The Last of the Foresters Part 33

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE NECKLACE.

This was Redbud.

The poor girl presented a great contrast to the lively f.a.n.n.y, who, with sparkling eyes and merry lips, and rosy, sunset cheeks, afforded an excellent idea of the joyous Maia, as she trips on gathering her lovely flowers. Poor Redbud! Her head was hanging down, her eyes wandered sadly and thoughtfully toward the distant autumn horizon, and the tender lips wore that expression of soft languor which is so sad a spectacle in the young.

At Mr. Ralph Ashley's bow, she raised her head quickly; and her startled look showed plainly she had not been conscious of the presence of f.a.n.n.y, or the young man on the portico.

Redbud returned the profound bow of f.a.n.n.y's cavalier with a delightful little curtsey, and would have retired into the house again. But this Miss f.a.n.n.y, for reasons best known to herself, was determined to prevent--reasons which a close observer might have possibly guessed, after looking at her blus.h.i.+ng cheeks and timid, uneasy eyes. For everybody knows that if there is anything more distasteful and embarra.s.sing to very young ladies than a failure on the part of gallants to recognise their claims to attention, that other more embarra.s.sing circ.u.mstance is a too large _quantum_ of the pleasing incense. It is not the present writer, however, who will go so far as to say that their usual habit of running _away_ from the admirer should be taken, as in other feminine manoeuvres, by contraries.

So f.a.n.n.y duly introduced Mr. Ralph Ashley to Miss Redbud Summers; and then, with a little masonic movement of the head, added, with perfect ease:

"Suppose we all take a walk in the garden--it is a very pretty evening."

This proposition was enthusiastically seconded by Mr. Ralph Ashley, who had regained his laughing ease again--and though Redbud would fain have been excused, she was obliged to yield, and so in ten minutes they were promenading up and down the old garden, engaged in pleasant conversation--which conversation has, however, nothing to do with this veracious history.

Just as they arrived, in one of their perambulatory excursions around the walks, at a small gate which opened on the hill-side, they discovered approaching them a worthy of the pedlar description, who carried on his broad German shoulders a large pack, which, as the pedlar jogged along, made, pretences continually of an intention to dive forward over his head, but always without carrying this intention into execution. The traveling merchant seemed to be at the moment a victim to that species of low spirits which attacks all his cla.s.s when trade is dull; and no sooner had he descried the youthful group, than his face lighted up with antic.i.p.ated business.

He came to the gate at which they stood, and ducking his head, unslung the pack, and without further ceremony opened it.

A tempting array of stuffs and ribbons, pencils, pinchbeck jewels and thimbles, scissors and knives, immediately became visible; with many other things which it is not necessary for us to specify. The pedlar called attention to them by pointing admiringly at each, and recommended them by muttering broken English over them.

With that propensity of young ladies to handle and examine all articles which concern themselves with personal adornment, f.a.n.n.y and Redbud, though they really wanted nothing, turned over everything in the pack. But little resulted therefrom for the pedlar. He did not succeed in persuading Redbud to buy a beautiful dress pattern, with dahlias and hollyhocks, in their natural size and colors; and was equally unsuccessful with f.a.n.n.y, who obstinately declined to reduce into her possession a lovely lace cap, such as our dear old grandmamas' portraits show us--though this description may be incorrect, as f.a.n.n.y always said that the article in question was a night-cap.

Disappointed in this, the pedlar brought out his minor "articles;" and here he was more successful. Mr. Ashley bought sufficiently for his young lady friends at the seminary, he said, and Redbud and f.a.n.n.y both purchased little things.

f.a.n.n.y bought the most splendid gla.s.s breastpin, which she pretended, with a merry laugh, to admire "to distraction." Redbud, without knowing very well why, bought a little red coral necklace, which looked bright and new, and rattled merrily as she took it; for some reason the pedlar parted with it for a very small sum, and then somewhat hastily packed up his goods, and ducking his head in thanks, went on his way.

"Look what a very handsome breastpin I have!" said f.a.n.n.y, as they returned through the garden; "I'm sure n.o.body would know that it is not a diamond."

"You are right," said Mr. Ashley, smiling, "the world is given to judging almost wholly from outward appearances. And what did you purchase, Miss Summers--or Miss Redbud, if you will permit me--"

"Oh, yes, sir," said Redbud, looking at him with her kind, sad eyes, "you need'nt be ceremonious with _me_. Besides, you're f.a.n.n.y's cousin.

