Chapter 26

CORYDON GOES A-COURTING.

Have you never, friendly reader, on some bright May morning, when the air is soft and warm, the sky deep azure, and the whole universe filled to the brim with that gay spirit of youth which spring infuses into this the month of flowers, as wine is squeezed from the ripe bunch of grapes into the goblet of Bohemian glass, all red and blue and emerald--at such times have you never suffered the imagination to go forth, unfettered by reality, to find in the bright scenes which it creates, a world more sunny, figures more attractive than the actual universe, the real forms around you? Have you never tried to fill your heart with dreams, to close your vision to the present, and to bathe your weary forehead in those golden waters flowing from the dreamland of the past? The Spanish verses say the old times were the best; and we may assert truly that they are for us at least the best--for reverie.

This reverie may be languid, luxurious, and lapped in down--enveloped in a perfume weighing down the very senses, and obliterating by its drowsy influence every sentiment but languid pleasure; or it may be fiery and heroic, eloquent of war and shocks, sounding of beauteous battle, and red banners bathed in slaughter. But there is something different from both of these moods--the one languid and the other fiery.

There is the neutral ground of fancy properly so called: a land which we enter with closed eyes and smiling lips, a country full of fruits and flowers--fruits of that delicious flavor of the Hesperides, sweet flowers odorous as the breezy blossoms which adorn the mountains. Advance into that brilliant country, and you draw in life at every pore--a thousand merry figures come to meet you: maidens clad in the gay costumes of the elder time, all fluttering with ribbons, rosy cheeks and lips!--maidens who smile, and with their taper fingers point at those who follow them; gay shepherds, gallant in silk stockings and embroidered doublets, carrying their crooks wreathed round with flowers; while over all, the sun laughs gladly, and the breezes bear away the merry voices, sprinkling on the air the joyous music born of lightness and gay-heartedness.

All the old manners, dead and gone with dear grandmother's youth, are fresh again; and myriads of children trip along on red-heeled shoes, and agitate the large rosettes, and glittering ribbons, and bright wreaths of flowers which deck them out like tender heralds of the spring. And with them mingle all those maidens holding picture-decorated fans with which they flirt--this is the derivation of our modern word--and the gay gallants with their never-ending compliments and smiles. And so the pageant sweeps along with music, joy, and laughter, to the undiscovered land, hidden in mist, and entered by the gateway of oblivion.

You see all this in reverie, gentle reader--build your pretty old chateau to dream in, that is; and it swarms with figures--graceful and grotesque as those old high-backed carven chairs--slender and delicate as the chiselled wave which breaks in foam against the cornice. And then you wake, and find the flowers pressed in the old volume called the Past, all dry--your castle only a castle of your dreams. Poor castle made of cards, which a child's finger fillips down, or, like the frost palace on the window pane, faints and fails at a breath!

Your reverie is over: nothing bright can last, not even dreams; and so your figures are all gone, your fairy realm obliterated--nothing lives but the recollection of a shadow!

The reader is requested to identify our melancholy lover Jacques with the foregoing sentences; and forgive him in consideration of his unfortunate condition. Lovers, as every body knows, live dream-lives; and what we have written is not an inaccurate hint of what passed through the heart of Jacques as he went on beneath peach and cherry blossoms to his love.

Poor Jacques was falling more deeply in love with every passing day. That fate which seemed to deny him incessantly an opportunity to hear Belle-bouche's reply to his suit, had only inflamed his love. He uttered mournful sighs, and looked with melancholy pleasure at the thrushes who skipped nimbly through the boughs, and did their musical wooing under the great azure canopy. His arms hung down, his eyes were very dreamy, his lips were wreathed into a faint wistful smile. Poor Jacques!

As he drew near Shadynook, the sunshine seemed growing every moment brighter, and the flowers exhaled sweeter odors. The orchis, eglantine, sad crocus burned in blue and shone along the braes, to use the fine old Scottish word; and over him the blossoms shook and showered, and made the whole air heavy with perfume. As he approached the gate, set in the low flowery fence, Jacques sighed and smiled. Daphnis was near his Daphne--Strephon would soon meet Chloe.

