Chapter XLV: "oh, Gentle Wind That Bloweth South."

But if this girl, partly through her great yearning love, and partly through the overshadowing of her past sufferings, was haunted by a mysterious dread, that was not the prevailing feeling within this small household which was now pulling itself together for a flight to the south. Even she caught something of the brisk and cheerful spirit awakened by all the bustle of departure; and when her father, who had come to London Bridge station to see the whole of them off, noticed the businesslike fashion in which she ordered everybody about, so that the invalid should have his smallest comforts attended to, he could not help saying, with a laugh--

"Well, Violet, this is better than starting for America all by yourself, isn't it? But I don't think you would have been much put out by that either."

A smart young man came up, and was for entering the carriage.

"I beg your pardon," said she, respectfully but firmly. "This carriage is reserved."

The young man looked at both windows.

"I don't see that it is," he retorted coolly.

He took hold of the handle of the door, when she immediately rose and stood before him, an awful politeness and decorum on her face, but the fire of Brünhilde the warrior maiden in her eyes.

"You will please call the guard before coming in here. The carriage is reserved."

At this moment her father came forward--not a little inclined to laugh.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but the carriage is really reserved. There was a written paper put up--it has fallen down, I suppose--there it is."

So the smart young man went away; but was it fair, after this notable victory, that they should all begin to make fun of her fierce and majestic bearing, and that the very person for whose sake she had confronted the enemy should begin to make ridiculous rhymes about her, such as these:

"Then out spake Violet Northimus--
Of Euston Square was she--
'Lo, I will stand at thy right hand,
And guard the door with thee!'"

Violet Northimus did not reply. She wore the modesty of a victor. She was ready at any moment to meet six hundred such as he; and she was not to be put out, after the discomfiture of her enemy, by a joke.

Then they slowly rolled and grated out of the station, and by-and-by the swinging pace increased, and they were out in the clearer light and the fresher air, with a windy April sky showing flashes of blue from time to time. They went down through a succession of thoroughly English looking landscapes--quiet valleys with red-tiled cottages in them, bare heights green with the young corn, long stretches of brown and almost leafless woods, with the rough banks outside all starred with the pale, clear primrose. There was one in that carriage who had had no lack of flowers that spring--flowers brought by many a kindly hand to brighten the look of the sick room; but surely it was something more wonderful to see the flowers themselves, growing here in this actual and outside world which had been to him for many a weary week but a dimly imagined dreamland. There were primroses under the hedges, primroses along the high banks, primroses shining pale and clear within the leafless woods, among the russet leaves of the previous autumn. And then the life and motion of the sky, the southwesterly winds, the black and lowering clouds suddenly followed by a wild and dazzling gleam of sunlight, the grays and purples flying on and leaving behind them a welcome expanse of shining April blue.

The day was certainly squally enough, and might turn to showers; but the gusts of wind that blew through the carriage were singularly sweet and mild; and again and again Mr. Drummond, who had been raised by all this new life and light into the very highest spirits, declared with much solemnity that he could already detect the smell of the salt sea air. They had their quarrels of course. It pleased a certain young lady to treat the south coast of England with much supercilious contempt. You would have imagined from her talk that there was something criminal in one's living even within twenty miles of the bleak downs, the shabby precipices, and the muddy sea which, according to her, were the only recognizable features of our southern shores. She would not admit indeed that there was any sea at all there; there was only churned chalk. Was it fair to say, even under the exasperation of continual goading, that the Isle of Wight was only a trumpery toy shop; that its "scenery" was fitly adorned with bazaars for the sale of sham jewelry; that its amusements were on a par with those of Rosherville gardens; that its rocks were made of mud and its sea of powdered lime?

"By heavens," exclaimed her antagonist, "I will stand this no longer. I will call upon Neptune to raise such a storm in the Solent as shall convince you that there is quite enough sea surrounding that pearl of islands, that paradise, that world's wonder we are going to visit."

"Yes, I have no doubt," said she with sweet sarcasm, "that if you stirred the Solent with a teaspoon, you would frighten the yachtsmen there out of their wits."

"Oh, Violet," cried another young lady, "you know you were dreadfully frightened that night in Tobermory bay, when the equinoctial gales caught us, and the men were tramping overhead all night long."

"I should be more frightened down here," was the retort, "because if we were driven ashore I should be choked first and drowned afterward. Fancy going out of the world with a taste of chalk in your mouth."

"Well, at this moment the fierce discussion was stopped by the arrival of the train at Portsmouth; but here a very singular incident occurred. Violet was the first to step out on to the platform.

"You have a tramway car that goes down to the pier, have you not?" she asked of the guard.

