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What was to come to this beloved and loving woman who lay there sleeping, so confident, so trustful, guarded only by him, by him, Alessandro, the exile, fugitive, homeless man? Before the dawn, wood-doves began their calling.
Half a mile distant, a jagged, irregular mountain-peak raised high its emerald-hued head in the clear sunshine, and from every lofty tree on both sides of the stream there came the continuous call of the gentle wood-doves and the great grey pigeons. With Nalik and myself there came old Sru and the imp Toka, who at once set to work and found us some small crayfish for bait.
Next, when dinner was done, and they lay in the shadow of the trees, and hearkened the moor-hen crying from the water, and the moaning of the wood-doves in the high trees, she turned to him and bade him tell her somewhat of the tale of his life and deeds; but he said: Nay, lady, I pray thee pardon me, for little have I to tell thee that is good, and I would not have thee know of me aught worse than thou knowest of me already.
The notes of the golden oriole and cooing of pigeons and wood-doves mingling with the silvery jingle of an occasional vaquero's spurs, came from the garden beyond. How peaceful it was! After all, why was the place so unusual, so different from the rest of the world? But forget where one was, and the scene might have been one in Algiers or Egypt, or in a town in Spain or Northern Italy.
They heard the thrush singing and the wood-doves calling; they saw the squirrels leaping from branch to branch, and the deer bounding by. But though they searched for hours, no trace of the hogs could be seen. Loveleaves and Woodwender dared not go home without them. Deeper and deeper they ran into the forest, searching and calling, but all in vain.
The wood-doves cooed in the stillness; occasionally the harsh cry of a jay jarred the silence. It was an hour after noon, and hot. I think I nodded. On a sudden, as if in a dream, I saw Clon's face peering at me round the angle of the parlour door. He looked, and in a moment withdrew, and I heard whispering. The door was gently closed. Then all was still again.
Blackbirds were not the only guests at the feast; there were the doves, mourning, or wood-doves, who dropped to the grass, serene as a summer morning, walking around in their small red boots, with mincing steps and fussy little bows. Blue jays, too, came in plenty, selected each his grain and flew away with it.
The willow and wild-rose thickets stooped and washed their spring garments in its tide. Primeval life and love were all around them. Meadow larks flung their brief jets of song into the sunlight; the copses rustled with wings; wood-doves cooed from the warm sunny hollows, and the soft booming of their throaty call was like a beating in the air, the pulse of spring. They had found their Garden.
Even as the wood-doves had said, he was tall and dark and stately. "Is all well with you, O my people?" said the King, in a voice as sweet and solemn as the wind in the branches on a summer's day. "Yes, all is well," answered the trees softly. Though some replied, "I have lost a branch"; and a little tree called out unhappily, "My neighbors are shutting out all my sunlight."
No, not all; one other thing comforted him, the notes of two wood-doves, that at intervals he heard, cooing to each other; just the two notes, the call and the answer, "Love?" "Here." "Love?" "Here," and long intervals of silence between. Plain as if written on a page was the thing they told. "That is what my Ramona is like," thought he, "the gentle wood-dove.
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