Stories by American Authors Volume V Part 15

The other guests of the house remarked the new position of affairs, and pa.s.sed whispers about it to the effect that the girls had at last succeeded in getting their fish on hooks instead of in a net. No suitors could have been more devoted than our friends. It seemed as if each knight bestowed upon the chosen one all the attentions he had hitherto given to both; and whether they went boating, sketching, or strolling upon the sands, they were the very picture of a _partie carree_ of lovers.

Naturally enough, as the young men became more in earnest, with the reticence common to my s.e.x they spoke less frequently and freely on the subject. Once, however, after an unusually pleasant afternoon, Salsbury ventured a few words.

"I say, we're a couple of lucky dogs! Who'd have thought now, aw, that our summer was going to turn out so well? I'm sure I didn't. How do you get along, Charley, boy?"

"Deliciously. Smooth sailing enough. Wasn't it a good idea, though, to pair off? I'm just as happy as a bee in clover. You seem to prosper, too, heh?"

"Couldn't ask anything different. Nothing but devotion, and all that.

I'm delighted. I say, when are you going to pop?"

"Oh, I don't know. It is only a matter of form. Sooner the better, I suppose, and have it over."

"I was thinking of next week. What do you say to a quiet picnic down on the rocks, and a walk afterwards? We can separate, you know, and do the thing up systematically."

"All right. I will, if you will."

"That's another bargain. I notice there isn't much doubt about the results."

"Hardly!"

A close observer might have seen that the gentlemen increased their attentions a little from time to time. The objects of their devotion perceived it, and smiled more and more graciously upon them.

The day set for the picnic arrived duly, and was radiant. It pains me to confess that my heroes were a trifle nervous. Their apparel was more gorgeous and wonderful than ever, and Thomas, who was anxious to be off courting Miss Chapman's lady's-maid, found his masters dreadfully exacting in the matter of hair-dressing. At length, however, the toilet was over, and "Solomon in all his glory" would have been vastly astonished at finding himself "arrayed as one of these."

The boat lay at the pier, receiving large quant.i.ties of supplies for the trip, stowed by Thomas, under the supervision of the grim and tarry skipper. When all was ready the young men gingerly escorted their fair companions aboard, the lines were cast off, and the boat glided gently down the bay, leaving Thomas free to fly to the smart presence of Susan Jane and to draw glowing pictures for her of a neat little porter-house in the city, wherein they should hold supreme sway, be happy with each other, and let rooms up-stairs for single gentlemen.

The brisk land breeze swelling the sail, the fluttering of the gay little flag at the gaff, the musical rippling of water under the counter, and the spirited motion of the boat combined, with the bland air and pleasant sunshine, to inspire the party with much vivacity. They had not been many minutes afloat before the guitar-case was opened, and the girls' voices--Laura's soprano and Hattie's contralto--rang melodiously over the waves, mingled with feeble attempt at ba.s.s accompaniment from their gorgeous guardians.

Before these vocal exercises wearied, the skipper hauled down his jib, let go his anchor, and brought the craft to just off the rocks; and bringing the yawl alongside, unceremoniously plucked the girls down into it, without giving their cavaliers a chance for the least display of agile courtliness. Rowing ash.o.r.e, this same tarry person left them huddled upon the beach, with their hopes, their hampers, their emotions, and their baskets, and returned to the vessel to do a little private fishing on his own account till wanted.

The maidens gave vent to their high spirits by chasing each other among the rocks, gathering sh.e.l.ls and seaweed for the construction of those ephemeral little ornaments--fair, but frail--in which the s.e.x delights, singing, laughing, quoting poetry, att.i.tudinizing upon the peaks and ledges of the fine old boulders--mossy and weedy and green with the wash of a thousand storms, worn into strange shapes, and stained with the mult.i.tudinous dyes of mineral oxidization--and, in brief, behaved themselves with all the charming _abandon_ that so well becomes young girls set free, by the _entourage_ of a holiday ramble, from the buckram and clear-starch of social etiquette.

Meanwhile Ned and Charley smoked the pensive cigar of preparation in a sheltered corner, and gazed out seaward, dreaming and seeing nothing.

