Wych Hazel Part 7

'What's become of her other guardian?' said an old lady, possessing herself of Mr. Falkirk's left arm.

'My other guardian!' said the young lady, expressively.

'She has no other,' said Mr. Falkirk, very distinctly.

'Have you broken the will?'

'No madam,' said Mr. Falkirk. 'As it often happens in this world, something has reached your ears in a mistaken form.'

'What something was it?' said Wych Hazel.

'A false report, my dear,' Mr. Falkirk says. Which did not quite satisfy the questioner at the time, but was soon forgotten in the rush of other things.

The next day was devoted to a musical pic-nic at the Falls. It was musical, in as much as a band had been fetched up to play on the rocks, while the company filled the house and balcony, and an occasional song or duet, which ladies asked for 'just to see how they would sound there,' kept up the delusion. By what rule it was a pic-nic it might be difficult to discover, except that it had been so styled. Eatables and drinkables were, to be sure, a prominent portion of the entertainment, and they were discussed with more informality and a good deal less convenience than if in their regular place. But, however, the rocks and the wildness lent them a charm, perhaps of novelty, and the whole affair seemed to be voted a success.

Success fell so largely to Miss Hazel's share, that she by times was a little weary of it, or of its consequences; and this day finding herself in a most inevitable crowd, do what she could, she fairly ran away for a breath of air with no musk in it. Making one or two the honoured confidants of her intention, that she might secure their staying where they were and keeping others, and promising to return soon, she slipped away down the stairs by the Fall. All the party had been there that morning, as in duty bound, and had gone where it was the rule to go. Now Wych Hazel sprang along by herself, to take the wildness and the beauty in silence and at her own pleasure. At the upper basin of the Fall she turned off, and coasted the narrow path under the rock, around the basin. At the other side, where the company had been contented to turn about, Wych Hazel pa.s.sed on; till she found herself a seat on a projecting rock, from which a wild, wooded ravine of the hills stretched out before her eyes. The sides were so bold, the sweep of them so extended, the woods so luxuriantly rich, the scene so desolate in its loneliness and wildness, that she sat down to dream in a trance of enjoyment. Not a sound now but the plash of the water, the scream of a wild bird, and the rustle of leaves. Not a human creature in sight, or the trace of one. Wych might imagine the times when red Indians roved among those hillsides--the place looked like them; but rare were the white hunters that broke their solitudes. It was delicious. The very air that fanned her face had come straight from a wilderness, a wilderness where it blew only over sweet things. It refreshed her, after those people up on the balcony. She had promised to be back soon: but now a rosy flower, or spike of flowers, of tempting elegance, caught her eye. It was down below her, a little way, not far; a very rough and steep way, but no matter, she must have the flower, and deftly and daintily she clambered down: the flower looked lovelier the nearer she got to it, and very rare and exquisite she found it to be, as soon as she had it in her hands. It was not till she had examined and rejoiced over it, that addressing herself to go back, Wych Hazel found her retreat cut off. Not by any sudden avalanche or obstacle, animate or inanimate; as peacefully as before the wind waved the ferns on the great stepping stones of cliff and boulder by which she had come; but--the agility by which with help of vines and twigs she had let herself down these declivities, was not the strength that would mount them again. It was impossible. Wych Hazel saw that it was impossible, and certainly she would never have yielded the conviction but to dire necessity. She stood considering one particular jump down which she had made,--nothing but desperation could have taken her back again.

Desperate, however, Wych Hazel did not feel. There was nothing to do at present but to wait till her friends should find her; for to go further down would but add to her trouble and lessen her chance of being soon set free, and indeed, from her present position even to go down (voluntarily) was no trifle.

So Wych Hazel sat down to wait, amusing herself with thoughts of the sensation on the cliff, and wondering what sort of scaling ladders could be improvised in a hurry. They would be sure to come after her presently. Some one would find her. And it was a lovely place to wait.

How it happened must remain like other mysteries, unexplained till the mystery is over, that the person who did find her again happened to be Mr. Rollo. Yet she had hardly seen him all day before that. Wych Hazel had half forgotten her situation in enjoying its beauties and musing in accordance with them; and then suddenly looking up to the great piece of rock nearest her, she saw him standing there, looking down at her with the calm face and handsome gray eyes which she had noticed before. The girl had been singing half to herself a wild little Scottish ballad, chiming it in with water and wind and bird music, taking first one part and then another; looping together a long chain of pine needles the while,--then throwing back her sleeve, and laying the frail work across her arm, above the tiny hair chain, the broad band of gems and the string of acorns, which banded it; in short, disporting herself generally. But not the "lullaby, baby, and all," of the old rhyme, ever had a more sudden and complete downfall.