I bought this necklace--I thought it old-fas.h.i.+oned and pretty."

Redbud was silent again, her eyes bent quietly upon the walk, the long lashes reposing thus upon the tender little cheeks.

"Old-fas.h.i.+oned and pretty," said the young man, with a smile, "did you not make a mistake there, Miss Redbud?"

"No, sir--I meant it," she said, raising her eyes simply to his own. "I think old-fas.h.i.+oned things are very often prettier and more pleasant than new ones. Don't you?"

"I do!" cried f.a.n.n.y; "I'm sure my great grandmother's diamond breastpin is much handsomer than this horrid thing!"

And the young lady tore the pinchbeck jewel from her neck.

Mr. Ashley laughed.

"There's your consistency," he said; "just now you thought nothing could be finer."

Miss f.a.n.n.y vehemently opposed this view of her character at great length, and with extraordinary subtilty. We regret that the exigencies of our narrative render it impossible for us to follow her--we can only state that the result, as on all such occasions, was the total defeat of the cavalier. Mr. Ralph Ashley several times stated his willingness to subscribe to any views, opinions or conclusions which Miss f.a.n.n.y desired him to, and finally placed his fingers in his ears.

f.a.n.n.y greeted this manoeuvre with a sudden blow in the laugher's face, from her bouquet; and Redbud, forgetting her disquietude, laughed gaily at the merry cousins.

So they entered, and met the bevy of young school girls on the portico, with whom Mr. Ralph Ashley, in some manner, became instantaneously popular: perhaps partly on account of the grotesque presents he scattered among them, with his gay, joyous laughter. After thus making himself generally agreeable, he looked at the setting sun, and said he must go. He would, however, soon return, he said, to see his dearest f.a.n.n.y, the delight of his existence. And having made this pleasant speech, he went away on his elegant horse, laughing, good-humored, and altogether a very pleasing, graceful-looking cavalier, as the red sunset showered upon his rich apparel and his slender charger all its wealth of ruddy, golden light.

And as he went on thus, so gallant, in the bravery of youth and joy, a young lady, sitting on the sun-lit portico, followed him with her eyes; and leaning her fine brow, with its ebon curls, upon her hand, mused with a sigh and a smile. And when the cavalier turned round as the trees swallowed him, and waved his hat, with its fine feather, in the golden light, Miss f.a.n.n.y murmured--"Really, I think--Ralph--has very much--improved!" Which seemed to be a very afflicting circ.u.mstance to Miss f.a.n.n.y, inasmuch as she uttered a deep sigh.

Meanwhile our little Redbud gazed, too, from the brilliantly-illumined portico, toward the golden ocean in the west. The rich light lingered lovingly upon her golden hair, and tender lips and cheeks, and snowy neck, on which the coral necklace rose and fell with the pulsations of her heart. The kind, mild eyes were fixed upon the sunset sadly, and their blue depths seemed to hold more than one dew-drop, ready to pa.s.s the barrier of the long dusky lashes, which closed gradually as the pure white forehead drooped upon her hand.

For a long time the tender heart remained thus still and quiet; then her lips moved faintly, and she murmured--

"Oh, it is wrong--I know it is--I ought not to!"

And two tears fell on the child's hand, and on the necklace, which the fingers held.

CHAPTER XXVII.

PHILOSOPHICAL.

We left our friend Verty slowly going onward toward the western hills, under the golden autumn sunset, with drooping head and listless arms, thinking of Redbud and the events of the day, which now was going to its death in royal purple over the far horizon.

One thought, one image only dwelt in the young man's mind, and what that thought was, his tell-tale lips clearly revealed:--"Redbud!

Redbud!" they murmured; and the dreamer seemed to be wholly dead to that splendid scene around him, dreaming of his love.

There are those who speak slightingly of boyhood and its feelings, scoffing at the early yearnings of the heart, and finding only food for jest in those innocent and childish raptures and regrets. We do not envy such. That man's heart must be made of doubtful stuff, who jeers at the fresh dreams of youth; or rather, he must have no heart at all--above all, no sweet and affecting recollections. There is something touching in the very idea of this pure and unselfish emotion, which the hardened nature of the grown-up man can never feel again. Men often dream about their childhood, and shed unavailing tears as they gaze in fancy on their own youthful faces, and with the pencil of imagination slowly trace the old forms and images.

