Part 11 (1/2)
But they had now reached the eastern-most limit of their progress--still leaving, as Hugh said, some ”Yarrow unvisited.” They took the returning afternoon train back to Riviere-du-Loup, for their course must now be ”Westward-Ho!” At Riviere-du-Loup, they waited for the Saguenay boat, and re-embarked for Murray Bay, which they reached about midnight, landing at the high pier under the pale ghostly light of the waning moon, which gave a strange unreal look to the houses on the sh.o.r.e, and especially to the strangely shapen rock, which, rising solitary near the point, gives it its name of ”Point Au Pic” (or Pique). There were an abundance of _caleches_ in waiting, and the travellers distributed themselves among these, and were soon driven along the straggling village street to their destination,--the ”Central Hotel,” chosen by Kate on account of its delightful view. But the ”Central” was too full for so large a party, as the landlord declared with many regrets,--so the ladies were accommodated very comfortably at the ”Warren House,” next door, while the young men were put up temporarily at the ”Central” as they intended leaving on their canoe trip very early in the week.
May had been feeling that, since this trip began, she had had so many delightful impressions, that she could scarcely find room for any more. But the first sight of the grand vista of n.o.ble hills that enfold Murray Bay, as it were, in their embrace, gleaming out under snowy mists, in the fair breezy morning, made her feel that she had by no means lost the receptive power, and that she had much to see and admire yet. It was a peaceful Sunday morning, and a Sabbath rest seemed to enwrap the blue hills that encompa.s.sed the long bay, receding in lovely curves and peaks behind each other, till they were lost in a soft vagueness of distance. Just about the middle of the long curve of the bay, and showing whitely against a background of deep green woods, a white church stood out as a sort of centre to the little brown French village that cl.u.s.tered about it on both sides of the Murray River. Below the bridge stretched long brown sands with a strip of blue water in the middle, and a three-masted vessel lying stranded by the receding tide;--while just across the bay, narrowed by the low tide, rose the long bold headland of Cap a l'Aigle, jutting far out into the wide blue expanse of the St. Lawrence, bounded on the southern sh.o.r.e by a wavy line of soft blue and purple hills, glistening with silvery specks, which were, in reality, distant French villages. It was a feast to the eye, a refres.h.i.+ng to the whole being, simply to sit there and take in the lovely vista. May, for one, was glad that it was Sunday, and that, therefore, there could be no excursions, but that she could sit quietly there as long as she liked,--dreaming or thinking, or reading a little of the old Scripture poetry about the ”Everlasting hills;”--but ever and anon looking up to see the realization of words which had formerly left on her mind a rather vague impression of their meaning. Nothing which she had seen seemed to her so satisfying to her ideal of beauty. Niagara had its own solitary overpowering grandeur, but no surrounding scenery. The Saguenay hills were too stern in their solemn splendor. At Quebec, the view seemed almost too wide, too complex; but this charming valley, with its brown-beached blue bay, nestling amongst these richly wooded hills, with rank after rank of mountain tops,--as they seemed to her, fading away into the distant blue, seemed to have all the unity and beauty of a well-composed picture, and to satisfy her imagination without her knowing why. Flora was in an ecstasy. The scene reminded her strongly of some of her own Highland glens; and Hugh and she were soon eagerly comparing it with one after another of their favorite resorts,--tracing its points both of resemblance and of dissimilarity.
The young men of the party had taken an early bath, and p.r.o.nounced the water very bracing indeed, but also decidedly cold--too cold, they thought, for the girls to attempt; notwithstanding which, however, Kate and Flora announced their intention of trying it next day. At eleven they all went to church at a neat little chapel close by, built for the use of the Protestant visitors, and used alternately for an Episcopalian and a Presbyterian service, an instance of brotherly unity which might be indefinitely extended. To Flora's great satisfaction, (for she was a staunch little Scottish churchwoman,) the service that day happened to be the Presbyterian one--the first time, she observed, that she had had the pleasure of attending her own service since she had left her native land. To Hugh it did not matter, she observed, for he liked one just as well as another, to which he replied that he was by no means so superior to the power of a.s.sociation, which must, in most cases, after all, determine our ecclesiastical preferences.