Erelong the breeze and the romp gave the young ladies not only a splendid color and sparkling eyes, but excellent appet.i.tes also. The baskets and hampers were speedily unpacked, the table-cloth laid on a broad, flat stone, so used by generations of Brant House picnickers, and the party fell to. Laura's beautiful hair, a little disordered, swept her blooming cheek, and cast a pearly shadow upon her neck. Her bright eyes glanced archly out from under her half-raised veil, and there was something inexpressibly _nave_ in the freedom with which she ate, taking a bird's wing in her fingers, and boldly attacking it with teeth as white and even as can be imagined. Notwithstanding all the mawkish nonsense that has been put forth by sentimentalists concerning feminine eating, I hold that it is one of the nicest things in the world to see a pretty woman enjoying the creature comforts; and Byron himself, had he been one of this picnic party, would have been unable to resist the admiration that filled the souls of Burnham and Salsbury. Hattie Chapman stormed the fortress of boned turkey with a gusto equal to that of Laura, and made highly successful raids upon certain outlying salads and jellies. The young men were not in a very ravenous condition; they were, as I have said, a little nervous, and bent their energies princ.i.p.ally to admiring the ladies and coquetting with pickled oysters.

When the repast was over, with much accompanying chat and laughter, Ned glanced significantly at Charley, and proposed to Laura that they should walk up the beach to a place where, he said, there were "some pretty rocks and things, you know." She consented, and they marched off. Hattie also arose, and took her parasol, as if to follow, but Charley remained seated, tracing mysterious diagrams upon the table-cloth with his fork, and looked sublimely unconscious.

"Sha'n't we walk, too?" Hattie asked.

"Oh, why, the fact is," said he, hesitatingly, "I--I sprained my ankle getting out of that confounded boat, so I don't feel much like exercising just now."

The young girl's face expressed concern.

"That is too bad! Why didn't you tell us of it before? Is it painful?

I'm so sorry!"

"N-no--it doesn't hurt much. I dare say it will be all right in a minute. And then--I'd just as soon stay here--with you--as to walk anywhere."

This very tenderly, with a little sigh.

Hattie sat down again, and began to talk to this fact.i.tious cripple in the pleasant, purring way some damsels have, about the joys of the sea-sh.o.r.e, the happy summer that was, alas! drawing to a close, her own enjoyment of life, and kindred topics, till Charley saw an excellent opportunity to interrupt with some aspirations of his own, which, he averred, must be realized before his life would be considered a satisfactory success.

If you had ever been placed in a.n.a.logous circ.u.mstances, you know, of course, just about the sort of thing that was being said by the two gentlemen at nearly the same moment: Ned, loitering slowly along the sands with Laura on his arm, and Charley, stretched in indolent picturesqueness upon the rocks, with Hattie sitting beside him. If you do not know from experience, ask any candid friend who has been through the form and ceremony of an orthodox proposal.

When the pedestrians returned the two couples looked very hard at each other. All were smiling and complacent, but devoid of any strange or unusual expression. Indeed, the countenance is subject to such severe education, in good society, that one almost always looks smiling and complacent. Demonstration is not fashionable, and a man must preserve the same demeanor over the loss of a wife or a glove-b.u.t.ton, over the gift of a heart's whole devotion or a bundle of cigars. Under all these visitations the complacent smile is in favor as the neatest, most serviceable, and convenient form of non-committalism.

The sun was approaching the blue range of misty hills that bounded the mainland swamps by this time; so the skipper was signalled, the dinner paraphernalia gathered up, and the party were soon _en route_ for home once more. When the young ladies were safely in, Ned and Charley met in their room, and each caught the other looking at him stealthily. Both smiled.

"Did I give you time, Charley?" asked Ned; "we came back rather soon."

"Oh, yes; plenty of time."

"Did you--aw, did you pop?

"Y-yes. Did you?"

"Well--yes."

"And you were--"

"Rejected, by Jove!"

"So was I!"

The day following this disastrous picnic the baggage of Mr. Edwin Salsbury and Mr. Charles Burnham was sent to the depot at Wikha.s.set Station, and they presented themselves at the hotel-office with a request for their bill. As Jerry Swayne deposited their key upon its hook, he drew forth a small tri-cornered billet from the pigeon-hole beneath, and presented it.

"Left for you this morning, gentlemen."

It was directed to both, and Charley read it over Ned's shoulder. It ran thus:

"DEAR BOYS: The next time you divert yourselves by throwing dice for two young ladies, we pray you not to do so in the presence of a valet who is upon terms of intimacy with the maid of one of them.

"With many sincere thanks for the amus.e.m.e.nt you have given us--often when you least suspected it--we bid you a lasting adieu, and remain, with the best wishes,

"HATTIE CHAPMAN, "LAURA THURSTON.

"_Brant House_, "_Wednesday."_

"It is all the fault of that, aw--that confounded Thomas!" said Ned.

So Thomas was discharged.

[4] _Atlantic Monthly, June_, 1863.