Chapter I: Treasures Dropped and Picked Up

"Dans l'air pale, emanant ses tranquilles lumieres
Rayonnait l'astre d'or de l'arriere-saison."

There was nothing remarkable in the scene. It was just a bit of country lane, cut deeply into the side of a hill, and seamed with little pebbly courses, made by the streams of rain which had poured across it on their downward way. The hill-side faced the west, and, standing on this ledge as on a balcony, one might look down into a valley where cattle were feeding in the pastures, and where a full and softly-flowing river turned the wheel of a distant mill, and slipped quietly under the arched bridge of the lower road. Sometimes in summer the water lay gleaming, like a curved blade, in the midst of the warm green meadows, but on this late October day it was misty and wan, and light vapours veiled the pale globe of the declining sun. Looking upward from the valley, a broad slope of ploughed land rose above the road, and the prospect ended in a hedge, a gate, through whose bars one saw the sky, and a thin line of dusky, red-trunked firs. But from the road itself there was nothing to be seen in this direction except a steep bank. This bank was crowned with hawthorn bushes, and here and there a stubborn stunted oak, which held its dry brown leaves persistently, as some oaks do. With every passing breath of wind there was a crisp rustling overhead.

This bit of road lay deserted in the faint yellow gleams. But for a wisp of straw, caught on an overhanging twig, and some cart-tracks, which marked the passage of a load, one might have fancied that the pale sun had risen, and now was about to set, without having seen a single wayfarer upon it. But there were four coming towards it, and, slowly as two of them might travel, they would yet reach it while the sunlight lasted. The little stage was to have its actors that afternoon.

First there appeared a man's figure on the crest of the hill. He swung himself over the gate, and came with eager strides down the field, till he reached the hedge which divided it from the road. There he stopped, consulted his watch, and sheltering himself behind one of the little oaks, he rested one knee on a mossy stump, and thus, half-standing, half-kneeling, he waited. The attitude was picturesque, and so was the man. He had bright grey-blue eyes, hair and moustache brown, with a touch of reddish gold, a quick, animated face, and a smiling mouth. It was easy to see that he was sanguine and fearless, and on admirable terms with himself and the world in general. He was young, and he was pleasant to look at, and, though he could hardly have dressed with a view to occupying that precise position, his brown velvet coat was undeniably in the happiest harmony with the tree against which he leaned, and the withered foliage above his head.

To wait there, with his eyes fixed on that unfrequented way, hardly seemed a promising pastime. But the young fellow was either lucky or wise. He had not been there more than five minutes by his watch, when a girl turned the corner, and came, with down-bent head, slowly sauntering along the road below him. His clasping hand on the rough oak-bark shifted slightly, to allow him to lean a little further and gain a wider range, though he was careful to keep in the shelter of his tree and the hawthorn hedge. A few steps brought the girl exactly opposite his hiding-place. There she paused.

She sauntered because her hands and eyes were occupied, and she took no heed of the way she went. She paused because her occupation became so engrossing that she forgot to take another step. She wore long, loose gloves, to guard her hands and wrists, and as she came she had pulled autumn leaves of briony and bramble, and brier sprays with their bunches of glowing hips. These she was gathering together and arranging, partly that they might be easier to carry, and partly to justify her pleasure in their beauty by setting it off to the best advantage. As she completed her task, a tuft of yellow leaves on the bank beside her caught her eye. She stretched her hand to gather it, and the man above looked straight down into her unconscious upturned face.

She was not more than eighteen or nineteen, and by a touch of innocent shyness in her glances and movements she might have been judged to be still younger. She was slight and dark, with a soft loose cloud of dusky hair, and a face, not flower-like in its charm, but with a healthful beauty more akin to her own autumn berries--ripe, clear-skinned, and sweet. As she looked up, with red lips parted, it was hardly wonderful that the lips of the man in ambush, breathlessly silent though he was, made answer with a smile. She plucked the yellow leaves and turned away, and he suffered his breath to escape softly in a sigh. Yet he was smiling still at the pretty picture of that innocent face held up to him.

