CHAPTER XVII
UNDER THE WILLOWS
Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest ofsummer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way. Tall bluelobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections ofthe gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guardof the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers.
Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed hislove to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no lessimpassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was burstinghis being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing ofthe stream.
For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Landof Enchantment. No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hillsto golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real worldof the King Arthur days--the world that was lighted by a strange andwondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting andlonging to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair.
Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain. Oh for dungeons andtowers and forbidding battlements! Any danger was welcome from whichhe might rescue her. Fire, flood, or bandits--he would brave them all.Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about hisknees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence thatseemed to possess him.
"Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain"]
They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun,and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough.
Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her handin the cool water and watching the little circles that followed herfingers. Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on itthrough the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes.
But what was the real color of her eyes? Sandy brought all hisintellect to bear upon the momentous question. Sometimes, he thought,they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream;sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled inthe brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows. They weredeep as his love and bright as his hope.
Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question.
"It's never a word I've heard of what ye are saying!" he exclaimedcontritely. "My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them. Do theykeep changing color like that all the time?"
Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously.
"I was talking about the river," she said quickly. "It's jolly underhere, isn't it? So cool and green! I was awfully cross when Icame."
"You cross?"
She nodded her head. "And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, andtotally unlike my father's family." She counted off her shortcomingson her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt.
"A left-hand blessing on the one that said so!" cried Sandy, with suchardor that she fled to another subject.
"I saw Martha Meech yesterday. She was talking about you. She was veryweak, and could speak only in a whisper, but she seemed happy."
"It's like her soul was in Heaven already," said Sandy.
"I took her a little picture," went on Ruth; "she loves them so. Itwas a copy of one of Turner's."
"Turner?" repeated Sandy. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, born inLondon, 1775. Member of the Royal Academy. Died in 1851."
She looked so amazed at this burst of information that he laughed.
"It's out of the catalogue. I learned what it said about the ones Iliked best years ago."
"Where?"
"At the Olympian Exposition."
"I was there," said Ruth; "it was the summer we came home from Europe.Perhaps that was where I saw you. I know I saw you somewhere beforeyou came here."
"Perhaps," said Sandy, skipping a bit of bark across the water.
A band of yellow butterflies on wide wings circled about them, andone, mistaking Ruth's rosy wet fingers for a flower, settled there fora long rest.
"Look!" she whispered; "see how long it stays!"
"It's not meself would be blaming it for forgetting to go away," saidSandy.
They both laughed, then Ruth leaned over the boat's side and pretendedto be absorbed in her reflection in the water. Sandy had not learnedthat unveiled glances are improper, and if his lips refrained fromechoing the vireo's song, his eyes were less discreet.
"You've got a dimple in your elbow!" he cried, with the air of onediscovering a continent.
"I haven't," declared she, but the dimple turned State's evidence.
The sun had gone under a cloud as the afternoon shadows began tolengthen, and a light tenderer than sunlight and warmer than moonlightfell across the river. The water slipped over the stones behind themwith a pleasant swish and swirl, and the mint that was crushed by theprow of their boat gave forth an aromatic perfume.
Ever afterward the first faint odor of mint made Sandy close his eyesin a quick desire to retain the memory it recalled, to bring back thedawn of love, the first faint flush of consciousness in the girlishcheeks and the soft red lips, and the quick, uncertain breath as herheart tried not to catch beat with his own.
"Can't you sing something?" she asked presently. "Annette Fenton saysyou know all sorts of quaint old songs."
"They're just the bits I remember of what me mother used to sing me inthe old country."
"Sing the one you like best," demanded Ruth.
Softly, with the murmur of the river ac-companying the song, he began:
"Ah! The moment was sad when my love and I parted, Savourneen deelish, signan O! As I kiss'd off her tears, I was nigh broken-hearted!-- Savourneen deelish, signan O!"
Ruth took her hand out of the water and looked at him with puzzledeyes. "Where have I heard it? On a boat somewhere, and the moon wasshining. I remember the refrain perfectly."
Sandy remembered, too. In a moment he felt himself an impostor and acheat. He had stumbled into the Enchanted Land, but he had no right tobe there. He buried his head in his hands and felt the dream-worldtottering about him.
"Are you trying to remember the second verse?" asked Ruth.
"No," said he, his head still bowed; "I'm trying to help you rememberthe first one. Was it the boat ye came over from Europe in?"
"That was it!" she cried. "It was on shipboard. I was standing by therailing one night and heard some one singing it in the steerage. I wasjust a little girl, but I've never forgotten that 'Savourneendeelish,' nor the way he sang it."
