Vesty of the Basins Part 46

XXV

IN THE LANE

I met her on the morrow in the lane. She would have pa.s.sed me with a mere morning salutation, but I spoke to her. "I will tell the story at least," I thought, "before I go away."

"Vesty," said I timidly. Even the handsomest of the Basins were timid in putting the question; and I, so miserable, and believing it not to be a question at all, but only a confession, was choking.

"Yes, sir," said Vesty, with rea.s.suring meekness, but there was something wicked about her mouth and eyes. O Vesty, had you been of the world I fear you would have been a sad one!

"What did you mean," said I, starting in wise Basin fashion, at a millennium distance from the intended point, "what did you mean, the other night, when you said that you wished I had a mother?"

"Oh, because we all need them, for comfort--and then, sometimes--for correction."

"And which did you think that I needed one for?"

Vesty turned her sheathed eyes away toward the safe west with a smile that gave me no other answer.

"It is lifting to be a glorious day," I said.

"If you want to talk about the weather," rippled the girl's voice, quite gently, "why don't you go and sit on the log with Captain Leezur?

He rolled down another this morning."

"I am going," I sighed. "What do you think he would tell me about the weather?"

"What we all say: 'The wind's canting in from the west, and you'll see this fog hop.'"

"It is what I say, and shall say forever, in such a case. 'The wind's canting in from the west, and you'll see this fog hop.'"

"You only pretend to be a Basin!"

"G.o.d forgive you! No; I don't pretend. I shall never get over it. I shall be one forever and ever, wherever I go, Vesty."

She looked down and paled. "Are you going away, major?"

"Yes." Then said I, looking at her, "How far do you think pity could lead one, Vesty--you, so pitiful and kind? Do you think that it could even lead you--to marry me? To take little Gurd and go away with me--and help me to live--for pity?"

"No! oh, no!" she gasped.

"Then," said I, grasping hard on my cane with my feeble hand, "as G.o.d wills!"

"Because," said Vesty, "I'm not so unselfish as that. I can't marry you for that reason--because--I love you!"

The red of the Basin sunset, that would be by and by unsurpa.s.sed, glowed in her cheeks.

As for me--forever a Basin--I dashed my hand across my eyes. A Voice above land and sea rolled toward me in that moment, through her voice, in gathering waves that covered all the pitiful accident and despair of a maimed, halting, birth-marked universe:

"And the crooked places shall be made straight; and the rough places plain. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart."

XXVI

JUST THE SCHOOL-HOUSE

Waves, slowly, softly breaking, not on the Basin sh.o.r.e: though ever, in remotest lands, we dream of that.

We hold it mystic more and more, for love of it!--ay, we have it mingled in our thoughts with that one safe and sweet possession, the Land unspoken, the Basin whose colors dawn at eventide!

And we never count: "Such an one was lost," and, "Such an one was living, when we knew." For there, there are none lost. They live again!

I suggested once that we should build a house fitting those grand sea-cliffs, sometimes to occupy it.

But Vesty, ever wise, was silent, troubled, and I read her thought.

No, we should introduce no discordant element there, of liveries and servants, and riches and seclusive walls, of _mine_ and _thine_.

"Mine _is_ thine if thou needest it," was ever the Basin code: "even my life!" Before such a spirit the admission of worldly wealth and rank were tawdry.

But Vesty communicates with them (dear to me when they arrive are the stamps unutterably erased by Lunette's faithful art): and we know that they are happier for us, and by us comforted.

And do I never blush for Vesty in her new position? Ay, a thousand times, for pride and joy! Her manners are from a high source indeed; you will not find me any that are higher.

Full are her hands of charity and mercy, given, as the great Founder of our n.o.bilities gave, without stooping, of condescension. Saint Vesta!

who gives a glory to my name it never had before--the high and n.o.ble lady of my house!

And love makes, as fully as may be in this world, security about her steps, which yet it would not hamper.

Driven in her state carriage, robed in velvet and sable, she is royal; yet not so queenly, not so matchless, as when walking, pitiful, lonely, and strong against misfortune, by the Basin sh.o.r.es, with her child upheld upon her arm, and the old shawl.

One evening I found her by the window, gazing out wistfully where the wind was tossing the rain, which ceased now and then in strange intermittent gusts, still wild of the tempest.

She looked up at me with a smile, trustful, but earnest and pathetic.

"I want to go out in the storm," she said.

"Then go, child," I answered her. "Your possessions are wide, and, as we of the Basin say, you are not made of sugar, to melt; neither," I added, "are you like Lot's wife."

She showed her fine teeth over that old tender and beloved reminiscence, but the wistful look, and sad, was still in her eyes.

"And--I would like to put on the old shawl again, just this once," she said.

"Oh," said I, "that is another thing. That is priceless, and I have it, as you know, locked among my treasures. Still, this once, yes."

And I brought it to her.

Still smiling at me, as pleading for her fancy, she held it at her throat as of old.

I made haste to resume my reading with seeming preoccupation apart, for I thought she wished to go alone.