The Merryweathers Part 4

"Charms!" said Gerald. "Yours. Bowled her over completely. Nice child, the child Toots. Think so?"

"I think she looks as good as she is beautiful," said Margaret. "Does she really like me? I am very glad, for I know I shall love her."

"Don't you think she is the image of me?" asked Gerald, plaintively.

"No, I never thought of it!" said downright Margaret. "Oh! hark, Gerald; what is that? I hear music."

They listened. Directly in front of them lay a deep black shadow, and forth from this shadow stole notes of music, low, sweet, almost unearthly in their purity and clearness.

"Evidently the stunt of Tintinnabula and the Camelopard!" said Gerald.

"That is the Black Sh.o.r.e yonder, and the noise is that of the Tree-browser's fiddle, in sooth a goodly noise. Approach we along the moonglade! that is what we call the wake here. Pretty?"

"Lovely!" murmured Margaret. "Oh! but hush, and listen!"

The other canoes had slackened their speed, and now all four crept on abreast over the luminous water. From the black shadow ahead forms began to detach themselves, black rocks, dark trees stooping to the water's edge, fir and pine, with here and there a white birch glimmering ghostlike; and still the music rose, ever clearer and sweeter, thrilling on the silent air. It seemed no voice of anything made by man; it was as if the trees spoke, the rocks, the water, the very silence itself. But now--now another tone was heard; a human voice this time, a full, rich contralto, blending with the aerial notes of the violin.

"Over all the mountains is peace; Among the tree-tops Hardly a breath is stirring; The birds are silent, Silent in the woodland; Only wait! only wait!

Soon thou too shalt rest."

"Harry Monmouth!" murmured the Colonel under his breath. "Am I alive, or is this the gate of Heaven?"

"Oh! who is it?" whispered Margaret.

"Tintinnabula! rather a neat thing in voices, the Tintinnabula's. Nor does the song altogether excite to strenutation. Ah! but that is the best yet!"

The notes changed. It was Schubert's Serenade now that rose from voice and violin together. No one stirred. The canoes were now close insh.o.r.e, and the long, soft fingers of fir and cedar brushed Margaret's cheek as she sat motionless, spellbound. It was a world of soft darkness, black upon black: the silver world they had just left seemed almost garish as she looked back on it. Here in the cool shadow, the voices of the night pouring forth their wonderful melody--"Oh!" she thought; "if this might last forever!"

But it was over. Floating round a great rock that stretched far out from the sh.o.r.e, they came upon the musicians, their canoe drawn up close to the rock.

"Here they are!" cried w.i.l.l.y. "It's Bell and Jack, Kitty; I knew it was.

You are such a silly!"

"I don't care!" pouted Kitty. "It did sound like nymphs; I am sure that is just the way they sound."

"You are quite right, Kitty," said her mother. "Children, you have given us a great treat. May we not have some more?"

"Oh, we were only waiting for you," said Bell; "now we must have choruses, many of them!"

And lying close together, the paddles stretched across from one canoe to another, the Merryweathers sang, to Jack's accompaniment, song after song in chorus: German student songs, with merry refrain of "_vivallera la_" and "_juch heira sa sa!_" Scottish ballads and quaint old Highland boat-songs; till Mr. Merryweather declared that it was time to go home.

So home they went, down the moonglade once more, across the glimmering floor of the lake, singing as they went; till, twinkling through the fringe of trees, they saw the lights of the Camp, and the long outline of the float, and the boats swinging at their moorings.

CHAPTER IV.

AFTER THE PICNIC

"AND what comes next on the programme?" asked the Chief.

"Coma, I should say," replied Colonel Ferrers. "After that watermelon, I see nothing else for it. It's my avowed belief that my nephew there could not stir if his life depended on it; it stands to reason. The boy has eaten more than his own weight. Monstrous!"

"What a frightful calumny!" cried Jack, laughing. "Really, Uncle Tom, you cannot expect me to sit still under that."

He rose lightly to his feet, and grasping a branch of the tree above his head, drew himself up, and after kicking his long legs several times in the air, finally twisted them round the branch, and in another moment had disappeared in the shadowy depths of the great hemlock.

"Oh! I say!" his voice floated down. "This is a great tree to climb.

You'd better come up, Uncle Tom, if you feel the slightest symptoms of coma."

The other lads did not wait to be invited, but flung themselves at the tree, and were soon lost to sight, though not to sound. Colonel Ferrers turned to his hostess with a frown which tried hard not to turn into a smile.

"Now, did you ever hear of such impudence as that?" he asked. "These young fellows of to-day are the most impudent scoundrels I ever came across. Time was, though, when we could have climbed a tree with the best of them; eh, Merryweather?"