The first line of

"O wha wad buy a silken goun Wi' a puir broken heart?"

was left as a mere abstract proposition; and Wych Hazel would a.s.suredly have 'slipped from her moorings,' but for the certain fear of tearing her dress, or spraining her ankle, or doing some other bad thing which should call for immediate a.s.sistance. So she sat still and gazed at the prospect.

Her discoverer presently dropped down by her side and stood there uncovered, as usual, but this time he did not withdraw his eyes from her face. And when he spoke it was in a new tone, very pleasant, though laying aside a certain distance and form with which he had hitherto addressed her.

'Do you know,' he said, 'I begin to think I have known you in a former state of existence?'

'What sort of a person were you in a former state, Mr. Rollo?'

'I see the knowledge was not mutual. I am sorry.--This is a pleasant place!'

'This identical grey rock?'

'Don't you think so?'--in a tone which a.s.sumed the proposition.

'Very,' said Wych Hazel with a demure face;--'I do not know which abound most--the pleasures of Hope, Memory, or Imagination. But I thought perhaps you meant the mountain.'

'The pleasures of the Present, then, you do not perceive?'

said Mr. Rollo, peering about very busily among the trees and rocks in his vicinity.

'Poor Hope and Imagination!' said Miss Hazel,--'must they be banished to the "former state?" Memory does hold a sort of middle ground.'

'There isn't much of that sort of ground here,' said Mr.

Rollo; 'we are on a pretty steep pitch of the hill. Don't you like this wilderness? You want a gun though--or a pencil--to give you the sense that you have something to do in the wilderness.'

'Yes!' said Miss Hazel--'so Englishmen say: "What a nice day it is!--let's go out and kill something." '

There was a good deal of amus.e.m.e.nt and keenness in his sideway glance, as he demurely asked her 'if she didn't know how to shoot?' But Wych Hazel, with a slight gesture of her silky curls, merely remarked that she had pencils in her pocket--if he wanted one.

'Thank you--have you paper too?'

'Plenty.'

'That I may not seem intolerably rude,' said he, extending his hand for the paper,--'will you make one sketch while I make another? We will limit the time, as they did at the London Sketch Club.'

'O, I shall not think it even tolerably rude. But all my paper is in this book.'

'To secure the conditions, I must tear a leaf out.--How will that do?'

'Very well,' she said with a wee flitting of colour,--'if you will secure my conditions too.'

'What are they?' As he spoke he tore the leaf out and proceeded to accommodate himself with a pamphlet for a drawing board.

'You had no right to the leaf till you heard them!' she cried jumping up. 'I shall take care how I bargain with you again, Mr. Rollo.'

'Not safe?' said he smiling. 'But you are, this time, for I accepted the conditions, you know. And besides--you have the pencils yet.' There was a certain gay simplicity about his manner that was disarming.

'Did you?' said Hazel looking down at him. 'Then you are injudicious to accept them unheard. One of them is very hard.

The first is easy--you are to restore the leaf when the sketch is done.'

'It is the decree of the strongest! And the other?'

'You are to confess my sketch to be the best. Now what is the subject to be?'

'Stop a bit!' said he, turning over the book which Wych Hazel had given him wrong side first--'I should like to see what I am to swear to, before we begin.' And the bits of her drawing which were found there received a short but keen consideration. 'The subject?--is this grey rock where we are-- with what is on and around it.'

'You are lawless. And your subject is--unmanageable!'

'Do you think so?'

'You want what is "around" this grey rock,' she said with a light twirl on the tips of her toes. 'If your views on most subjects are as comprehensive!'--

'They can be met, nevertheless,' said he, laughing, 'if you take one part of the subject and I the other--and if you'll give me a pencil! We must be done in a quarter of an hour.'

'There it is,' said Wych Hazel,--'then you can take half of the rock'--and she walked away to a position as far behind Mr.

Rollo as sweetbriars and sumach would permit. That gentleman turned about and faced her gravely; also withdrew a step, looked at his match, and throwing on his hat which had lain till now on the moss, went to work. It was work in earnest, for minutes were limited.

'Mr. Rollo?' said Wych Hazel, 'I cannot draw a thing if you sit there watching me. Just take your first position, please.'

'I should lose my point of view--you would not ask me to do that? Besides, you are safe--I am wholly occupied with myself.'

'No doubt! But if you presume to put _me_ in your sketch I'll turn you into a red squirrel'--with which fierce threat Miss Hazel drooped her head till her 'point of view' must have been at least merged in the brim of her flat hat, and went at her drawing. That she had merged herself as well in the interest of the game, was soon plain,--shyness and everything else went to the winds: only when (according to habit) some sc.r.a.p of a song broke from her lips, then did she rebuke herself with an impatient gesture or exclamation, while the hat drooped lower than ever. It was pretty to see and to hear her,--those very outbreaks were so free and girlish and wayward, and at the same time so sweet. Several minutes of the prescribed time slipped away.