Chapter 3 No.3

"I wish," said Mr. Symington bitterly, "that I could find a commodious desert island containing a first-class college and not a single girl. I would have the island fortified, and death by slow torture inflicted upon any woman who managed-as some of them would, in spite of all precautions-to effect a landing."

"But the married girls are so stupid, my dear boy," ejaculated his room-mate, Mr. Fielding. "You must admit that, if one must have either, the single ones are decidedly preferable, or at least the young single ones."

"Don't try to be funny," said Symington savagely: "you only succeed in being weak. I have"-and he pulled out a note-book and glared at its contents-"an engagement to take two to a concert this evening, other two to a tennis-match on Saturday, and another one out rowing this afternoon. And it's time for me to go now."

"It strikes me you've been pretty middling weak," commented Fielding. "Either that, or you're yarning tremendously about its being a bore: you can take your choice."

"I leave it with you," said Symington wearily. "That Glover girl is probably cooling her heels on the bank, and I must go."

"Alas, my brother! it is long since one of those Glover girls captured me!"

The victim was a little late for his engagement, but no indignant Glover girl lay in wait for him. The bank, green with the first soft grass of spring, was deserted. Had she come and gone? He arranged himself comfortably in the boat and began to sing, the balmy air and the surroundings suggesting his song,-

Oh, hoi-ye-ho, ho-ye-ho, who's for the ferry?

and went through the first verse, beginning softly, but unconsciously raising his voice as he went on, until, as he came to the second, he was singing very audibly indeed, and Rosamond, standing on the bank, looking uncertainly about her for the old boatman, was in time to hear,

She'd a rose in her bonnet, and, oh, she looked sweet

As the little pink flower that grows in the wheat,

With her cheeks like a rose and her lips like a cherry,-

"And sure and you're welcome to Twickenham town."

The curious feeling which makes one aware of being looked at caused him to turn and look up as he finished the verse, and he longed for the self-possession of his room-mate as he vainly struggled to think of something to say which should not be utterly inane. He felt himself blushing, but he was well aware that a blush on his sunburned face was not so charmingly becoming as it was to the vision on the bank. It was she who spoke at last, with the ghost of a smile accompanying her speech.

"I beg your pardon," she said, "but I was told that I should probably find an old man here who would row me across. Do you know where he's gone?"

"He is-that is-I think-I believe he's gone to dinner," stammered this usually inflexible advocate of truth.

And it did not occur to Rosamond to suggest that between four and five in the afternoon was an unusual dinner-hour for a ferryman.

She looked very much disappointed, and turned as if to go.

"Won't you-may I-" eagerly stammered the youth, and added desperately, "I'm here in his place," mentally explaining to an outraged conscience that this was literally true, for was not his boat tied to a stake, and must not that stake have been driven by the old man for his boat? Dr. Watts has told us that

Sinners who grow old in sin

Are hardened in their crimes,

and the hardening process must sometimes take place with fearful rapidity, for when Rosamond, having guilelessly accepted the statement and allowed the ferryman to help her to the broad cushioned seat in the stern of the boat, asked innocently, "How much is it-for both ways, I mean? for I want to come back, if you don't mind waiting a little," he answered, with a look of becoming humility, "It is five cents, please."

"You mean for one way?" she inquired, as she fished a very small purse up from the depths of her pocket.

And he, reflecting that two and a half cents for one way would have an air of improbability about it, answered promptly, "Yes, if you please."

She opened her purse and introduced a thumb and finger, but she withdrew them with a promptness and a look of horror upon her face which suggested the presence of some noxious insect.

"You'll have to take me back, please," she said faintly. "I forgot to put any money in my purse, and I've only just found it out."

"It is not of the least consequence," he began hurriedly, adding, in business-like tones, "You can make it all right the next time, you know. I suppose it will not be long before you cross again?"