"Ain't going to-day, miss," was the answer. "Boats can't come in to Southsea--the sea is very high. You'll have to go to Portsea, miss."

Now, what was this man's amazement on seeing this young lady suddenly burst out laughing as she turned and looked into the carriage.

"Did you hear that?" she cried. "The Solent is raging! They can't come near Southsea! Don't you think, Mrs. Warrener, that it will be very dangerous to go to Portsea?"

"I'll tell you what it is," said Mrs. Warrener with a malicious smile, "if a certain young lady I know were to be ill in crossing, she would be a good deal more civil to her native country when she reached the other side."

But in good truth, when they got down to Portsea there was a pretty stiff breeze blowing; and the walk out on the long pier was not a little trying to an invalid who had but lately recovered the use of his limbs. The small steamer, too, was tossing about considerably at her moorings; and Violet pretended to be greatly alarmed because she did not see half-a-dozen lifeboats on board. Then the word was given; the cables thrown off; and presently the tiny steamer was running out to the windy and gray-green sea, the waves of which not unfrequently sent a shower of spray across her decks. The small party of voyagers crouched behind the funnel, and were well out of the water's way.

"Look there now," cried Mr. Drummond, suddenly pointing to a large bird that was flying by, high up in the air, about a quarter of a mile off--"do you see that? Do you know what that is? That is a wild goose, a gray lag, that has been driven in by bad weather; _now_ can you say we have no waves, and winds, and sea in the south?"

Miss Violet was not daunted.

"Perhaps it is a goose," she said coolly. "I never saw but one flying--- you remember you shot it. What farm-yard has this one left?"

"Oh, for shame, Violet," Mrs. Warrener called out, "to rake up old stories!"

She was punished for it. The insulted sportsman was casting about for the cruelest retort he could think of, when, as it happened, Miss Violet bethought her of looking round the corner of the boiler to see whether they were getting near Ryde; and at the same moment it also happened that a heavy wave, striking the bows of the steamer, sent a heap of water whirling down between the paddle-box and the funnel, which caught the young lady on the face with a crack like a whip. As to the shout of laughter which then greeted her, that small party of folks had heard nothing like it for many a day. There was salt water dripping from her hair; salt water in her eyes; salt water running down her tingling and laughing cheeks; and she richly deserved to be asked, as she was immediately asked, whether the Solent was compounded of water and marl or water and chalk, and which brand she preferred.

Was it the balmy southern air that tempered the vehemence of these wanderers as they made their way across the island, and getting into a carriage at Ventnor, proceeded to drive along the Undercliff? There was a great quiet prevailing along these southern shores. They drove by underneath the tall and crumbling precipices, with wood pigeons suddenly shooting out from the clefts, and jackdaws wheeling about far up in the blue. They passed by sheltered woods, bestarred with anemones and primroses, and showing here and there the purple of the as yet half-opened hyacinth; they passed by lush meadows, all ablaze with the golden yellow of the celandine and the purple of the ground ivy; they passed by the broken, picturesque banks where the tender blue of the speedwell was visible from time to time, with the white glimmer of the starwort. And then all this time they had on their left a gleaming and wind-driven sea, full of motion, and light, and color, and showing the hurrying shadows of the flying clouds.

At last far away, secluded and quiet, they came to a quaint little inn, placed high over the sea, and surrounded by sheltering woods and hedges. The sun lay warm on the smooth green lawn in front, where the daisies grew. There were dark shadows--almost black shadows--along the encircling hedge and under the cedars; but these only showed the more brilliantly the silver lighting of the restless, whirling, wind-swept sea beyond. It was a picturesque little house, with its long veranda half-smothered in ivy and rose bushes now in bud; with its tangled garden about, green with young hawthorn and sweetened by the perfume of the lilacs; with its patches of uncut grass, where the yellow cowslips drooped. There was an air of dreamy repose about the place; even that whirling and silvery gray sea produced no sound; here the winds were stilled, and the black shadows of the trees on that smooth green lawn only moved with the imperceptible moving of the sun.

Violet went up stairs and into her room alone; she threw open the small casements, and stood there looking out with a somewhat vague and distant look. There was no mischief now in those dark and tender eyes; there was rather an anxious and wistful questioning. And her heart seemed to go out from her to implore these gentle winds, and the soft colors of the sea, and the dreamy stillness of the woods, that now they should, if ever that was possible to them, bring all their sweet and curative influences to bear on him who had come among them. Now, if ever! Surely the favorable skies would heed, and the secret healing of the woods would hear, and the bountiful life-giving sea winds would bestir to her prayer! Surely it was not too late!