He tied his horse to a sublunary rack--not a thing of fairy land and moonshine as he thought--and slowly took his way, across the flower-enamelled lawn, towards the old smiling mansion. Eager, longing, dreaming, Jacques held out his arms and listened for her voice.

He heard instead an invisible voice, which he soon, however, made out as belonging to an Ethiopian lady of the bedchamber; and this voice said:

"Miss Becca's done gone out, sir!"

And Jacques felt suddenly as if the sunshine all around had faded, and thick darkness followed. All the light and joy of smiling Shadynook was gone--_she_ was not there!

"Where was she?"

"She and Mistiss went out for a walk, sir--down to the quarters through the grove."

Jacques brightened up like a fine dawn. The accident might turn to his advantage: he might see Mrs. Wimple safely home, then he and Belle-bouche would prolong their walk; and then she would be compelled to listen to him; and then--and then--Jacques had arranged the whole in his mind by the time he had reached the grove.

He was going along reflecting upon the hidden significance of crooks, and flowers, and shepherdesses--for Jacques was a poet, and more still, a poet in love--when a stifled laugh attracted his attention, and raising his head, he directed his dreamy glances in the direction of the sound.

He saw Belle-bouche!--Belle-bouche sitting under a flowering cherry tree, upon the brink of a little stream which, crossed by a wide single log, purled on through sun and shadow.

Belle-bouche was clad, as usual, with elegant simplicity, and her fair hair resembled gold in the vagrant gleams of sunlight which stole through the boughs, drooping their odorous blossoms over her, and scattering the delicate rosy-snow leaves on the book she held.

That book was a volume of Scotch songs, and against the rough back the little hand of Belle-bouche resembled a snow-flake.

Jacques caught his breath, and bowed and fell, so to speak, beside her.

"You came near walking into the brook," said Belle-bouche, with her languishing smile; "what, pray, were you thinking of?"

"Of you," sighed Jacques.

The little beauty blushed.

"Oh, then your time was thrown away," she said; "you should not busy yourself with so idle a personage."

"Ah!" sighed Jacques, "how can I help it?"

"What a lovely day!" said Belle-bouche, in order to divert the conversation. "Aunt and myself thought we'd come down to the quarters and see the sick. I carried mammy Lucy some nice things, and aunt went on to see about some spinning, and I came here to look over this book of songs, which I have just got from London."

"Songs?" said Jacques, with deep interest, and bending down until his lips nearly touched the little hand; "songs, eh?"

"Scottish songs," laughed Belle-bouche; "and when you came I was reading this one, which seems to be the chronicle of a very unfortunate gentleman."

With which words Belle-Bouche, laughing gaily, read:

"Now Jockey was a bonny lad As e'er was born in Scotland fair; But now, poor man, he's e'en gone woad, Since Jenny has gart him despair.

"Young Jockey was a piper's son, And fell in love when he was young; But a' the spring that he could play Was o'er the hills and far away!"

And ending, Belle-bouche handed the book, with a merry little glance, to Jacques, who sighed profoundly.

"Yes, yes!" he murmured, "I believe you are right--true, it _is_ about a very unfortunate shepherd--all lovers are unfortunate. These seem to be pretty songs--very pretty."

And he disconsolately turned over the leaves; then stopped and began reading.

"Here is one more cheerful," he said; "suppose I read it, my dear Miss Belle-bouche."

And he read:

"'Twas when the sun had left the west, And starnies twinkled clearie, O, I hied to her I lo'e the best, My blithesome, winsome dearie, O.

"Her cherry lip, her e'e sae blue, Her dimplin' cheek sae bonnie, O, An' 'boon them a' her heart sae true, Hae won me mair than ony, O."

"Pretty, isn't it?" sighed Jacques; "but here is another verse:

"Yestreen we met beside the birk, A-down ayont the burnie, O, An' wan'er't till the auld gray kirk A stap put to our journie, O.

"Ah, lassie, there it stans! quo' I----"

With which words Jacques shut the book, and threw upon Belle-bouche a glance which made that young lady color to the roots of her hair.