"I don't know," she replied. "That depends upon whether or not I find-" and then, remembering that the professor had gently cautioned her about talking over her small affairs with any one but himself, she changed the end of her sentence into "I have to. But I will bring you the money to-morrow afternoon, if you will be here," she went on. "I am so ashamed that I forgot it; and you're very kind to trust me, when I'm such a perfect stranger to you. Don't people ever cheat you?"

"Sometimes," replied the ferryman; "and I don't trust everybody. I go a good deal by people's faces."

It did not seem to Rosamond that this remark required an answer, so she sat silent, while his vigorous strokes sent the little boat swiftly across the river, when he beached it, and, giving her his hand, helped her to spring to dry ground. Then she said,-

"That's where I'm going,-that white house across the first street; and I shall only be a few minutes."

"Don't hurry," he said, as she turned away. "I've nothing more to do this evening after I take you back."

He really did forget for the moment the "other two" and the concert.

The blissful meditation which enwrapped him made the fifteen minutes of her absence seem as five. She came down the bank, blushing and smiling.

"'And, oh, she looked sweet!'" mentally ejaculated the ferryman.

"Did I keep you long?" she said, as he helped her in. "I hurried as much as I could. And if you, or the old man, will be here to-morrow at half-past four, I should like to cross again: it saves me such a long walk. And I'll be sure to bring the money."

"You didn't keep me-that is, waiting-at all," he answered dreamily; "and I'll be here at half-past four, sharp, to-morrow. You may depend on me."

"Very well," she said contentedly, as she settled herself among the cushions, which in her absence he had arranged for her greater comfort, adding, "What a very nice boat you have! I don't see how you keep it so neat and fresh, taking so many people across, and being out, as I suppose you must be, in all sorts of weather."

"It's a new boat," he said hurriedly, "and you're my first passenger. Would you mind telling me your name?-your first name I mean, of course?"-for the horrible idea occurred to him that she might think he was anxious about his fare. "I haven't named her yet, and I thought, perhaps, as you're my first fare, you'd let me name her after you,-for luck, you know."

"Is that considered lucky?" she asked innocently, "If it is, of course you may. My name is Rosamond; but it seems to me that's rather long for a boat. Suppose you call her the Rose. Papa-my father, I mean-used to call me that oftener than Rosamond, and-one or two other people do yet."

"I don't think Rosamond would be too long," he said thoughtfully, "but it shall be as you wish, of course. I will have 'Rose' painted on the stern, and I can call her Rosamond to myself. May I have one of your roses, just to-to remember it by, till I can see the painter?"

"Why, yes, I suppose so." And she unfastened one of the two at her throat, and handed it to him.

He placed it carefully in his pocket-book, which, as she observed with some surprise, was of the finest Russia leather. Ferrying must be profitable work, to provide the ferryman with such boats and pocket-books.

There was a brief silence, and then she said, "You were singing as I came down the bank. Would you mind singing again? It sounds so pretty on the water."

He made no answer in words, but presently his voice arose, softly at first,and then with passionate fervor, and this time his song was, "Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast!"

"Thank you; that was beautiful," said Rosamond calmly, as he finished and the boat grazed the bank at one and the same moment. "What a good voice you have! And you must have taken lessons, to sing so correctly: haven't you?"

"Yes,-a few," he answered, springing from the boat and drawing it up on the bank. She rose to follow him, but stopped short, with a little exclamation of dismay.

"Why, this isn't where we ought to have landed!" she exclaimed. "It's a place a mile farther down the river."

He looked very much confused.

"I have made some stupid blunder," he stammered. "I owe you a thousand apologies, but I was singing, and I suppose I passed the landing without noticing it. I will not keep you long, though. I can row back in ten minutes."

"I oughtn't to have asked you to sing when you were rowing," she said remorsefully. "I'm so sorry you should have all that extra work."

"Oh, I don't mind that," he said, trying to speak coolly, "if the delay won't incommode you."

"No," she said. "We shall be back before dark, and that will be time enough. I shouldn't like to have to walk home after dark."

