddish low shrubbery; the cornus, dark crimson and red brown, with its white berries shewing underneath, and more pepperidges in very bright red. One maple stood with its leaves parti-coloured reddish and green -- another with beautiful orange-coloured foliage. Ashes in superb very dark purple; they were all changed. Then alders, oaks, and chestnuts still green. A kaleidoscope view, on water and land, as the little boat glided along sending rainbow ripples in towards the sh.o.r.e.

In the bottom of the bay Winthrop brought the boat to land, under a great red oak which stood in its fair dark green beauty yet at the very edge of the water. Mountain Spring was a little way off, hidden by an outsetting point of woods. As the boat touched the tree-roots, Winthrop laid in the oars and came and took a seat by the boat's mistress.

"Are you going to walk to Mountain Spring the rest of the way?" she said.

"No."

"Will the stage-coach take you up here?"

"If it comes, it will. What are you going to do with yourself now, till I see you again?"

"There's enough to do," said Elizabeth sighing. "I am going to try to behave myself. How soon will the coach be here now?"