Chapter 45

PEACE AND LOVE.

"And many a dim o'erarching grove, And many a flat and sunny cove; And terraced lawns, whose bright cascades The honeysuckle sweetly shades; And rocks whose very crags seem bowers, So gay they are with grass and flowers."

It was a delightful breakfast with the merry party at Escondido as they sat under the wide, cool piazza in the shade, with the sun throwing his slanting rays through the vines and clusters of purple grapes, and through the orange-trees, where the yellow fruit was fast losing its fragrant dew--all the men once more in summer rig, and the ladies in flowing muslin and tidy caps.

"My dear," said Piron to his wife, "we have lost one of our guests, Colonel Lawton; he went away at daylight this morning, and left a message to me, and compliments to you all, that business of importance, which he had forgotten, demanded his immediate return to Kingston."

There was no sorrow expressed by the lady or her fair sister, and even the men treated it with indifference, except Mr. Burns, who remarked, as he snapped a tooth-pick in twain, that, for his part, he was glad the fellow had gone; he didn't like his looks at all, though he did make himself so fascinating to the beautiful widow who sat next him.

"Ah! Monsieur Burns, think you I would prefer a scarlet coat when--"

"You might get a blue!" broke in Paddy, with a comical twinkle of his eye, as he winked in the direction of Commodore Cleveland, who sat opposite.

"No, no," exclaimed the pretty widow, hastily, as she shook her finger at her despairing admirer, "that is not what I was going to say--when those red coats there from England killed my poor husband at Quatre Bras."

"Ah! yes, my dear--bad luck to them! But an Irishman would never have been so cruel, you know, though, 'pon me sowl," went on Paddy, as he stuck a fork in an orange and began to divest it of its peel, West India fashion, to present it to the matron beside him, "I fear I should like to kill any man who loved ye, Madame Nathalie, myself."

"What a droll man you are, Monsieur Burns," replied the widow, laughing outright, "when you know you would prefer a jug of Antigua punch, any day, to me. Stop, now! didn't you say, at your grand dinner in Kingston, that you would never allow a woman to darken your doors?"

"I--a meant--a black woman, my dear; as true as me name's Paddy Burns, I did!"

"What are you two laughing at, my sister?"

"Why, here is Mr. Burns making love to me at breakfast, and before night he will be abusing me for not pouring enough rum in his punch!"

"That's his caractur, Madame Nathalie; for I, Tom Stewart, am the only person he ever loved, and he sometimes offers to shoot me for giving him unco' good advice."

"Howld yer tongue, ye divil ye! and you too, Stingo, or the pair of ye shall niver taste another sip of the old claret. Ye've ruined me cause entirely! But I'll lave ye me property, madame, when I'm gone."

"He's been talking of going, Nathalie," said Piron, "for the last twenty years, and has left his estate to at least thirty women, to my certain knowledge; but he hasn't got off yet, and--"

"Tom Stewart, ye miserable limb of the law! make out me will this very night."

Jacob Blunt unclosed his salt-junk mouth, and roared out in a peal of laughter that would have shivered his old brig's spanker, and caused, perhaps, Martha Blunt, sposa, to have spanked him, Jacob, had she heard and seen that mariner wagging his old bronzed face at the lovely woman facing him.

Mr. Tiny Mouse, who could not touch bottom on his high chair, with his little heels dangling about, forgetful of discipline, fairly kicked the broad pennant on the shins of his white ducks, screaming joyously; the three women made the piazza vibrate with their musical trills; Stingo and Stewart choked; Cleveland and Darcantel were amused; and old black Banou looked at his master, and grinned till his double range of teeth seemed like a white wave breaking at the cove. And then Paddy Burns took up the chorus, and after one or two Galway yells his friends took him up, thumped him smartly on the back, and stood him up against one of the posts of the piazza to have his laugh out. When he did, however, recover the power of speech, he wiped his eyes and looked around till they rested on Madame Nathalie, when, with his white napkin held up like a shield beside his rubicund visage, he spluttered,

"By me sowl, Tom Stewart, I mane what I say; and Paddy Burns's word is his bond!"