Eager words rose to the ferryman's lips, but he wisely suppressed them, bending to his oars till the little boat sprang through the water.

The sun dropped into the river, allowing the faintly-traced sickle of the new moon to show, as the boat once more touched land,-at the right place this time.

Rosamond tripped up the bank, with a friendly "Good-evening," and at the top she met the professor. "Oh, how nice of you to come and meet me!" she cried, slipping her hand through his arm. "It grows dark so quickly after the sun goes down that I was beginning to be just a little scared."

"I would have been here an hour ago," he said, "but the president kept me. I called at Miss Eldridge's, thinking to find you returned, and then, when she said you were still absent, I hurried down here, feeling unaccountably disquieted. It was absurd, of course. But were you not detained longer than you anticipated?"

"No, it wasn't absurd," she said, clasping her other hand over his arm and giving it a little squeeze. The spring dusk had fallen around them like a veil by this time, and they were still a little way from any much-travelled street.

"It wasn't absurd at all," she repeated "there's nobody but you to care whether I come in or go out, and I like you to be worried,-just a little, I mean,-not enough to make you, really wretched. I've had the funniest time! The old man wasn't there, and I was turning back, quite disappointed, when a young man,-quite young, and very nice looking,-who was singing in a foolish sort of way in a pretty little boat tied to a stake, said he was there in the old boatman's place, and asked me to go with him; and I went. At first I was puzzled, for he looked like a gentleman in most respects, and I didn't think he could be the son of the old man you told me about; but the longer I was with him the more I saw that there was something queer about him. He was very kind and polite, but had a sort of abrupt, startled manner, as if he were afraid of something, and I came to the conclusion that he must be a harmless insane person, and that they let him have the ferry because there isn't anything else much that he could do. He had a most lovely little boat, all cushioned at one end, and he rowed beautifully."

"But it was not safe," said the professor, in alarm. "If a man be ever so slightly insane, there is no telling what form his insanity will take: he might have imagined you to be inimical to him, and have thrown you overboard." And Rosamond felt a nervous tremor through the arm upon which she leaned. She laughed heartily.

"You'd not feel that way if you could see him, dear," she said. "He's as gentle as a lamb, and a little sheepish into the bargain. And I promised to let him row me over to-morrow afternoon at half-past four. Indeed, there's no danger. The only really queer thing he did was to carry me a mile down the river; and that was my fault, for I asked him to sing again. He has a delightful voice, and he sang that song you like so much,-'Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast!'-and while he was singing he missed the landing. But he apologized, and rowed me back like lightning: so it really didn't matter,-especially as you met me, like the dear that you are."

If a member of the professor's class had used the figures of speech too frequently employed by Rosamond, he would have received a dignified rebuke for "hyperbolical and inelegant language;" but it never occurred to the deluded man that anything but pearls of thought and diamonds of speech could fall from those rosy lips.

"I prefer, however, that you should run no risk, however slight, my Rose," said the professor, so gently that the words were more an entreaty than a command.

"But I don't see how I can help it," she said, in dismayed tones, "for I did such a dreadful thing that I shouldn't tell you of it if I hadn't firmly made up my mind to tell you everything. I think engaged-and-and-married people always ought to do that. I forgot to take any money, and it was ten cents there and back, you know; and he was so kind and polite about trusting me. I wanted him to take me back as soon as I found it out, but he said he would trust me, that I could bring it to him next time; and I promised to go to-morrow and pay him for both trips at once: so, you see, I must."

"Very well," said the professor, after a moment's thought. "I do not wish you to break your word, of course: so I will go with you. I can have a little talk with this unfortunate young man while you are engaged with your dress-maker, and perhaps his condition may be ameliorated. He could surely engage in some more remunerative occupation than that which he is at present pursuing; and there are institutions, you know, where much light has been thrown upon darkened minds."

"How good, how kind you are!" she cried, her sweet eyes filling with happy tears, unseen in the gathering darkness. "You're sure you've made up your mind not to be disappointed when you find out just how foolish and trifling I really am?" she asked timidly.