As there was no evening service, an evening stroll in Nature's great temple around them was proposed instead, for which the young people were ready enough after the long, quiet day of rest. Mrs. Sandford, who had not yet recovered from the fatigue of so incessant travelling, preferring to sit on the veranda with her book,--the latter taking the place of her knitting-needles, which lately had had an unusual respite. Nellie Armstrong, however, who had a headache, elected to stay with her, so the rest started, perhaps all the more satisfied, pairing off naturally--Mr. Winthrop, of course, with Kate; Jack Armstrong with Flora; while Hugh and May were left as inevitable companions. May, as on some similar occasions, felt at first slightly uncomfortable; but this feeling soon wore off, for Hugh and she had become excellent comrades, and now found many subjects for conversation; and she felt that he had by this time accepted Mr.
Winthrop as a permanent factor in the situation, and was determined to make the best of it. And May in her heart esteemed him all the more for the cheerfulness with which he had adapted himself to the inevitable!
They walked, by a rambling footpath, along the sandy, reedy sh.o.r.e of the bay, until they had at length to betake themselves to the ordinary road, striking it close to a picturesque old mill, with a little waterfall plas.h.i.+ng over the moss-grown old waterwheel, just as she had so often seen it in pictures of English scenery. They reached the French village of Murray Bay, and pa.s.sed close to the white church which had made the centre of the picture in the distance, and the pretty little _Presbytere_, with its shady garden-walks overlooking the river, on one of which May discerned a black-ca.s.socked figure, in whom she immediately conjured up a modern Pere La Brosse. Then on, past the little brown French houses, with their steep roofs and balconies, and tidy, if bare, exteriors,--each one apparently possessing its great wooden cupboard, and large box stove for the cold winter days. Crossing the bridge over the Murray, from which there was a lovely view up the valley, into the heart of the hills, they held on their way up the wooded slope beyond, past a little memorial chapel under the shadowing pines, which interested the girls so much that they declared they must get the key and see the interior some day; and then onward by an open, breezy bit of road, skirting on one side undulating woods, gilded by slanting sunlight, and on the other affording glimpses of pleasant manorial residences between them and the river. And then they came out on the high table-land of the ”_Cap_,” from whence they could see the wide river expanse, now taking on soft hues of rose, and purple, and opal, and the far distant hills beyond, also glorified by the sunset.
But May's steps had begun to flag a little, and her cheek to grow rather pale, and Hugh said that he was sure she was tired, and proposed that they should go no farther, but take a rest until the others returned. May looked rather wistfully at Kate and Flora, still stepping on, evidently unwearied. But although much stronger than when she had left home, May was not so strong, yet, as the other two, and it was of no use to pretend that she was not very tired.
”Let us walk back to that pine-crested bluff,” said Hugh. ”There we can sit quite comfortably till the others come back.”
They strolled back very slowly, and it occurred to May, _a propos_ of her own fatigue, how much more Hugh could stand than he could have done a month ago; and how seldom even ”Aunt Bella” now worried him with well-meant exhortations to take extra care. The outdoor life of the past weeks had certainly done wonders for this sunburnt, active young man, with elastic step and firm tread, who seemed so different a being from the pale and somewhat languid stranger to whom she had been first introduced. But she soon forgot everything else in the fair scene that lay at their feet, half screened by the pine boughs that drooped above them; for no fairer view had greeted her during the whole journey. Opposite, across the blue bay below them, lay Point au Pic, with its pier and its monumental rock, its straggling cottages, and the long, hilly, wooded ridge that swept round the corner of the bay on the other side. To their left lay the broad, sunset-flushed river, with the wavy line of delicate hues beyond it. The two watched the lovely glow of color for some time in silence. At last, when the scene was swiftly taking on the grayness of evening, Hugh remarked:
”How many lovely evenings we have seen! And this seems almost the loveliest of all.”
