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The long day's battle with wind and water such wind and such water! had tired us both, and an early bed was the obvious program. Yet neither of us made the move for the tent. We lay there, tending the fire, talking in desultory fashion, peering about us into the dense willow bushes, and listening to the thunder of wind and river.
John went on with his reading, but finally, seeing Drusilla looking at him intently, he spoke. "What is it, Drusilla?" Drusilla said softly: "John, do you remember when we used to walk down Willow Lane in the moonlight, and one night some of the neighbors saw your arm around me and they went to mother and said we was carryin' on and it ought to be put a stop to?
Leaving at noon, we ascended the gorge behind the city, by delightfully embowered paths, at first under the eaves of superb walnut-trees, and then through wild thickets of willow, hazel, privet, and other shrubs, tangled together with the odorous white honeysuckle.
The clear, deep water lay faintly blue beneath the winter sky, and the woods came so close that long branches of sycamore swept the flood. In that mild season every leaf had not fallen; up and down the river here the dull red of an oak met the eye, and there the faded gold of a willow. The flatboat, a brown shadow beneath a creaking wire and pulley, came slowly to the southern side of the stream.
Saddling him, she rode east along the trail by the river, with the fenced grain fields on her right hand. Beyond the fields she could gallop at will over the rolling, grassy bottoms, among the patches of scrub and willow. It was not an impressively beautiful scene the river was half a mile wide, broken by flat wooded islands overflowed at high water; the banks were low, and at this season muddy.
From the edge of the open Pierrot saw what had happened, and he gave a great gasp of horror. He drew back among the balsams. This was not a moment for him to show himself. While his heart drummed like a hammer, his face was filled with joy. On her hands and knees the Willow was peering over the edge. Bush McTaggart had disappeared. He had gone down like the great clod he was.
There he saw her turn so that he would have sworn she looked at him. It seemed impossible that she had not seen him; but to his surprise she at once started up the stream, swiftly footing over the rough way, now a little step, now a free leap, grasping a willow to pull herself up an incline, then disappearing around a clump of cedars. He redoubled his speed over the rocks.
A big track appeared crossing a pool, seeming fresh. "No! he go by yesterday; water in track not muddy." Another track was found. "Yes, pretty good; see bite alder. Alder turn red in two hours; only half red." Follow long. "Look out, Billy; no go there; wrong wind. Yes, he pass one hour; see bit willow still white. Stop; he pass half-hour; see grass still bend. He lie down soon. How know?
And, Clarence, it may well happen that later in life under the gorgeous ceilings of Venetian churches, or at some splendid mass in Nôtre Dame, with embroidered coats and costly silks around you your thoughts will run back to that little storm-beaten church, and to the willow waving in its yard, with a Hope that glows, and with a tear that you embalm! A Home Scene.
Thus lovingly they ate together; and when Dick lay that night under the willow branches, looking up through them at the stars, with his feet to the fire and Crusoe close along his side, he thought it the best and sweetest supper he ever ate, and the happiest evening he ever spent so wonderfully do circumstances modify our notions of felicity. Two weeks after this "Richard was himself again."
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