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At the edge of melancholy Catstean Moor, in the north of England, with half-a-dozen ancient poplar-trees with rugged and hoary stems around, one smashed across the middle by a flash of lightning thirty summers before, and all by their great height dwarfing the abode near which they stand, there squats a rude stone house, with a thick chimney, a kitchen and bedroom on the ground-floor, and a loft, accessible by a ladder, under the shingle roof, divided into two rooms.
I speak not now of what occurs in those first bitter days of grief, when the heart's wound bleeds afresh at every touch, when we are continually surprised by the bleak fact that the loved one is actually dead. But I speak of those after seasons, those Indian summers of the soul, in which all the present desolation is blended with the bloom and enjoyment of the past.
During a journey of several years, he has doubtless experienced the struggles of genius and the galling fetters of want; but now the star of fortune shines upon him. When I came to Rome, I found him physically suffering and melancholy. He was unable to bear the warm summers of Italy; and many people said he could not recover unless he visited the north, breathed the cooler air, and took sea-baths.
Was it symbolic to-night, the swan-song of the romance of Alice Westmore's life, begun under those very trees so many summers ago? They stopped at the gate. Richard Travis lit a cigar before mounting his horse. He seemed at times to-night restless, yet always determined. She had never seen him so nearly preoccupied as he had been once or twice to-night.
As she did so in that mysterious hour which sometimes comes to us in English summers, a great change fell upon her. When she sat down upon that fallen tree she was still a girl and virginal; when she rose from it she was a developed, loving woman. It was as though a spirit had visited her and whispered in her ear. She could almost hear the words. They were: "Fulfil your fate.
For two summers a great red-tailed hawk has visited the field every afternoon between three and four o'clock, swooping and soaring with the airs of a gentleman adventurer. What he finds there is chiefly conjectured, so secretive are the little people of Naboth's field.
Very grateful he was indeed! He had no sister; but as the dearest of all dear sisters he loved this little woman of twelve summers. But she was not his idol! Oh, no! The star of his boyish worship was Claudia!
I only heard her silvery voice once more durin' the remainder of the jerney. Turnin' to a respectable lookin' female of advanced summers, she asked her if she had seen the Grate Orgin. We old chaps, my dear, air apt to forget that it is sum time since we was infants, and et lite food.
These ruminations had lately taken a definite direction, and it was after several conversations which he had held with his friend Matt Pike. Mr. Matt Pike was a bachelor of some thirty summers, a foretime clerk consecutively in each of the two stores of the village, but latterly a trader on a limited scale in horses, wagons, cows, and similar objects of commerce, and at all times a politician.
Another older sister was already a successful teacher in the district schools of the region, so successful indeed, that she taught winters as well as summers, which was unusual for women teachers to attempt. Several winters she had undertaken schools, the pupils of which were so unruly that no man could be found who was able to control them.
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