The professor's answer need not be recorded. It was satisfactory.

It is a curious thing that the "sixth sense," which draws our thoughts to long-forgotten friends just before we hear from them, which leads our eyes to meet other eyes fixed earnestly upon them, which enables people to wake other people by staring at them, and does a variety of similar things, admitted, but not accounted for, fails to warn the victims of approaching fate. Serenely, blissfully, did Mr. Symington wend his way to the bank on that golden afternoon. It had occurred to him to exchange his faultless and too expensive boating-costume for a cheap jersey and trousers; but he feared that this might excite suspicion: he had still sense enough left to be aware that there had been no shadow of this in the sweet blue eyes yesterday.

He had not sung

She'd a rose in her bonnet, and, oh, she looked sweet!

more than five hundred times since the previous evening: so, by way of variety, he was humming it softly to himself as he approached the bank. He was a little early, of course. She had not come yet. So he dusted the cushions, and sponged up a few drops of water from the bottom of the boat, and then sat down to wait. He was not kept waiting long. He heard voices approaching, then a clear, soft laugh, and she was there; but-oh, retribution!-with her, supporting her on his arm, was Professor Silex! Wild thoughts of leaping into the river and swimming-under water-to the opposite bank passed through the brain of this victim of his own duplicity; but he checked himself sternly,-he was proposing to himself to act the part of a coward, and before her, of all the world. No, he would face the music, were it the "Rogue's March" itself. And then a faint, a very faint hope sprang up in his heart: the professor was noted for his absent-mindedness: perhaps there would be no recognition. Vain delusion.

"Your boatman has not kept his appointment," said the professor, advancing inexorably down the bank; "but I see a member of my class-an unusually promising young man-with whom I wish to speak. Will you excuse me for a moment?"

Rosamond turned her puzzled face from one to the other, finally ejaculating, "Why, that's the ferryman!"

"There is some mistake here," said the professor, unaware of the sternness of his tones.

They had continued to advance as they spoke, and the ferryman could not avoid hearing the last words. He sprang from the boat and up the bank with the expression of a whole forlorn hope storming an impregnable fortress, and spoke before the professor could ask a question.

"I beg your pardon, Professor Silex," he said; "there is no mistake. Miss-this lady, who is, I imagine, Miss May" (the professor bowed gravely), "was looking yesterday for the old man who acts as ferryman here sometimes. He was absent, and, seeing that Miss May seemed disturbed, I volunteered to take his place. It gave me great pleasure to be of even that small amount of use."

The professor's grave face relaxed into a smile. Memories of his youth had of late been very present with him, and to them were added those of Rosamond's estimate of the amateur boatman. He waved his hand graciously; but, before he could speak, Rosamond indignantly exclaimed, "But you told me it was ten cents, and that people sometimes cheated you, and that you were here in that poor old man's place, and-oh, I can't think of all the-things you told me."

A burning blush scorched the face of the ferryman. This was speedy judgment indeed. But his courage rose to the emergency. He met the blue eyes steadily with his dark-brown ones as he said, "I told you no untruths, Miss May. My boat was, literally speaking, in the place of that which the old man actually keeps here: I knew it must be, because there was only one stake. I have been cheated, frequently and egregiously: few men of my age, I imagine, have not. And I have great faith in physiognomy. You were my first fare; and I meant to accept the ten cents,-I assure you I did. If you can think of any of the other 'things,' I shall be happy to explain them."

"It's all sophistry," she began, with something very like a pout.

But the professor gently interrupted her: "Let us not judge a kind action harshly. Mr. Symington meant only to relieve you from an annoying dilemma, and he naturally concluded that this would be impossible should he disclose his real name and position. It seems that he merely allowed your inferences to go uncontradicted, and was, practically, most kind. An introduction between you is now scarcely necessary; but I am glad that you have met. But for the fact that a selection would have looked invidious, I should have asked you ere this to permit me to bring Mr. Symington to see you."

