The Laughing Mill and Other Stories Part 15

"'Only I have called you, dear. I called you "Kate;" and I want to call you "wife!"'

"She continued to stand motionless, with that frightened listening expression still on her face; and yet my words had apparently pa.s.sed unheard. What was it, then, that her ears were strained to catch? To my sense, the forest was full of shadowy stillness, tempered only by a faint whispering of leaves, and now and then a bird-note high overhead.

"Gradually the strange preoccupation left her. Her breathing, which had been irregular and laboured, now came evenly and gently once more. She glanced sidelong at me for a moment; then, with a swift tender movement she came yet a trifle closer, and laid her other hand upon my arm.

"'Tom--Tom dear! I will say it, for we shall be parted soon, and then, if I am alive, I shall be comforted a little to think that I did say it!

Listen--Tom dear, I love you! Never forget that I said it--Tom, I love you!'

"I was taken deliciously by surprise. You must not expect me to tell how I felt or what I said. I can only remember that I took her in my arms and kissed her. The bird that warbled over our heads seemed to utter the ecstasy that I felt.

"Presently we began to move on again. I don't know why I didn't speak; perhaps I thought that our kiss had been the seal of her surrender, and that therefore words were for the moment impertinent; by-and-by the converse would be renewed from a fresh basis. Besides, my thoughts were flying too fast, just then, for speech to overtake them. I was thinking how singular had been the manner and progress of our acquaintance.

It was scarcely in accordance with what I believed to be my normal temperament and disposition to plunge so abruptly and almost recklessly into a new order and responsibility of life. I had fancied myself too cautious, too cool-headed, for such an impulsive act. But it was done, and the fact that Kate's feelings had responded to my own seemed to justify the apparent risk. We were meant for each other, and had come together in sheer despite of all combinations of circ.u.mstances to keep us apart. Knowing, as we did, scarcely anything of each other as worldly knowledge goes, we had yet felt that inward instinct and obligation to union which made the most thorough worldly knowledge look like folly.

What would my mother say to it? How would the news be relished by her father? I cared not; I foresaw difficulties enough in store, but none that appalled me. After all, an honourable man and woman, honestly in love with each other, are a match against the world, or superior to it.

Union is strength, and the union of loving hearts is the strongest strength of all.

"'And do you want to marry me really, Tom?'

"We had gained the summit of the steep hill, and were now pacing along the ridge. The narrow winding valley lay sheer beneath us on the right, with the white road and the dark stream lying side by side at the bottom of it. The crest of the opposing hillside seemed but a short stone's-throw distant; the aroma of our privacy was the sweeter for the pigmy droschkey, with its mannikin inmate, which was crawling along through the dust so far below. We commanded the world, while we were ourselves hidden from it.

"'I should rather think I did, Kate!'

"'I thought Englishmen only married as a matter of business; that they married settlements and dowries and rank and influence, and added women merely as a matter of custom and politeness.'

"'I am satisfied to marry for love; if that's un-English, so much the better for me!'

"'You would take me without anything but just myself?'

"'What is worth having, compared with you?'

"'Oh Tom! But then, you cannot have just myself alone. n.o.body in the world is independent of everything--not even an American--not even an American girl who has lived seven years in a convent! I may not be able to bring you anything good--anything that would make me more acceptable; but what if I were to bring you something bad--something terrible--something that would make you shudder at me if I were ten times as lovable as you say I am?'

"'Why then, I should have to love you twenty times more than ever I suppose, that's all!' I answered, with a laugh.

"'You don't mean what you say--at least you don't know what you say. You are not so brave as you think you are, sir! What do you know of me?' She spoke these sentences in a lower, graver tone than the previous ones, which had been uttered in a vein of half-wayward, fanciful playfulness.

Almost immediately, however, she roused herself again, as though unwilling to let the lightsome humour escape so soon.

"'Well, let us pretend that you have married me, for better or worse, and that it is all settled. Now, where will you take me to first?'

"'Where do you wish to go?'

