Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs - R. D. Blackmore

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goose with the golden eggs—to make no havoc of the young buds forming, at the base of every cluster, for the promise of next year’s crop.

      Hilary longed to go and help them; but his host being very proud of the grandeur of his Madeira wine, would not even hear of it. And Mrs. Lovejoy, for other reasons, showed much skill in holding him; so that he could but sit down and admire the picture he longed to be part of. Hence he beheld, in the happy distance, in and out the well-fed trees, skill, and grace, and sprightly movements, tiny baskets lifted high, round arms bent for drawing downward, or thrown up for a jumping catch, and everything else that is so lovely, and safe to admire at a distance.

      By-and-by the maids came back, bearing their juicy treasure, and blithe with some sage mysticism of laughter. They had hit upon some joke between them, or something that chanced to tickle them; and when this happens with girls, they never seem to know when the humour is out of it; and of course they make the deepest mystery of a diminutive jest so harmless that it hits no one except themselves. Mrs. Lovejoy looked at them strongly. Her time for common-sense was come; and she thought they were stealing a march upon her, by some whispers about young men, the last thing they should ever think of.

      Whereas the poor girls had no thought of anything of the kind. Neither would they think one atom more than they could help, of what did not in the least concern them; if their elders, who laid down the law, would only leave them to themselves. And it was not long till this delightful discretion was afforded them. For, after a glass or two of wine, the heat of the day began to tell, through the cool air of the hollow, on that worthy couple, now kindly hand in hand, and calmly going down the slope of life. They hoped they had got a long way to go yet; and each thought so of the other. Neither of them had much age, being well under threescore years; just old enough to begin to look on the generation judiciously. But having attained this right at last, after paying heavily, what good could they have of it, if young people were ever so far beyond their judgment? Meditating thus they dozed; and youthful voice, and glance, and smile, were drowned in the melody of—nose.

      The breeze that comes in the afternoon of every hot day (unless the sky is hushing up for a thunderstorm) began to show the underside of leaves and the upper gloss of grass, and with feeble puffs to stir the stagnant heat into vibration, like a candle quivering. Every breath at first was hot, and only made the air feel hotter, until there arrived a refreshing current, whether from some water-meadows, or from the hills where the chalk lay cool.

      “The heat is gone,” said Martin Lovejoy, waking into the pleasant change; “it will be a glorious afternoon. Pooh, what is this to call hot weather? Only three years ago, in 1808, I remember well——”

      “It may have been hotter then, my dear,” said Mrs. Lovejoy, placidly; “but it did not make you forget your pipe, and be ungrateful to Providence about me.”

      “Why, where can the children be?” cried the Grower. “I thought they were all here just this moment! It is wonderful how they get away together. I thought young Lorraine and Gregory were as fast asleep as you or I! Oh, there, I hear them in the distance, with the girls, no doubt, all alive and merry!”

      “Ay, and a little too merry, I doubt,” answered Mrs. Lovejoy; “a little too much alive for me. Why, they must be in the wall-garden now! Goodness, alive, I believe they are, and nobody to look after them!”

      “Well, if they are, they can’t do much harm. They are welcome to anything they can find, except the six strawberries I crossed, and Mabel will see that they don’t eat those.”

      “Crossed strawberries indeed! now, Martin,”—Mrs. Lovejoy never could be brought to understand cross-breeding;—“they’ll do something worse than cross your strawberries, unless you keep a little sharper look-out. They’ll cross your plans, Master Martin Lovejoy, and it’s bad luck for any one who does that.”

      “I don’t understand you, wife, any more than you understand the strawberries. How could they cross them at this time of year?”

      “Why, don’t you see that this gay young Lorraine is falling over head and ears in love with our darling Mabel?”

      “Whew! That would be a sad affair,” the Grower answered carelessly: “I like the young fellow, and should be sorry to have him so disappointed. For of course he never could have our Mab, unless he made up his mind to turn grower. Shorne says that he is a born salesman; perhaps he is also a born grower.”

      “Now, husband, why do you vex me so? You know as well as I do that he is the only son of a baronet, belonging, as Gregory says, to one of the proudest families in England; though he doesn’t show much pride himself, that’s certain. Is it likely they would let him have Mabel?”

      “Is it likely that we would let Mabel have him? But this is all nonsense, wife; you are always discovering such mare’s-nests. Tush! why, I didn’t fall in love with you till we fell off a horse three times together.”

      “I know that, of course. But that was because they wanted us to do it. The very thing is that it happens at once when everybody’s face is against it. However, you’ve had your warning, Martin, and you only laugh at it. You have nobody but yourself to thank, if it goes against your plots and plans. For my own part, I should be well pleased if Mabel were really fond of him, and if the great people came round in the end, as sooner or later they always do. There are very few families in the kingdom that need be ashamed of my daughter, I think. And he is a most highly accomplished young man. He said last night immediately after prayer-time that I might try for an hour, and he would be most happy to listen to me, but I never, never could persuade him that I was over forty years old. Therefore, husband, see to it yourself. Things may take their own course for me.”

      “Trust me, trust me, good wife,” said Martin; “I can see, as far as most folk can. What stupes boys and girls are, to be sure, to go rushing about after watery fruit, and leave such wine as this here Madeira. Have another glass, my dear good creature, to cheer you up after your prophecies.”

      Meanwhile, in the large old-fashioned garden, which lay at the east end of the house, further up the course of the brook, any one sitting among the currant-bushes might have judged which of the two was right, the unromantic franklin, or his more ambitious but sensible wife. Gregory and Phyllis were sitting quietly in a fine old arbour, having a steady little flirt of their own, and attending to nothing in the world besides. Phyllis was often of a pensive cast, and she never looked better than in this mood, when she felt the deepest need of sympathy. This she was receiving now, and pretending of course not to care for it; her fingers played with moss and bark, the fruits of the earth were below her contempt, and she looked too divine for anybody.

      On the other hand, the rarest work and the most tantalizing tricks were going on, at a proper distance, between young Mabel and Hilary. They had straggled off into the strawberry-beds, where nobody could see them; and there they seemed likely to spend some hours if nobody should come after them. The plants were of the true Carolina, otherwise called the “old scarlet pine,” which among all our countless new sorts finds no superior, perhaps no equal; although it is now quite out of vogue, because it fruits so shyly.

      “Now, I must pick a few for you, Mr. Lorraine. You are really giving me all you find. And they are so scarce—no, thank you; I can get up very nicely by myself. And there can’t be any brier in my hair. You really do imagine things. Where on earth could it have come from? Well, if you are sure, of course you may

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