It was all over in a minute. She had come and gone, and he stood up, still cautiously, lest she should return, and looked at the broad brown slope down which he had come so eagerly. Every step of that lightly-trodden way must be retraced, and time was short. But even as he faced it he turned for one last glance at the spot where she had stood. And there, like coloured jewels on the dull earth, lay a bunch of hips, orange and glowing scarlet, which she had unawares let fall. In a moment he was down on the road, had caught up his prize, and almost as quickly had pulled himself up again, and was standing behind the sheltering tree while he fastened it in his coat. And when he had secured it, it seemed, after all, as if he had needed just that touch of soft bright colour, and would not have been completely himself without it.

"Barbara's gift," he said to himself, looking down at it. "I'll tell her of it one of these days, when the poor things are dead and dry! No, that they never shall be!" He quickened his pace. "They shall live, at any rate, for me. It would not be amiss for a sonnet. _Love's Gleaning_--yes, or _Love's Alms_," and before the young fellow's eyes rose the dainty vision of a creamy, faintly-ribbed page, with strong yet delicately-cut Roman type and slim italics. Though not a line of it was written, he could vaguely see that sonnet in which his rosy spoil should be enshrined. He could even see Barbara reading it, on some future day, while he added the commentary, which was not for the world in general, but for Barbara. It became clearer to him as he hurried on, striking across the fields to reach his destination more directly. Snatches of musical words floated on the evening air, and he quickened his pace unconsciously as if in actual pursuit. To the east the sky grew cold and blue, and the moon, pearl white, but as yet not luminous, swam above him as he walked.

So the poet went in quest of rhymes, and Barbara, strolling onward, looked for leaves and berries. She had not gone far when she spied some more, better, of course, than any she had already gathered. This time they were on the lower bank which sloped steeply downward to a muddy ditch. Barbara looked at them longingly, decided that they were attainable, and put her nosegay down on the damp grass that she might have both hands free for her enterprise.

She was certain she could get them. She leaned forward, her finger-tips almost brushed them, when a man's footsteps, close beside her, startled her into consciousness of an undignified position, and she sprang back to firmer ground. But a thin chain she wore had caught on a thorny spray. It snapped, and a little gold cross dropped from it, and lay, rather more than half-way down, among the briers and withered leaves. She snatched at the dangling chain, and stood, flushed and disconcerted, trying to appear absorbed in the landscape, and unconscious of the passer-by who had done the mischief. If only he _would_ pass by as quickly as possible, and leave her to regain her treasure and gather her berries!

But the steps hesitated, halted, and there was a pause--an immense pause--during which Barbara kept her eyes fixed on a particular spot in the meadow below. It appeared to her that the eyes of the unknown man were fixed on the back of her head, and the sensation was intolerable. After a moment, however, he spoke, and broke the spell. It was a gentleman's voice, she perceived, but a little forced and hard, as if the words cost him something of an effort.

"I--I beg your pardon, but can I be of any service? I think you dropped something--ah! a little cross." He came to her side. "Will you allow me to get it for you?"

Barbara went through the form of glancing at him, but she did not meet his eyes. "Thank you," she said, "but I needn't trouble you, really." And she returned to her pensive contemplation of that spot where the meadow grass grew somewhat more rankly tufted.

He paused again before speaking. It seemed to Barbara that this young man did nothing but pause. "I don't think you can get it," he said, looking at the brambles. "I really don't think you can."

If Barbara had frankly uttered her inmost sentiments she would have said, "Great idiot--no--not if you don't go away!" But, as it was, she coloured yet more in her shyness, and stooped to pick up her nosegay from the ground. He had been within an inch of treading on it.

"Oh, I beg your pardon!" he exclaimed, starting back. "How clumsy of me!"

Something in his tone disarmed her. She feared that she had been ungracious, and moreover she was a little doubtful whether she would not find it difficult to regain her trinket without his help. "You haven't done any harm," she said. Then, glancing downward, "Well, if you will be so kind."

The new-comer surveyed the situation so intently that Barbara took the opportunity of surveying him.

She was familiar, in novels, with heroes and heroines who were not precisely beautiful, yet possessed a nameless and all-conquering charm. Perhaps for that very reason she was slow to recognize good looks where this charm was absent. The tall young fellow who stood a few steps away, gazing with knitted brows at the little wilderness of briers, was really very handsome, but he was not certain of the fact. Beauty should not be self-conscious, but it should not despondently question its own existence. This man seemed to be accustomed to a chilly, ungenial atmosphere, to be numbed and repressed, to lack fire. Barbara fancied that if he touched her his hand would be cold.