"Was it a man'?" asked Sandy, huskily.
"No," she said, half frowning in her effort to remember; "it was aboy--a stowaway, I think. They said he had tried to steal his way in alife-boat."
"He had!" cried Sandy, raising his head and leaning toward her. "Hestole on board with only a few shillings and a bundle of clothes. Hesneaked his way up to a life-boat and hid there like a thief. Whenthey found him and punished him as he deserved, there was a littlelady looked down at him and was sorry, and he's traveled over all theyears from then to now to thank her for it."
Ruth drew back in amazement, and Sandy's courage failed for a moment.Then his face hardened and he plunged recklessly on:
"I've blacked boots, and sold papers; I've fought dogs, and peddled,and worked on the railroad. Many's the time I've been glad to eat thescraps the workmen left on the track. And just because a kind, goodman--God prosper his soul!--saw fit to give me a home and aneducation, I turned a fool and dared to think I was a gentleman!"
For a moment pride held Ruth's pity back. Every tradition of herfamily threw up a barrier between herself and this son of the soil.
"Why did you come to Kentucky?" she asked.
"Why?" cried Sandy, too miserable to hold anything back. "Because Isaw the name of the place on your bag at the pier. I came here for thechance of seeing you again, of knowing for sure there was somethinggood and beautiful in the world to offset all the bad I'd seen. Everypage I've learned has been for you, every wrong thought I've put outof me mind
has been to make more room for you. I don't even ask ye tobe my friend; I only ask to be yours, to see ye sometime, to talk toyou, and to keep ye first in my heart and to serve ye to the end."
The vireo had stopped singing and was swinging on a bough above them.
Ruth sat very still and looked straight before her. She had never seena soul laid bare before, and the sight thrilled and troubled her. Allthe petty artifices which the world had taught her seemed uselessbefore this shining candor.
"And--and you've remembered me all this time?" she asked, with alittle tremble in her voice. "I did not know people cared like that."
"And you're not sorry?" persisted Sandy. "You'll let me be yourfriend?"
She held out her hand with an earnestness as deep as his own. In aninstant he had caught it to his lips. All the bloom of the summerrushed to her cheeks, and she drew quickly away.
"Oh! but I'll take it back--I never meant it," cried Sandy, wild withremorse. "Me heart crossed the line ahead of me head, that was all.You've given me your friendship, and may the sorrow seize me if I everask for more!"
At this the vireo burst into such mocking, derisive laughter of songthat they both looked up and smiled.
"He doesn't think you mean it," said Ruth; "but you must mean it,else I can't ever be your friend."
Sandy shook his fist at the bird.
"You spalpeen, you! If I had ye down here I'd throw ye out of thetree! But you mustn't believe him. I'll stick to my word as the windto the tree-tops. No--I don't mean that. As the stream to the shore.No-"
He stopped and laughed. All figures of speech conspired to make himbreak his word.
Somewhere from out the forgotten world came six long, lingeringstrokes of a bell. Sandy and Ruth untied the canoe and paddled outinto midstream, leaving the willow bower full of memories and thevireo still hopping about among the branches.
"I'll paddle you up to the bridge," said Ruth; "then you will be nearthe post-office."
Sandy's voice was breaking to say that she could paddle him up to themoon if she would only stay there between him and the sun, with herhair forming a halo about her face. But they were going down-stream,and all too soon he was stepping out of the canoe to earth again.
"And will I have to be waiting till the morrow to see you?" he asked,with his hand on the boat.
"To-morrow? Not until Sunday."
"But Sunday is a month off! You'll be coming for the mail?"
"We send for the mail," said Ruth, demurely.
"Then ye'll be sending in vain for yours. I'll hold it back till yecome yourself, if I lose my position for it."
Ruth put three feet of water between them, then she looked up withmischief in her eyes. "I don't want you to lose your position," shesaid.
"Then you'll come?"
"Perhaps."
Sandy watched her paddle away straight into the heart of the sun. Heclimbed the bank and waved her out of sight. He had to use a maplebranch, for his hat and handkerchief, not to mention less materialpossessions, were floating down-stream in the boat with Ruth.
"Hello, Kilday!" called Dr. Fenton from the road above. "Goingup-town? I'll give you a lift."
Sandy turned and looked up at the doctor impatiently. The presence ofother people in the world seemed an intrusion.
"I've been out to the Meeches' all afternoon," said the doctor,wearily, mopping his face with a red-bordered handkerchief.
"Is Martha worse?" asked Sandy, in quick alarm.
"No, she's better," said the doctor, gruffly; "she died at fouro'clock."