Hills of the Shatemuc Part 109

"We are _here_."

"Where?"

"Lying at Cowslip's Mill."

"Oh! --"

The rest of Winnie's joyous thought was worked into her shoes and dress and bonnet-strings, and put away in her bag with her night-cap. How fast it was all done! and she pushed open her cabin door and stood on the deck with Winthrop.

Yes -- there was the green wooded sh.o.r.e -- how fresh to her eyes! -- There was Mr. Cowslip's brown old house and mill; there was the old stage road; and turning, there two miles off lay Shahweetah, and there rose up Wut-a-qut-o's green head.

And with a sob, Winnie hid her face in Winthrop's arms. But then in another minute she raised it again, and clearing away the mute witnesses of joy and sorrow, though it was no use for they gathered again, she looked steadily. The river lay at her feet and stretched away off up to Shahweetah, its soft gray surface unbroken by a ripple or an eddy, smooth and bright and still. Diver's Rock stood out in its old rough outline, till it cut off the west end of Shahweetah and seemed to shut up the channel of the river. A little tiny thread of a north wind came down to them from Home, over the river, with sweet promise. And as they looked, the morning light was catching Wut-a-qut-o's grave head, and then hill-top after hill-top, and ridge after ridge of the high mountain land, till all of them were alight with the day's warm hues, while all beneath slept yet in the greys of the dawn. The brother and sister stood side by side, perfectly silent; only Winnie's tears ran, sometimes with such a gush that it brought her head down, and sobs that could be heard came to Winthrop's ears. They stood till they were hailed by the old miller.

"Ha! Winthrop -- glad to see ye! how do you do? Haven't seen your face this great while. Winnie? is it? -- Glad to see ye!

She's growed a bit. Come right along into the house -- we'll have something for breakfast by and by, I expect. I didn't know you was here till five minutes ago -- I was late out myself -- ain't as spry as I used to be; -- Come!" --

"Oh Governor, let's go straight home!" said Winnie.

"There's time enough yet, Mr. Cowslip, for your purposes. What o'clock do you suppose it is?"

"Well, I s'pose it's somewhere goin' on to six, ain't it?"

"It has left five. We can breakfast with Karen yet, Winnie."

"Oh do, Governor!"

"If you'll give us a boat instead of a breakfast, Mr. Cowslip, we will thank you just as much, and maybe take your hospitality another time."

"But won't you stop and take just a mouthful first? you'd better."

"No thank you. We shall have to take it up there; and two breakfasts a day don't agree with me."

With some sorrow on Mr. Cowslip's part, this was submitted to.

The boat was got out; Hildebrand dropped into it and took the oars, "guessing he wouldn't mind going himself;" and Winthrop and Winnie sat close together in the stern. Not to steer; for Hildebrand was much too accustomed an oarsman to need any such help in coasting the river for miles up and down.

CHAPTER IV.

Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs -- To the silent wilderness Where the soul need not repress Its music, lest it should not find An echo in another's mind.

Sh.e.l.lEY.

Winnie drew a breath of gratification, as the oars began to dimple the still water and the little boat rounded out from behind the wharf and headed up the river; the very same way by which Winthrop had taken Mr. Haye's two young ladies once long before. The tide was just at the turn, and Hildebrand made a straight run for the rocks.

"How pleasant it is to hear the oars again!" Winnie said.

Winthrop said nothing.

Swiftly they pulled up, dappling the smooth grey water with falling drops from the oar-blades, and leaving behind them two lines of spreading wavelets that tracked the boat's way.

Cowslip's Mill fell into the distance, and all that sh.o.r.e, as they pulled out into the middle of the river; then they drew near the old granite ridge of Diver's Rock on the other side.

The sun had got so low down as that now, and the light of years ago was on the same grey bluffs and patches of wood. It was just like years ago; the trees stood where they did, ay, and the sunlight; the same shadows fell; and the river washed the broken foot of the point with, it might be, the very same little waves and eddies. And there, a mile further on, Wut-a- qut-o's high green side rose up from the water. Winnie had taken off her bonnet and sat with her head resting upon Winthrop's side or arm, her common position whenever she could get it. And she sat and looked, first at one thing and then at another, with quiet tears running and some times streaming down her face. Then the boat struck off from Diver's Rock and pushed straight over for the rocks of Shahweetah. As it neared them, the dear old trees stood forth more plainly to view, each one for itself; and the wonted footholds, on turf and stone, could be told and could be seen, apart one from the other. Poor Winnie could not look at them then, but she put her head down and sobbed her greeting to them all.

"Winnie," -- said Winthrop softly, and she felt his arm closer drawn around her, -- "you must not do that."

It mattered little what Winthrop asked Winnie to do; she never failed to obey him. She stopped crying now, and in another moment was smiling to him her delight, through the drops that held their place yet in her eyes and on her cheeks.

The little boat was shoved in to the usual place among the rocks and the pa.s.sengers got out.

"What's the fare, Hild'? -- sloop and all?"

The skipper stood on the rocks and looked into the water.

"Will you let me come to you to clear me out, the first time I get into trouble?"

"Yes."

"Then we're square!" he said, preparing to jump back into his boat.

"_Then_ hasn't come," said Winthrop; "let's keep things square as we go along."

"All right," said the skipper. "Couldn't take nothin' from you the first time, Governor."

And Hildebrand after giving Winthrop's hand a shake, into which there went a sort of grateful respect which he would never have yielded to one who had laid any manner of claim to it, dropped into his seat again and pushed off. Winthrop and Winnie turned their steps slowly towards the house.

Very slowly; for each step now was what they had come for. How untravelled the road was!

"How it looks as if we didn't live here, Governor," Winnie said with half a sigh.

"Old Karen and Anderese don't come this way very often,"

replied her brother.

"Governor, I am very sorry it has got to be sold!"

They walked a few more steps up the rocky path in silence.

"O Governor, look at that great limb of that cedar tree -- all dragging! What a pity."

"Broken by the wind," said Winthrop.

"How beautifully the ivy hangs from that cedar -- just as it did. Dear Governor, won't you get a saw while you're here, and take off the branch and make it look nice again? -- as nice as it can; -- and there's the top of that little white pine!" --

"Winter-killed," said Winthrop.

"Won't you put it in order, as you used to do, this one time more?"

"If I can get a saw, I will, Winnie, -- or a hatchet."

"I'm sorry we can't do it but this one time more," said Winnie, with a second and a better defined sigh, as they reached the house level. "O how funny it looks, Governor! how the gra.s.s has run up! and how brown it is! But the cedars don't change, do they?"