"And will you-may I?" asked the culprit eagerly, glancing from one to the other.

"That must be as Miss May says," replied the professor, with a kind smile.

And Rosamond, ashamed of her unwonted outburst, gave Mr. Louis Symington her hand, saying penitently, "I was very rude just now, and unjust besides: will you forgive me and come with the professor to see me?"

"With pleasure,-with the greatest pleasure," he answered eagerly. "And you will let me row you across? You will not make me miserable by refusing?"

Rosamond glanced at the professor.

"To be sure we will," he said cheerfully. "I shall be glad of the opportunity for a little conversation with you while Miss May is executing her errand."

So he rowed them across; and then, while Rosamond discussed plaits and gores with the new dress-maker, he discoursed his best eloquence and learning to the professor, with such good effect that the latter said to Rosamond, as they walked home through the twilight, having been persuaded to extend the row a little, "I am glad, dear, that this opportunity of presenting young Symington to you without apparent favoritism has arisen. He is a most promising young man, but a little inclined, I fear, from what I hear of him in his social capacity, to be frivolous. We may together exercise a restraining influence over him."

"I thought he talked most dreadfully sensibly," said Rosamond, laughing; "but I like him, and I hope we shall see him often."

They did. He called at first with the professor, afterward, at odd times,-never in the evening,-without him. He persuaded Rosamond to continue her patronage of his boat. Sometimes the professor went, sometimes he did not. Mr. Symington was frequently induced to sing when they were upon the water, and once or twice Rosamond joined her voice to his.

The 30th of June had at last been appointed for the wedding-day. They were to go to Europe at once, and spend the vacation travelling wherever Rosamond's fancy should dictate. All through the winter she had discussed their journey with the liveliest interest, sometimes making and rejecting a dozen plans in one evening. But of late she had ceased to speak of it unless the professor spoke first; and this, with the gentle tact which he had always possessed, but which had wonderfully developed of late, he soon ceased to do.

She was sometimes unwarrantably irritable with him now, but each little fit of petulance was always followed by a disproportionate penitence and remorse. At such times she hovered about him, eagerly anxious to render him some of the small services which he found so sweet. But she was paler and thinner than she had ever been, and Miss Christina noticed, with a kindly anxiety which did her credit, that Rosamond ate less and less.

May was gone. It was the first day of June,-and such a day! Trees and shrubs were in that loveliest of all states,-that of a half-fulfilled promise of loveliness. Rosamond felt the spell, and, in spite of all that was in her heart, an unreasoning gladness took possession of her. She danced down the path of the long garden behind the seminary and danced back again, stopping to pick a handful of the first June roses. It was early morning, and the professor stopped-as he often did-for a moment's sight of her on his way from the dreary boarding-house to the equally dreary college. She caught both his hands and held up her face for a kiss. Then she fastened a rosebud in his button-hole.

"You are not to take that out until it withers, Paul," she said, laughing and shaking a threatening finger at him. "Do you know what it means,-a rosebud? I don't believe you do, for all your Greek. It means 'confession of love;' and I do love you,-I do, I do."

"I know you do, my darling," he said gently; "and it shall stay there-till it withers. But that will not be long. I stopped to tell you that I cannot go with you this afternoon; but you must not disappoint Mr. Symington. I met him just now, and told him I should be detained, but that you would go."

"You had no right to say so without asking me first," she said sharply. "I don't wish to go. I won't go without you. There!"

He was silent, but his deep, kind eyes were fixed pityingly upon her flushed, excited face.

She dropped it on his arm and burst into tears, and he stroked her hair gently, as if she had been a little child and he a patient, loving father. She raised her face presently, smiling, though her lips still quivered.

"Do you really and truly wish me to go with-this afternoon?"

It seemed to him that for a full minute he could not speak, but in reality the pause was so brief that she did not notice it.

"Yes," he said quietly, "I really and truly do. It would not be fair to disappoint Mr. Symington, after making the engagement."

