A Book o' Nine Tales.. Bates Arlo

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      “But why suppose so many tormenting things?” returned Columbine, brightly. “The fault of the age, they say, – we know very little of it here, but cousin Tom sends me a paper occasionally, – is unrest; and whoever you are, a little tranquillity will scarcely be likely to harm you. Go on with the life and adventures, and never mind now whether they are true or not. At least they are interesting. You broke off yesterday in a most exciting account of a tiger hunt.”

      “Ah, yes; I got the rest of it together this morning. Where did I leave off? Had we reached the second jungle?”

V

      The salt meadows were on fire. The pungent odor of burning peat and saline grasses floated over the Dysart place and about the arbor one October morning when Tom sat there meditating. He was thinking of Columbine, and of his passion for her. His health now seemed firmly re-establishing itself, and his memory had gone on over the old track of his life in its singular method of progression until he felt confident that he should ultimately be in possession of all his past. He reviewed what he remembered, as he sat this morning inhaling the aromatic scent of the burning lowlands, and the result was not unsatisfactory. He had recovered from oblivion his life up to the time, three years before, when he took passage home from India, and his financial affairs at that period were in an eminently satisfactory position. He recalled that he had been regarded on shipboard as a person of more consequence than the British officer who, with his daughter, occupied the cabin of the Indiaman with him; and he trusted that no untoward circumstances of the interval had placed him in a condition less desirable.

      He had reconciled himself to remaining at the Dysart mansion by turning over to old Sarah a goodly portion of the money contained in his travelling-belt, and blessed himself that his wandering life had led him to form the habit of always going thus provided. He sat now waiting for Columbine to appear, and fondly picturing to himself the delight of telling his love when the time came that he dare speak. Each day increased his attachment, and he believed, as every lover will, that his love was returned. A smile of brooding contentment, so deep that even the impatience of his passion could not disturb it, dwelt upon his face as he inhaled the fragrant odors from the burning marshes, and listened for the step of the maiden he loved.

      She came at last, moving along the garden paths between the faded shrubs, a gracious and winning figure. She was dressed that morning in a gown of russet wool, with a bunch of gold and crimson leaves at her throat, and never, in Tom’s eyes, had she looked so lovely.

      “I shouldn’t have been so late in getting here,” she said, as she took her accustomed seat, “but Sarah is greatly concerned about the fire in the salt marshes. She says it is thirty years since they burnt over, and she presages all sorts of dire calamities from that fact.”

      “That they haven’t burnt over for thirty years?”

      “Well,” Columbine returned with a pout, “she is not at all clear what she does mean, so it isn’t to be expected that I shall be. We will go on with the life and adventures, if you please.”

      “But suppose I haven’t remembered anything more?”

      “Nonsense,” retorted pretty Columbine; “you never really remember. I am convinced that you make it all up as you go along; but you tell it so seriously that it might as well be true. And in any case it does credit to your powers of imagination.”

      His story now was of his voyage from Calcutta. He told of moonlight nights in the Indian ocean, of long days of sunny idling on deck, and all the pleasant details of a prosperous voyage over Southern seas.

      “Miss Grant wasn’t very pretty,” he observed, lying lazily back and looking up into the blue October sky, “at least not as I remember her; but she was very good company, only a little given to sentimentalizing. She had a guitar, and I will confess I did hate to see that guitar come out.”

      “She would be pleased if she could hear you,” laughed Columbine. “What was there so frightful about her guitar?”

      “Oh, when she had that she always sang moony songs, and after that – ”

      “Well?” demanded Miss Dysart, mischievously.

      “Oh, after that,” he returned, with an impatient shake of his shoulders, “she was sure to talk sentiment.”

      His companion laughed merrily. The faint, almost unconscious feeling of jealousy which had risen at the mention of this engaging young lady had vanished entirely in the indifference with which Mr. Tom spoke of her. She moved her head with a happy little motion not unlike that with which a bird plumes itself. Her soft, low laugh did not really end, but lost itself among the dimples of her cheeks.

      Tom regarded her with shining eyes.

      “Not that I should mind some people’s talking sentiment,” he said with a smile.

      She raised her laughing gaze to his, and, as their eyes met, the meaning of the look in his was too plain to be mistaken. She flushed and paled, dropping her gaze from his.

      “And did nothing especial happen on the voyage?” she asked, with a strong effort to regain her careless manner.

      “Not that I recall,” he answered, putting his hand beside hers upon the rustic table so that their fingers almost touched.

      A moment of silence followed, broken only by the chirping of a few belated crickets, that, despite the advancement of the season, had not yet discontinued their autumnal concerts. The two, so quiet outwardly, sat with beating hearts, when suddenly a wandering breeze brought into the summer-house a puff of smoke from the burning salt meadows. It was laden with the fetid odor of consuming animal matter, and so powerful was it that both involuntarily turned away their heads.

      “Bah!” Columbine cried. “How horrible! There must be a dead animal of some sort there that the fire has reached.”

      She stopped speaking and gazed with surprise at Tom, who had buried his face in his hands with a groan.

      “What is it? Has it made you ill? It is gone now.”

      He lifted a face white with emotion.

      “No,” he said, “it has not made me ill, – physically, that is; but it has done worse, it has made me remember.”

      “Ah!” she exclaimed. “What is it? is it so terrible?”

      She leaned toward him, and to poor Tom she looked the incarnation of enticing loveliness. Sympathy and interest – not unmixed, she being a woman, with curiosity – sparkled in her eyes, yet he nerved himself to tell her all that had come back to him.

      “That smell of burning hide,” he began, “brought it all up in a flash. The ship got on fire; Miss Grant clung to me; there was just such an odor leaking out around the hatches from the hold where the flames were at the cargo; she – I – when everything else was right, when the fire was out, I was all wrong.”

      “I do not understand,” Columbine said.

      She drew away from him, her cheeks pale, her very lips wan. She did not meet his gaze, but sat with downcast eyes.

      “I was engaged to Miss Grant. I did not pretend to love her, but I thought we were all bound for the bottom, and” —

      He stopped helplessly; her eyes flashed upon him.

      “And if a lie would soothe her last moments,” she said, bitterly, “you – No, no; I beg your СКАЧАТЬ