"I have no doubt you could now, Colonel," said his host, "if you were put to it; but I confess it is more comfortable under a tree than in it, nowadays, especially after a Gargantuan feast like this."

It had indeed been a great picnic. The boys, while on a tramp, had discovered a grove of pines and hemlocks, huge old trees, which had unaccountably escaped the woodman's axe. The pines shot up straight and tall for a hundred feet and more, their trunks seamed and scarred, their clouds of dusky green plumes tossing far overhead; the hemlocks were no less ma.s.sive in girth, but they were twisted into all manner of grotesque shapes, and their feathery branches hung low, making a dense canopy over the heads of the picnickers. Here, under one of these hemlocks, the cloth had been laid, and decorated with ferns and hemlock ta.s.sels. Then the baskets were unpacked, and the campers feasted as only dwellers in the open air can feast. Ham and pasty, sandwiches and rolls, jam and doughnuts--nothing seemed to come amiss; and they finished off with a watermelon of such mighty proportions that it took all the united energies of the boys to dispose of it.

But it was finally disposed of, and now came the hour that is apt to be a little difficult at picnics; the hour between the feast and the going home.

"I have a new game," said Mrs. Merryweather. "Perhaps you would like to try it presently; but first, Colonel Ferrers, while the boys are skylarking, or rather tree-larking, up there, I want to hear the story you were telling Miles on the drive over. I could not hear very well on the back seat, and besides, I was making up my game. It was some adventure of yours when you were a boy."

"Capital story!" said Mr. Merryweather. "Do tell it, Colonel; I want to hear it again."

The Colonel smiled, and puffed meditatively at his cigar.

"Story of the barrel, eh?" he said. "Upon my word, now, I think it is pretty hard to make me tell that story before all these young people.

What do you say, Gertrude? you don't want to hear about your old friend's being a young fool, do you?"

"Oh! Colonel Ferrers," said Gertrude; "a story that makes your eyes twinkle so must be one that we all want to hear. Do begin, please!"

And all the girls, who had been putting away the table-cloth and "tidying-up" generally, gathered about the Colonel in an eager group.

"Well! well!" he said, glancing from one bright face to another. "After all, what are we old fogies for, but to point a moral and adorn a tale?

Listen, then. This happened when I was a young jackanapes of about my nephew's age; I knew everything in the world then, you understand, and n.o.body else knew much of anything. That was my belief, as it is the belief of most young men."

"Uncle," said a voice from above, "there are three young men up here who are prepared to drop things on your head if you slander their generation."

"Slander your generation, sir?" cried the Colonel, "by likening it to my own? Of all the monstrous insolence I ever heard--you may be thankful, sir, that I name yours in the same breath with it. Be good enough to hold your tongue, sir, and attend to your business, which is that of listening to me. Well, my dear madam, at the period of which I speak, I was in the office of my uncle, Marmaduke Ferrers, India merchant, importer of tea, silks, that sort of thing. Learning the trade, you understand; though, as I say, I was not aware that there was anything in particular to learn. This is one of the lessons I did learn. One day I was sent to the warehouse to count some barrels, and see them stowed away in the vault where they belonged. They were a special thing, barrels of minerals for some collection museum, I forget what. Out of our own line, but we had undertaken to store and keep them for a time.

The vault was directly under the warehouse, which was some way from the office. So! I went down and found no one there; The men were at their dinner, you understand. They may have been a little in a hurry, may have started a few minutes before the bell rang; I don't know how it was. At any rate, I was in a towering pa.s.sion; thought the whole business was going to the dogs for want of discipline, wanted to dismiss every man in the warehouse. Men who had been there before I was born, and knew more about tea than I was likely to know in my lifetime. Well, sir, it came into my a.s.s's head that I would give these men a lesson, show them that there was some one in the place that meant to have things done when he wanted them done. I would stow those barrels myself. I was strong as a bull, you remember--I beg ten thousand pardons! you and your husband were infants when this happened; not out of long clothes, I am positive.

But I was uncommonly strong, and thought Milo and Hercules would have found me a tough subject to tackle. Well--speaking of tackle--there was the rope and pulley, all ready for lowering; block up at the ceiling, rope dangling,--just over the trap that led into the vault. There were the barrels; nothing was easier, I thought. Child's play; I would have every one of the barrels lowered and stowed before those scoundrels came back from their dinner. I pushed the first barrel to the edge of the trap (lifted the trap-door first, you understand), hooked on the 'fall,'

pleased as Punch with myself--the only man in the world, I give you my word; then I got a good hold on the rope, and--kicked the barrel over the edge."

"Oh! Colonel Ferrers!" cried the girls.

"Ha! ha! ha!" roared the boys in the tree.

"Loaded with minerals, you understand! stone, metal, I don't know what.