Molly Bawn Part 4

"I am fortunate. Well, that is the wheat. I don't know that I can expect you to go into ecstasies over it, as I confess to me it appears more or less weak about the head. _Could_ one say that wheat was imbecile?"

"In these days," politely, "one may say anything one likes."

"Yes? You see that rain did some damage; but after all it might have been worse."

"You will excuse my asking the question," says Luttrell, gravely, "but did you ever write for the _Farmer's Gazette_?"

"Never, as yet. But," with an irrepressible smile, "your words suggest to me brilliant possibilities. Perhaps were I to sit down and tell every one in trisyllables what they already know only too well about the crops, and the weather, and the Colorado beetle, and so forth, I might perchance wake up some morning to find myself famous."

"I haven't the faintest doubt of it," says Tedcastle, with such flattering warmth that they both break into a merry laugh. Not that there is anything at all in the joke worthy of such a joyous outburst, but because they are both so young and both so happy.

"Do you think I have done enough duty for one day?" asks Molly. "Have I been prosy enough to allow of my leaving off now? Because I don't think I have got anything more to say about the coming harvest, and I wouldn't care to say it if I had."

"Do you expect me to say that I found you 'prosy'?"

"If you will be so very kind. And you are quite sure no one could accuse me of taking advantage of John's and Letty's absence to be frivolous in my conversation?"

"Utterly positive."

"And you will tell John what a sedate and gentle companion I was?"

"I will indeed, and more,--much more."

"On the contrary, not a word more: if you do you will spoil all. And now," says Molly, with a little soft, lingering smile, "as a reward for your promises, come with me to the top of yonder hill, and I will show you a lovely view."

"Is it not delicious here?" suggests Mr. Luttrell, who can scarcely be called energetic, and who finds it a difficult matter to grow enthusiastic over landscapes when oppressed by a broiling sun.

"What! tired already?" says Molly, with fine disregard of subterfuge.

"No, oh, no," weakly.

"But you _are_," reproachfully. "You are quite _done up_.

Why, what would you do if you were ordered on a long day's march?"

"I dare say I should survive it," says Tedcastle, shortly, who is rather offended at her putting it in this light.

"Well, perhaps you might; but you certainly would have nothing to boast of. Now, look at me: I am as fresh as when we started." And in truth, as she stands before him, in her sky-blue gown, he sees she is as cool and bright and unruffled as when they left the house three-quarters of an hour ago. "Well," with a resigned sigh that speaks of disappointment, "stay here until I run up,--I love the place,--and I will join you afterward."

"Not I!" indignantly. "I'm good yet for so much exertion, and I don't believe I could exist without you for so long. 'Call, and I follow--I follow,' even _though_ 'I die,'" he adds to himself, in a tone of melancholy.

Up the short but steep hill they toil in silence. Halfway Miss Ma.s.sereene pauses, either to recover breath or to give encouragement.

"On the top there is always a breeze," she says, in the voice one adopts when determined to impress upon the listener what one's own heart knows to be doubtful.

"Is there?" says Luttrell, gloomily, and with much disbelief.

At length they gain the wished-for top. They stand together, Molly with her usually pale cheeks a little flushed by the exercise, but otherwise calm and collected; Luttrell decidedly the worse for wear. And, yes, there actually _is_ a breeze,--a sighing, rustling, unmistakable breeze, that rushes through their hair and through their fingers, and is as a draught from Olympus.

"There, didn't I tell you?" cries Molly, with all the suspicious haste and joy that betrays how weak has been her former hope. "Now, _do_ say you are glad I brought you up."

"What need? My only happiness is being with you," says the young man, softly.

"See how beautiful the land is,--as far as one can discern all green and gold," says she, unheeding his subdued tenderness. "Honestly, I do feel a deep interest in farming; and of all the grain that grows I dearly love the barley. First comes the nice plowed brown earth; then the ragged bare suspicion of green; then the strengthening and perfecting of that green until the whole earth is hidden away; then the soft, juicy look of the young blades nodding and waving at each other in the wind, that seems almost tender of them, and at last the fleecy, downy ears all whispering together."

"When you speak in that tone you make me wish myself a barleycorn,"

says Tedcastle, smiling. "Sit down here beside me, will you, and tell me why your brother calls you 'Molly Bawn'?"

"I hardly know," sinking down near him on the short, cool gra.s.s: "it was a name he gave me when I was a little one. John has ever been my father, my mother, my all," says the girl, a soft and lovely dew of earnest affection coming into her eyes. "Were I to love him all my life with twice the love I now bear him, I would scarcely be grateful enough."

"Happy John! Molly! What a pretty name it is."

"But not mine really. No. I was christened Eleanor, after my poor mother, whose history you know. 'Bawn' means fair. 'Fair Molly,'" says she, with a smile, turning to him her face, that resembles nothing so much as a newly-opened flower. "I had hair quite golden when a child.

See," tilting her hat so that it falls backward from her head and lies on the greensward behind. "It is hardly dark yet."

"It is the most beautiful hair in the world," says he, touching with gentle, reverential fingers the silken coils that glint and s.h.i.+mmer in the sunlight. "And it is a name that suits you,--and you only."

"Did I never sing you the old Irish song I claim as my own?"

"You never sang for me at all."

"What! you have been here a whole week, and I have never sung for you?"

With widely-opened eyes of pure surprise. "What could I have been thinking about? Do you know, I sing very nicely." This without the faintest atom of conceit. "Listen, then, and I will sing to you now."

With her hands clasped around her knees, her head bare, her tresses a little loosened by the wind, and her large eyes fixed upon the distant hills, she thus sweetly sings:

"Oh, Molly Bawn! why leave me pining, All lonely waiting here for you, While the stars above are brightly s.h.i.+ning, Because they've nothing else to do?

Oh, Molly Bawn! Molly Bawn!

"The flowers late were open keeping, To try a rival blush with you, But their mother, Nature, set them sleeping With their rosy faces washed in dew.

Oh, Molly Bawn! Molly Bawn!

"The village watch-dog here is snarling; He takes me for a thief, you see; For he knows I'd steal you, Molly darling, And then transported I should be!

Oh, Molly Bawn! Molly Bawn!"

"An odd old song, isn't it?" she says, presently, glancing at him curiously, when she has finished singing, and waited, and yet heard no smallest sound of praise. "You do not speak. Of what are you thinking?"

"Of the injustice of it," says he, in a low, thoughtful tone. "Had you not a bounteous store already when this last great charm was added on?

Some poor wretches have nothing, some but a meagre share, while you have wrested from Fortune all her best gifts,--beauty----"

"No, no! stop!" cries Molly, gayly; "before you enumerate the good things that belong to me, remember that I still lack the chiefest: I have no money. I am without doubt the most poverty-stricken of your acquaintances. Can any confession be more humiliating? Good sir, my face is indeed my fortune. Or is it my voice?" pausing suddenly, as though a cold breath from the dim hereafter had blown across her cheek.

"I hardly know."

"A rich fortune either way."

"And here I am recklessly imperiling one," hastily putting on her hat once more, "by exposing my precious skin to that savage sun. Come,--it is almost cool now,--let us have a good race down the hill." She slips her slender fingers within his,--a lovable trick of hers, innocent of coquetry,--and, Luttrell conquering with a sigh a wild desire to clasp and kiss the owner of those little clinging fingers on the spot, together they run down the slope into the longer gra.s.s below, and so, slowly and more decorously, journey homeward.