Quest of the Golden Girl Part 13

"Now for this horrid puncture!" were the first words I was to hear fall from her lips.

She sought for the wound in the india-rubber with growing bewilderment.

"Goodness!" was her next exclamation, "why, there's nothing wrong with it. Can I have been dreaming?"

"I hope your dreams have been pleasanter than that," I ventured at this moment to stammer, rising, a startling apparition, from my ambush behind a mound of brambles; and before she had time to take in the situation I added that I hoped she'd excuse my little pleasantry, and told her how I had noticed her and the wounded bicycle, et cetera, et cetera, as the reader can well imagine, without giving me the trouble of writing it all out.

She was sweetness itself on the instant.

"Excuse you!" she said, "I should think so. Who wouldn't? You can't tell the load you've taken off my mind. I'm sure I must have groaned in my sleep--for I confess I cried myself to sleep over it."

"I thought so," I said with gravity, and eyes that didn't dare to smile outright till they had permission, which, however, was not long withheld them.

"How did you know?"

"Oh, intuition, of course--who wouldn't have cried themselves to sleep, and so tired too!"

"You're a nice sympathetic man, anyhow," she laughed; "what a pity you don't bicycle!"

"Yes," I said, "I would give a thousand pounds for a bicycle at this moment."

"You ought to get a good one for that," she laughed,--"all bright parts nickel, I suppose; indeed, you should get a real silver frame and gold handle-bars for that, don't you think? Well, it would be nice all the same to have your company a few miles, especially as it's growing dark," she added.

"Especially as it's growing dark," I repeated.

"You won't be going much farther to-night. Have you fixed on your inn?" I continued innocently. She had--but that was in a town too far to reach to-night, after her long sleep.

"You might have wakened me," she said.

"Yes, it was stupid of me not to have thought of it," I answered, offering no explanation of the dead bee which at the moment I espied a little away in the gra.s.s, and saying nothing of the merry tramp and the melancholy musician.

Then we talked inns, and thus she fell beautifully into the pit which I had digged for her; and it was presently arranged that she should ride on to the Wheel of Pleasure and order a dinner, which she was to do me the honour of sharing with me.

I was to follow on foot as speedily as might be, and it was with a high heart that I strode along the sunset lanes, hearing for some time the chiming of her bell in front of me, till she had wheeled it quite out of hearing, and it was lost in the distance.

I never did a better five miles in my life.

CHAPTER III

TWO TOWN MICE AT A COUNTRY INN.

When I reached the Wheel of Pleasure, I found Rosalind awaiting me in the coffee-room, looking fresh from a traveller's toilette, and with the welcome news that dinner was on the way. By the time I had washed off the day's dust it was ready, and a merry meal it proved. Rosalind had none of Alastor's objections to the wine-list, so we drank an excellent champagne; and as there seemed to be no one in the hotel but ourselves, we made ourselves at home and talked and laughed, none daring to make us afraid.

At first, on sitting down to table, we had grown momentarily shy, with one of those sudden freaks of self-consciousness which occasionally surprise one, when, midway in some slightly unconventional situation to which the innocence of nature has led us, we realise it--"for an instant and no more."

Positively, I think that in the embarra.s.sment of that instant I had made some inspired remark to Rosalind about the lovely country which lay dreamy in the afterglow outside our window. Oh, yes, I remember the very words. They were "What a heavenly landscape!" or something equally striking.

"Yes," Rosalind had answered, "it is almost as beautiful as the Strand!"

If I'd known her better, I should have exclaimed, "You dear!" and I think it possible that I did say something to that effect,--perhaps "You dear woman!" At all events, the veil of self-consciousness was rent in twain at that remark, and our spirits rushed together at this touch of London nature thus unexpectedly revealed.

London! I hadn't realised till this moment how I had been missing it all these days of rustication, and my heart went out to it with a vast homesickness.

"Yes! the Strand," I repeated tenderly, "the Strand--at night!"

"Indeed, yes! what is more beautiful in the whole world?" she joined in ardently.

"The wild torrents of light, the pa.s.sionate human music, the hansoms, the white shirts and shawled heads, the theatres--"

"Don't speak of them or you'll make me cry," said Rosalind.

"The little suppers after the theatre--"

"Please don't," she cried, "it is cruel;" and I saw that her eyes were indeed glistening with tears.

"But, of course," I continued, to give a slight turn aside in our talk, "it is very wrong of us to have such sophisticated tastes. We ought to love these lonely hills and meadows far more. The natural man revels in solitude, and wants no wittier company than birds and flowers.

Wordsworth made a constant companion of a pet daisy. He seldom went abroad without one or two trotting at his side, and a skylark would keep Sh.e.l.ley in society for a week."

"But they were poets," retorted Rosalind; "you don't call poets natural. Why, they are the most unnatural of men. The natural person loves the society of his kind, whereas the poet runs away from it."

"Well, of course, there are poets and poets, poets sociable and poets very unsociable. Wordsworth made the country, but Lamb made the town; and there is quite a band of poets nowadays who share his distaste for mountains, and take London for their muse. If you'll promise not to cry again, I'll recall some lines by a friend of mine which were written for town-tastes like ours. But perhaps you know them?"

It will gratify my friend to learn that Rosalind had the verses I refer to by heart, and started off humming,--

"Ah, London, London, our delight, Great flower that opens but at night, Great city of the midnight sun, Whose day begins when day is done...

Like dragon-flies the hansoms hover With jewelled eyes to catch the lover;"

and so on, with a gusto of appreciation that must have been very gratifying to the author had he been present.

Thus perceiving a taste for a certain modern style of poetry in my companion, I bethought me of a poem which I had written on the roadside a few days before, and which, I confess, I was eager to confide to some sympathetic ear. I was diffident of quoting it after such lines as Rosalind had recalled, but by the time we had reached our coffee, I plucked up courage to mention it. I had, however, the less diffidence in that it would have a technical interest for her, being indeed no other than a song of cycling a deux which had been suggested by one of those alarmist danger-posts always placed at the top of the pleasantest hills, sternly warning the cyclist that "this hill is dangerous,"--just as in life there is always some minatory notice-board frowning upon us in the direction we most desire to take.

But I omit further preface and produce the poem:--

"This hill is dangerous," I said, As we rode on together Through sunny miles and sunny miles Of Surrey heather; "This hill is dangerous--don't you think We'd better walk it?"

"Or sit it out--more danger still!"

She smiled--"and talk it?"

"Are you afraid?" she turned and cried So very brave and sweetly,-- Oh that brave smile that takes the heart Captive completely!

"Afraid?" I said, deep in her eyes Recklessly gazing; "For you I'd ride into the sun And die all blazing!"

"I never yet saw hill," I said, "And was afraid to take it; I never saw a foolish law, And feared to break it.

Who fears a hill or fears a law With you beside him?

Who fears, dear star, the wildest sea With you to guide him?"

Then came the hill--a cataract, A dusty swirl, before us; The world stood round--a village world-- In fearful chorus.