"'Oh, it must be somewhere where n.o.body could come after us,' she exclaimed, with a curious subdued laugh. 'n.o.body that either of us has ever known; neither your mother, nor my father, nor--nor anybody! And there we must stay always; because as soon as we came out, we should lose each other, and never find each other again. And that would be sadder than never to have met, wouldn't it?'

"'But, my darling Kate,' interposed I, laughing again, 'where on earth, in this age of railways and steamboats and telegraphs and balloons, are we to find such a very retired spot? Unless we took a voyage to the moon, or could find our way down to the centre of the earth, we should hardly feel safe, I fear!'

"'Oh, well, you must arrange about that; only it is as I tell you; and you see marrying me is not such a simple matter after all. Well, now, suppose we have reached the place, wherever it is--what would you give me for a wedding present?'

"'What would you like?'

"'No--you are to decide that. It wouldn't be proper for your wife to choose her own wedding present, you know.'

"'I believe such a thing does sometimes happen though, when the people are very fas.h.i.+onable and aristocratic.'

"'But I am not aristocratic; I am an American. Now, what will you give me?'

"'What do you say to the diamonds?'

"'Well, I think I will take the diamonds,' she said meditatively, as though weighing the question in her mind. 'Yes, papa said I might wear diamonds after I was married. But might not your mother object?'

"'Not when she knows whom they are for; and, at any rate, she is going to leave them to me in her will.'

"'Oh! and you expect that the news of our marriage will kill her?'

"'It ought rather to give her a new lease of life. But you shall have the diamonds all the same. Will you try them on now?'

"'Why, have you got them with you?'

"'Certainly: I always carry them in this pocket.'

"'How careless! You might lose them.'

"'No: the pocket b.u.t.tons up; see!' and turning back the flap of my coat, I showed her how all was made secure.

"'But what if robbers were to attack you?'

"'Then I should talk to them with this,' I rejoined, taking my revolver from another pocket, and holding it up.

"'Oh, that's a derringer! they have those in America. What a pretty one!

Let me look at it.'

"'No,' said I, replacing it in my pocket; 'it has a hair-trigger, and every barrel is loaded. You shall look at something much prettier, and not dangerous at all. Here--sit down on this stump, and take off your hat, and I'll put them on for you.'

"The stump of which I spoke stood at the end of the path we had been following, and within a few rods of the brink of a precipitous gorge, which entered the side of the steep mountain-spur nearly at right angles. Across this gorge (which, though seventy to one hundred feet in depth, was scarcely more than half as wide at the top) a wooden bridge had formerly been thrown; but age or accident had broken it down, until only a single horizontal beam remained, spanning the chasm from side to side, and supported by three or four upright and transverse braces. The beam itself was scarcely nine inches in width; and the whole structure was a dizzy thing to look at. My nerves were trained to steadiness by a good deal of gymnastic experience; but it would have needed a strong inducement to get me across that beam on foot.

"Kate sat down on the stump as I directed; but her manner had become languid and indifferent; the brightness and sparkle of her late mood were gone. As she looked up at me, her level eyebrows were slightly contracted, and the corners of her mouth drooped. Her hands were folded listlessly in her lap. She was dressed in some soft white material, through which was visible the warm gleam of her arms and shoulders; the skirt was caught up in such a way as to allow freedom in walking; she wore a broad-brimmed white hat over her black hair; a yellow sash confined her waist, and her hands were bare. I untied the ribbons of her hat, she permitting me to do so without resistance; and then, kneeling before her, I unb.u.t.toned the diamonds from my pocket, and laid them, in their case, upon her lap.

"'Now, dear, shall I put them on you, or will you do it yourself?'

"She opened the case, and the gems flashed in the checkered suns.h.i.+ne that filtered down between the leaves of the trees. The sight seemed to rouse her somewhat; a faint spot of colour showed in either cheek, and she drew in a long breath.

"'They are splendid!' she said. 'I never saw anything like them. No, your mother would need to die before giving up these.'

"'They won't look their best until you have put them on. Come!'

"'Oh, I'm afraid! what if----'

"'Afraid of what?'

"'What if someone were to come and see----'