”Yes. It almost makes one sad to think that they are nearly all past,”--she replied, with a little wistful sigh.
”I don't know that it _should_, however,” replied Hugh. ”We can't lose their memories and their influences. _That_ seems to become part of our being, and we shall always be the richer for it. You know 'a thing of beauty is a joy forever.' Do you know,” he continued, after a pause, as May did not reply, ”this great river on which we have been wandering so long, seems to me to present a very fair parable of human life. It comes, like Wordsworth's version of our infancy, out of the mysterious majesty of Niagara, and that great sea-like lake. Then it has its tranquil sunny morning amid the lovely mazes of the Thousand Islands, which, like ourselves, it seems reluctant to forsake, for the more work-a-day rural stretch below. Then comes the strenuous time of conflict,--the '_sturm und drang_' period of the rapids, and then the calm strength, the gradual expansion, the growing dignity of a n.o.ble life, till at last we have this exquisite sunset, glorifying a river that is swiftly pa.s.sing on, to lose itself in the great 'silent sea,'
symbolizing the beauty of the same rich and n.o.ble life, pa.s.sing away from its old familiar sh.o.r.es to lose itself in the boundlessness of eternity.”
”I think you have got material for another poem there,” May observed, smiling, though touched by the emotion which seemed to have carried him on unconsciously. She and Hugh had got into the way of talking about his literary endeavors. There was another pause, and then Hugh looked up from his note-book, into which he had been looking.
”Do you recollect,” he asked, ”a lovely morning we had, just after coming to Sumach Lodge?”
”Yes,” replied May, promptly, ”the morning you rowed me over to that pretty little island, when the river was so calm, and it all looked so lovely.”
”And I wrote some verses there, which I should like to read to you, to see how you like them. May I?”
May looked a little perplexed, for she had not forgotten that he had seemed anxious that she should _not_ see them, _then_, and with her _idee fixe_ of his hopeless pa.s.sion for Kate--she had connected those verses in some way with that imaginary romance. However, she listened with great interest to his low toned reading:
In gleam of pale, translucent amber woke The perfect August day, Through rose-flushed bars of pearl and opal broke The sunlight's golden way.
Serenely the placid river seemed to flow In tide of amethyst, Save where it rippled o'er the sands below, And granite boulders kissed;
The heavy woodland ma.s.ses hung unstirred In languorous slumber deep, While, from their green recesses, one small bird Piped to her brood--asleep.
The cl.u.s.tering lichens wore a tenderer tint, The rocks a warmer glow; The emerald dewdrops, in the sunbeam's glint, Gemmed the rich moss below.
Our fairy shallop idly stranded lay, Half mirrored in the stream; Wild roses drooped above the tiny bay, Ethereal as a dream.
You sat upon your rock, a woodland queen, As on a granite throne; All that still world of loveliness serene Held but us twain alone.
Nay! But there seemed another presence there Beneath, around, above; It breathed a poem through the crystal air, Its name was _Love_!”
May listened to the poem with a rather bewildered feeling: it was so different from what she had expected. But gradually the images suggested by it took possession of her mind to the exclusion of other thoughts, and she scarcely noticed the closing lines, in the pleasure which it gave her to have that lovely morning so vividly recalled. But Hugh seemed to look for more than the pleasure she frankly expressed.
He was silent for a few moments, then said in a very low tone, looking straight into her eyes, ”I think that what brought the poem was my finding out, then, _that I loved you_!”
May was utterly taken by surprise, which indeed, overpowered every other feeling. She had not a word to say. Hugh saw how unprepared she had been for his avowal. Presently she managed to stammer out, ”I thought it was--Kate!”