Ay, and so it was, you generous, whole-souled Milesian! And you did this time make a will. Tom Stewart and Stingo witnessed it, with handsome legacies therein set forth; and when one night you tumbled down--Well, we won't mention the particulars; but Paddy kept his word.

As the party rose from the breakfast table to get ready for a stroll down to the mill and around the plantation, one fair woman's hand was placed with a confiding, friendly clasp in that of Monsieur Burns; and then, as a graceful girl reached up to pull down her great flat straw hat from the post, Paddy Burns kissed her on the forehead, and she returned it too, as if she knew how to perform that ceremony even before people. Mr. Reefer Mouse had some thoughts of getting jealous, and calling Mr. Burns out, at ten paces, ships' pistols, and all that sort of thing; but the round, red-faced gentleman kissed him too, declaring the while, as he held him aloft, that he was first-rate kissing--that he was; nearly as good as mademoiselle, which quite disarmed Tiny's wrath, and then he hooked on to the damsel's delicate flipper, and tripped away with her down the valley.

Harry Darcantel exchanged a nod--not of defiance--with Paddy Burns, as much as to hint that those were not dangerous kisses--oh, not at all; and passing his hand over his brown mustache, he followed after the couple before him. Yes, Harry, Tiny's legs will get tired soon, and he will be hungry, and come back to old Banou for luncheon, while you will be putting aside the coffee bushes, and imploring mademoiselle to keep her straw hat about her lovely face, and not to get tanned by the sun. And when she turns her humid eyes toward you, you begin to believe the sky is never so blue as those eyes!

Tom Stewart, Stingo, and Burns never walked; they preferred lounging about the veranda, smoking cigars, and talking over the price of sugar and coffee, together with minor matters connected with factors' profits and suits at law. Jacob Blunt leaned over the bridge, thinking of the "Martha Blunts," brig and wife--not unfrequently confounding the two together--thinking this was to be his last voyage by land or sea, and that young Binks, his mate, should take command, and steer that old teak-built vessel carefully--oh, ever so keerful--or else the old hulk might come to grief.

Piron and his wife going mournfully down the valley--she with her mother's eyes gazing far out to sea, and he with his strong arm around her, whispering words of consolation; both looking, night and morning, out over the blue water, from chamber and piazza, and seeing nothing but a breaking wave and a baby-boy drowning beneath it--nothing more!

Madame Nathalie and Cleveland went on gallantly ahead--he with his blue pennant flying, and she with a black silk widow's ribbon around the frill of her cap, and a broader band about that muslin waist--talking of those they had both lost years ago, and trusting they were in heaven, as they believed they were; hope to meet again themselves in Louisiana, and see a great deal of one another in time to come--not a doubt of it! Yes, the cruise was more than half over, and he was quite tired of the sea. She, however, thought the sea beautiful, and never tired of looking at it. True, not rolling on top of it all the time--liked to sleep without rocking.

When the sea-breeze came fluttering up the gorge again, through the canes and the coffee-trees, and shaking up the superb foliage of the tropical forest, with the brilliant feathered tribes nestling close together on the lofty branches, and before the first salt breath had been exhaled in the clouds about the topmost peaks of the Blue Mountains, thousands of feet in the air, the party at Escondido had again returned to the broad piazzas, where, with blinds open, and swinging in cool grass hammocks, the men took siesta, while the ladies sought the pretty bowers within.

So passed one happy day, like the one gone before; and before the close of the week Dr. Darcantel joined the party, to take the place of Colonel Lawton; and a few days after old Clinker crackled up, very dry and thorny, with parchment in his pockets to take inventories, and do musty business generally.

Then the fair women, escorted by the navy men, and the Droger and Stingo, took their departure for the town house and ships in Kingston, leaving Paddy Burns, and Tom Stewart, and Clinker with Piron to close up matters, prior to his leaving the island. Paul Darcantel said he would remain with them likewise, since he had got through his business in Spanish Town and Port Royal, and wanted quiet. Madame Rosalie was the last to leave; and before her husband lifted her into the saddle, they stood together on the piazza, she looking with that still yearning gaze over the sea, and seeing nothing but breaking waves. That was the last look from Escondido!