Said a writer of our acquaintance, no matter who, since no one read or thought of him:--"The writer of these idle lines finds no difficulty in painting for himself a t.i.tian picture, in which, as in his life-picture, his own figure lies on the canvas. Long ago--a long, long time ago--in fact, when he was a boy, and loved dearly a child like himself, a child who is now a fair and beautiful-browed woman, and who smiles with a dreamy, thoughtful expression, when his face comes to her--long ago, flowers were very bright in the bright May day, by a country brookside. The b.u.t.ter-cups were over all the hills, for children to put under their chins, and pea-blossoms, very much like lady-slippers, swayed prettily in the wind. Beneath the feet of the boy and girl--she was a merry, bright-eyed child! how I love her still!--broke crocuses and violets, and a thousand wild flowers, fresh and full of fairy beauty. The gra.s.s was green and soft, and the birds rose through the air on fluttering wings, singing and rejoicing, and the clouds floated over them as only clouds in May can float, quickly, hopefully, with a dash of changeful April in them--not like those of August: for the May cloud is a maiden, a child, full of life and joy, running and playing, and looking playfully back at the winds as they rustle on--not August-like--a thoughtful ripened beauty, large, lazy, and contemplative, whose spring of youth has pa.s.sed, whose summer has arrived, in all its wealth, and power, and languid splendor. Well, they wandered--the boy and girl--on the bright May day, pleasantly across the hills, and along the brook, which ran merrily over the pebbles as bright as diamonds. That boy has now become a man, and he has vainly sought, in all the glittering pursuits of life, an adequate recompense for the death of those soft hours. Having gone, as all things must go, they left no equivalent in the future. But not, therefore, in sadness does he write this: rather in deep joy, and as though he had said--

'Give me a golden pen, and let me lean On heaped-up flowers--'

"So wholly flooded is his heart with the memory of that young, frank face. She wore a pink dress, he recollects--all children should wear either pink or white--and her hair was in long, bright curls, and her eyes were diamonds, full of light. He thought the birds were envious of her singing, when she carolled clearly in the bright May morning.

He wove her a garland of flowers for her hair, and she blushed as she took it from his hands. She had on a small gold ring, and a red bracelet; and since that time he has loved red bracelets more than all barbaric pearls and gold. In those times, the trees were greener than at present, the birds sang more sweetly, and the streams ran far more merrily. They thought so at least, as they sat under a large oak, and he read to her, with shadowy, loving eyes, nearly full of happy tears, old songs, that 'dallied with the innocence of love, like the old age.' And so the evening went into the west, and they returned, and all the night and long days afterward her smile shone on him, brightening his life as it does now."

Who laughs? Is it at Verty going along with drooping forehead, and deep sighs; or at the unappreciated great poet, whose prose-strains we have recorded? Well, friends, perhaps you have reason. Therefore, let us unite our voices in one great burst of "inextinguishable laughter"--as of the G.o.ds on Mount Olympus--raised very high above the world!

Let us rejoice that we have become more rational, and discarded all that folly, and are busying ourselves with rational affairs--Wall-street, and cent per cent. and dividends. Having become men, we have put away childish things, and among them, the enc.u.mbrances of a heart. Who would have one? It makes you dream on autumn days, when the fair sunlight streams upon the sails which waft the argosies of commerce to your warehouse;--it almost leads you to believe that stocks are not the one thing to be thought of on this earth--that all the hurrying bustle of existence is of doubtful weight, compared with the treasures of that memory which leads us back to boyhood and its innocent illusions. Let us part with it, if any indeed remains, and so press on, unfettered, in the glorious race for cash. The "golden age" of Arcady is gone so long--the new has come! The crooks wreathed round with flowers are changed into telegraph-posts, and Corydon is on a three-legged stool, busy with ledgers--knitting his brow as he adds up figures. Let us be thankful.

Therefore, as we have arrived at this rational conclusion, and come to regard Verty and his feelings in their proper light, we will not speak further of the foolish words which escaped from his lips, as he went on, in the crimson sunset slowly fading. In time, perhaps, his education will be completed in the school of Rational Philosophy, under that distinguished lady-professor, Miss Sallianna. At present we shall allow him to proceed upon his way toward his lodge in the wilderness, where the old Indian woman awaits him with her deep love and anxious tenderness.