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We were met by the abbot at the water-stairs, and, after being shown the beautiful Venetian Gothic cloisters, with alabaster columns whose carving was almost lacelike in its delicate tracery, we were led along a wooded path beside the sea, over a carpet of pine-needles, to a cloistered rose-garden, in which stood, amid a bower of blossoms, a blue and white statue of the Virgin.
Then she led them to a bower where there was a long seat, and explained to them how they were to lay the flowers in order upon the seat, and directed them to be very careful not to touch them after they were once laid down. They were, moreover, to leave a place in the middle of the seat entirely clear. They asked what that was for. Mary said that they would see by-and-by.
"Caught, by all that's lovely!" shouted Phillips, repeating my verses at the top of his voice, "The bird-song and flower And star from above Combine in thy bower; Their union is love!"
Too free from any taint of sin or shame herself ever to suspect that others could misinterpret her actions, Herminia was hardly aware how the gossip of Bower Lane made free in time with the name of the young lady who had taken a cottage in the row, and whose relations with the tall gentleman that called so much in the evenings were beginning to attract the attention of the neighborhood.
Then the flimsy wooden props holding the bonnets of her sea-valves in place were to be kicked aside, the helm put hard to starboard, and the starboard bower anchor let go. This would steer the ship directly across the channel and check her headway.
Piang dipped his hands into the cool water, and pulled them up by long slender roots; lily-pads offered their beauties and soon the banco was a bower of fragrant and brilliant flowers. Playfully Piang caught at a vine, floating in the wake of an island. The natural boat led him gently about, twisting and circling back and forth. He laughed merrily. The islands were too funny!
Happy the man who should bestow the first chaste kiss of wedded love, upon the pure lips of a lovely bride, within that soft bower of voluptuousness! She is disrobed; from her virgin limbs are removed the snowy garments; she is coquettishly arrayed in the seductive costume of bewitching night!
The Countess desired her to bring them up immediately to Margaret's bower, whither she would go herself to meet them. Margaret and Doucebelle had just come in from a walk upon the leads the usual way in which ladies took airings in the thirteenth century. Indeed, the leads were the only safe and proper place for a young girl's out-door recreation.
The officers and sailors, in imitation of their chief, clustered themselves in wondering groups in the rigging, in the chains, and in the boats, to witness the strange spectacle of a huge bower anchor, weighing nearly four tons, raised off the ground by a set of native fishermen, possessed of no canoe larger than the smallest gig on board.
'Twas a quaint name enough, for 'the Bower' stood on the true march line of the naked Border, and in the very haunt and playground of the winds.
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