"I think we had better go," murmured Belle-bouche, rising; "I have to fix for the ball----"

"Not before----!"

"No, not before Tuesday, I believe," said Belle-bouche; "I am glad they changed it from Monday."

Jacques drew back, sighing; but returning to the attack, said in an expiring voice:

"What will my Flora wear--lace and flowers?"

"Who is she?" said Belle-bouche, putting on her light chip hat and tying the ribbon beneath her dimpled chin.

Poor Jacques was for a moment so completely absorbed by this lovely picture, that he did not reply.

"Who is Flora!--can you ask?" he stammered.

"Oh, yes!" said Belle-bouche, blushing; "you mean Philippa, do you not? But I can't tell you what she will wear. She has returned home. Let us go back through the orchard."

And Belle-bouche, with that exquisite grace which characterized her, crossed the log and stood upon the opposite bank of the brook, looking coquettishly over her shoulder at the melancholy Jacques, who was so absorbed in gazing after her that he had scarcely presence of mind enough to follow.

"What a lovely day; a real lover's day!" he said, with a sigh, when he had joined her, and they were walking on.

"Delightful," said Belle-bouche, smelling a violet.

"And the blossoms, you know," observed Jacques disconsolately.

"Delicious!"

"To say nothing of the birds," continued Jacques, sighing. "I believe the birds know the twentieth of May is coming."

"Why--what takes place upon the twentieth?" said Belle-bouche, with a faint smile.

"That is the day for lovers, and I observed a number of birds making love as I came along," sighed Jacques. "I only wish they'd teach me how."

Belle-bouche turned away, blushing.

"On the twentieth of May," continued Jacques, enveloping the fascinating countenance of Belle-bouche with his melancholy glance, "the old lovers in Arcadia--the Strephons, Chloes, Corydons, Daphnes, and Narcissuses--always made love and married on that day."

"Then," said Belle-bouche, faintly smiling, "they did every thing very quickly."

"In a great hurry, eh?" said Jacques, sighing.

"Yes, sir."

"Do not call me sir, my dearest Miss Belle-bouche--it sounds so formal and unpoetical."

"What then shall I call you?" laughed Belle-bouche, with a slight tremor in her voice.

"Strephon, or Corydon, or Daphnis," said Jacques; "for you are Phillis, you know."

Belle-bouche turned the color of a peony, and said faintly:

"I thought my name was Chloe the other day."

"Yes," said the ready Jacques, "but that was when my own name was Corydon."

"Corydon?"

"Yes, yes," sighed Jacques, "the victim of the lovely Chloe's beauty in the old days of Arcady."

Belle-bouche made no reply.

"Ah!" sighed Jacques, "if you would only make that old tradition true--if----"

"Oh!" said Belle-bouche, looking another way, "just listen to that mocking-bird!"

"If love far greater than the love of Corydon--devotion----"

"I could dance a reel to it," said Belle-bouche, blushing; "and we shall have some reels, I hope, at the ball. Oh! I expect a great deal of pleasure."

"And I," said Jacques, sadly, "for I escort you."

"Then you have not forgotten your promise!"

"Forgotten!"

"And you really will take charge of me?" said Belle-bouche, with a delightful expression of doubt.

"Take charge of you?" cried Jacques, overwhelmed and drowned in love; "take charge of you! Oh Belle-bouche! dearest Belle-bouche!--you are killing me! Oh! let me take charge of your life--see Corydon here at your feet, the fondest, most devoted----"

"Becca! will you never hear me?" cried the voice of Aunt Wimple; "here I am toiling after you till I am out of breath--for Heaven's sake, stop!"

And smiling, red in the face, panting Aunt Wimple drew near and bowed pleasantly to Jacques, who only groaned, and murmured:

"One more chance gone--ah!"

As for Belle-bouche, she was blushing like a rose. She uttered not one word until they reached the house. Then she said, turning round with a smile and a blush:

"Indeed, you must excuse me!"

Poor Jacques sighed. He saw her leave him, taking away the light and joy of his existence. He slowly went away; and all the way back to town he felt as if he was not a real man on horseback, rather a dream mounted upon a cloud, and both asleep. Poor Jacques!