In point of actual features he was decidedly the superior of the young fellow who was climbing the hill-side, but the pleasant colour and grace were altogether wanting. Yet he was not exactly awkward. Neither was he ill-dressed, though his clothes did not seem to express his individuality, except perhaps by the fact that they were black and grey. Any attempt at description falls naturally into cold negatives, and the scarlet autumn berries which were just a jewel-like brightness in the first picture would have been a strange and vivid contrast in the second.

His momentary hesitation on the brink of his venture was not in reality indecision, but the watchful distrust produced by a conviction that circumstances were hostile. He wished to take them all into account. Having briefly considered the position of the cross, and the steepness of the bank, he stepped boldly down. In less than half a second the treacherous earth had betrayed him; his foot slipped, he fell on his back, and slid down the short incline to the muddy ditch at the bottom, losing his hat by the way.

Barbara, above him, uttered a silvery little "Oh!" of dismay and surprise. She was not accustomed to a man who failed in what he undertook.

The victim of the little accident was grimly silent. With a scrambling effort he recovered his footing and lost it again. A second attempt was more successful; he secured the cross, clambered up, and restored it to its owner, turning away from her thanks to pick up his hat, which luckily lay within easy reach. Barbara did not know which way to look. She was painfully, burningly conscious of his evil plight. His boots were coated with mire, his face was darkly flushed and seamed with a couple of brier scratches, a bit of dead leaf was sticking in his hair, and "Oh," thought Barbara, "he cannot possibly know how muddy his back is!"

She stood, turning the little cross in her fingers. "Thank you very much," she said nervously. "I should never have got it for myself."

"Are you quite sure?" he asked, with bitter distinctness. "I think you would have managed it much better."

"I'm sure I would rather not try." She dared not raise her eyes to his face, but she saw that he wore no glove, and that the thorns had torn his hand. He was winding his handkerchief round it, and the blood started through the white folds. "Oh, you have hurt yourself!" she exclaimed. He answered only with an impatient gesture of negation.

"How am I to thank you?" she asked despairingly.

"Don't you think the less said the better, at any rate for me?" he replied, picking a piece of bramble from his sleeve, and glancing aside, as if to permit her to go her way with no more words.

But Barbara held her ground. "I should have been sorry to lose that cross. I--I prize it very much."

"Then I am sorry to have given you an absurd association with it."

"Please don't talk like that. I shall remember your kindness," said the girl hurriedly. She felt as if she must add something more. "I always fancy my cross is a kind of--what do they call those things that bring good luck?"

"Amulet? Talisman?"

"Yes, a talisman," she repeated, with a little nod. "It belonged to my godmother. I was named after her. She died before I was a year old, but I have heard my mother say she was the most beautiful woman she ever saw. Oh, I should hate to lose it!"

"Would your luck go with it?" He smiled as he asked the question, and the smile was like a momentary illumination, revealing the habitual melancholy of his mouth.

"Perhaps," said Barbara.

"Well, you would not have lost it this afternoon, as it was quite conspicuously visible," he rejoined.

By this time he had brushed his hat, and, passing his hand over his short waves of dark hair, had found and removed the bit of leaf which had distressed Barbara. She advanced a step, perhaps emboldened a little by that passing smile. "Oh, I beg your pardon," she said, "but when you slipped you got some earth on your coat." (She fancied that "earth" sounded a little more dignified than "mud" or "dirt," and that he might not mind it quite so much.) "Please let me brush it off for you." She looked up at him with a pleading glance and produced a filmy little feminine handkerchief.

He eyed her, drawing back. "No!" he ejaculated; and then, more mildly, "No, thank you. I can manage. No, thank you."

"I wish----" Barbara began, but she said no more, for the expression of his face changed so suddenly that she looked over her shoulder to discover the cause.

A gentleman stood a few steps away, gazing at them in unconcealed surprise. A small, neat, black-clothed gentleman, with bright grey eyes and white hair and whiskers, who wore a very tall hat and carried a smart little cane.

"Uncle!" the girl exclaimed, and her uplifted hand dropped loosely by her side.