The Child Wife. Майн Рид
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defunct storekeeper’s family; specially designed to give to it an air Southern, and of course aristocratic. At this time Mrs Girdwood was not the only Northern lady who selected her servants with an eye to such effect.
Slippers were soon kicked off, and kid boots pulled on in their places. Hats were set coquettishly on the head, and shawls—for the day was rather cool—were thrown loosely over shoulders.
“Come on!” and at the word the cousins glided along the gallery, descended the great stair, tripped across the piazza outside, and then turned off in the direction of the Bath Road.
Once out of sight of the hotel, they changed their course, striking into a path that led more directly toward the cliff.
In less than twenty minutes after, they might have been seen descending it, through one of those sloping ravines that here and there interrupt the continuity of the precipice—Cornelia going first, Julia close after, the turbaned negress, bearing her bundle, in the rear.
Chapter Two.
A Brace of Naiads.
They were seen.
A solitary gentleman sauntering along the cliff, saw the girls go down.
He was coming from the direction of Ochre Point, but too far off to tell more than that they were two young ladies, followed by a black servant.
He thought it a little strange at that hour. It was bathing-time upon the beach. He could see the boxes discharging their gay groups in costumes of green and blue, crimson and scarlet—in the distance looking like parti-coloured Lilliputians.
“Why are these two ladies not along with them?” was his reflection. “Shell-gatherers, I suppose,” was the conjecture that followed. “Searchers after strange seaweeds. From Boston, no doubt. And I’d bet high that the nose of each is bridged with a pair of blue spectacles.”
The gentleman smiled at the conceit, but suddenly changed it. The sable complexion of the servant suggested a different conclusion.
“More like they are Southerners?” was the muttered remark.
After making it he ceased to think of them. He had a gun in his hand, and was endeavouring to get a shot at some of the large seabirds now and then sweeping along the escarpment of the cliff.
As the tide was still only commencing to return from its ebb, these flew low, picking up their food from the stranded algae that, like a fringe, followed the outlines of the shore.
The sportsman, observing this, became convinced he would have a better chance below; and down went he through one of the gaps—the first that presented itself!
Keeping on towards the Forty Steps, he progressed only slowly. Here and there rough ledges required scaling; the yielding sand also delayed him.
But he was in no hurry. The chances of a shot were as good at one place as another. Hours must elapse ere the Ocean House gong would summon its scattered guests to their grand dinner. He was one of them. Until that time he had no reason for returning to the hotel.
The gentleman thus leisurely strolling, is worthy a word or two by way of description.
That he was only an amateur sportsman, his style of dress plainly proclaimed. More plainly did it bespeak the soldier. A forage cap, that had evidently seen service, half shadowed a face whose deep sun-tan told of that service being done in a tropical clime; while the tint, still fresh and warm, was evidence of recent return. A plain frock-coat, of civilian cut, close buttoned; a pair of dark-blue pantaloons, with well-made boots below them, completed his semi-military costume. Added: that these garments were fitted upon a figure calculated to display them to the utmost advantage.
The face was in keeping with the figure. Not oval, but of that rotund shape, ten times more indicative of daring, as of determination. Handsome, too, surmounted as it was by a profusion of dark hair, and adorned by a well-defined moustache. These advantages had the young man in question, who, despite the appearance of much travel, and some military service, was still under thirty.
Slowly sauntering onward, his boots scranching among the pebbles, he heard but the sound of his own footsteps.
It was only on stopping to await the passage of a gull, and while calculating the carry of his gun, that other sounds arrested his attention.
These were so sweet, that the gull was at once forgotten. It flew past without his attempting to pull trigger—although so close to the muzzle of his gun he might have “murdered” it!
“Nymphs! Naiads! Mermaids! Which of the three? Proserpine upon a rock superintending their aquatic sports! Ye gods and goddesses! what an attractive tableau?”
These words escaped him, as he stood crouching behind a point of rock that abutted far out from the line of the cliff. Beyond it was the cove in which the young ladies were bathing—the negress keeping but careless watch as she sat upon one of the ledges.
“Chaste Dian!” exclaimed the sportsman; “pardon me for this intrusion. Quite inadvertent, I assure you. I must track back,” he continued, “to save myself from being transformed into a stag. Provoking, too! I wanted to go that way to explore a cave I’ve heard spoken of. I came out with this intention. How awkward to be thus interrupted!”
There was something like a lie outlined upon his features as he muttered the last reflection. In his actions too; for he still loitered behind the rock—still kept looking over it.
Plunging in pellucid water not waist-deep—their lower extremities only concealed by the saturated skirts that clung like cerements around them—their feet showing clear as coral—the two young creatures continued to disport themselves. Only Joseph himself could have retreated from the sight!
And then their long hair in full dishevelment—of two colour, black and gold—sprinkled by the pearly spray, as the girls, with tiny rose-tipped fingers, dashed the water in each other’s faces—all the time making the rocks ring with the music of their merry voices—ah! from such a picture who could comfortably withdraw his eyes?
It cost the sportsman an effort; of which he was capable—only by thinking of his sister.
And thinking of her, he loitered no longer, but drew back behind the rock.
“Deuced awkward!” he again muttered to himself—perhaps this time with more sincerity. “I wished particularly to go that way. The cave cannot be much farther on, and now to trudge all the way back! I must either do that, or wait till they’ve got through their game of aquatics.”
For a moment he stood reflecting. It was a considerable distance to the place where he had descended the cliff. Moreover, the track was toilsome, as he had proved by experience.
He decided to stay where he was till the “coast should be clear.”
He sat down upon a stone, took out a cigar, and commenced smoking.
He was scarce twenty paces from the pool in which the pretty dears were enjoying themselves. He could hear the plashing of their palms, like young cygnets beating the water with their wings. He could hear them exchange speeches, mingled with peals of clear-ringing laughter. There could be no harm in listening to these sounds, since the sough of the sea hindered him from making out what was said. Only now and then did he distinguish an interjection, proclaiming the delight in which the two Naiads were indulging, or one, the sharper voice of the negress, to warn then against straying too far out, as the tide had commenced rising.
From these signs he knew he had not been observed while standing exposed by the projection of rock.
A full half-hour elapsed, and still continued the plunging and the peals of laughter.
“Very