"And can't you possibly go, dear?" she asked entreatingly.

I think only one man was ever known to pull the cord which set in motion a guillotine that took off his own head. But there is much unknown, as well as unwritten, history.

"Not without neglecting some work which I ought to do to-day," he said.

"I think you care more for your work sometimes than you do for me." There was a little quaver in her voice as she spoke. "And I wish you'd stop behaving as if I were your daughter. I don't know what ails you this morning; but if you go on this way I shall call you Professor Silex all the time. How would you like that?"

A passionate exclamation rose to his lips, and died there. A spasm of bitter pain made his face for a moment hard and stern. Then he smiled, and said gently, "I should not like it at all, as you know very well. But I must go now, or I shall be late for my class. Good-by, dear child." And, parting her soft, curling hair, he pressed a fatherly kiss upon her forehead.

She threw her arms about his neck, crying, "No!-on my lips." And, pressing an eager kiss upon his mouth, she added, "There! that is a sealing, a fresh sealing, of our engagement; and I wish-oh, how I wish!-that we were to be married to-morrow-to-day!"

The professor gently disengaged himself from her clinging arms, saying, still with a smile, "But I thought the wedding-gown was still to make? Good-by. I will come early this evening and hear all about the enchanted island."

For the expedition which had been planned by the three for that afternoon was to explore a little island far down the river, farther than any of them had yet gone.

Rosamond wore no roses when she went slowly down the bank that day,-not even in her cheeks.

And when Louis Symington saw her coming alone, only the sunbrown on his face concealed the sudden rush of blood from it to his heart.

"The professor could not come," she said hurriedly, "so he made me come without him; that is-I mean-" And she stopped, confused.

"If you prefer to wait until he can go with us, pray do not hesitate to say so," he replied stiffly, and pausing-with her hand in his-in the act of helping her into the boat.

"Oh, I did not mean to say anything rude," she exclaimed penitently; and she stepped across the seats to the cushioned end of the boat. "Of course we will go; but perhaps-would you mind-couldn't we just take a little row to-day, and save the island until the professor can go?"

"Certainly," he said, still in the same constrained tone; and, without another word, he helped her to her place and arranged the cushions about her.

The silence lasted so long that she felt she could bear it no longer.

"Will you please sing something?" she said at last, desperately, "You know you sang that first day; and it sounded so lovely on the water. Do you remember?"

He looked at her fixedly for a moment. Then he said simply, "Yes, I remember," and began at once to sing. But he did not sing "Twickenham Ferry" to day. He would have given all he was worth, when he had sung one line, if he could have changed it into a college song, a negro melody,-anything. For this was what he found himself singing:

"How can I bear to leave thee?

One parting kiss I give thee,

And then, whate'er befalls me,

I go where Honor calls me."

She would not hide her face in her hands, but she might turn it away: how was he to know that she was not watching with breathless interest the young couple straying along the bank, arm closely linked in arm, in the sweet June sunshine?

"Thank you," she said faintly, when the last trembling note had died away: "that was-very pretty."

"I am glad you liked it," he said, with quiet irony in his tones.

And then there was another alarming pause. Anything was better than that, and she began to talk almost at random, telling of various laughable things which had occurred among her scholars, laughing herself, somewhat shrilly, at the places where laughter was due.

He sat silent, unsmiling, through it all until they stepped from the boat. Then he said, "It is really refreshing to see you in such good spirits. I had always understood that even the happiest fiancée was somewhat pensive and melancholy as the day of fate drew near."

"You have no right to speak to me in that way,-in that tone," she cried, with sudden heat.

He bowed low, saying, "Pardon me; I am only too well aware that I have no rights of any kind so far as you are concerned. But it is impossible to efface one's self entirely."

"Now you are angry with me," she said forlornly; "and I don't know what I have done."

"I angry with you!" he cried. "Oh, Rosamond! Rosamond!"

"I am glad if you are not," she said,-"very glad; but I must go-the professor-" And she sped up the bank before he could speak again.