At the Mercy of Tiberius | Page 8

your dear pretty hands on my head. It will seem like a parting
benediction; a veritable Nunc dimmitas."
CHAPTER II.
"I do not want a carriage. If the distance is only a mile and a half, I can
easily walk. After leaving town is there a straight road?"
"Straight as the crow flies, when you have passed the factory, and
cemetery, and turned to the left. There is a little Branch running at the
foot of the hill, and just across it, you will see the white palings, and the
big gate with stone pillars, and two tremendous brass dogs on top,
showing their teeth and ready to spring. There's no mistaking the place,
because it is the only one left in the country that looks like the good old
times before the war; and the Yankees would not have spared it, had it
not been such comfortable bombproof headquarters for their officers.
It's our show place now, and General Darrington keeps it up in better
style, than any other estate I know."
"Thank you. I will find it."
Beryl walked away in the direction indicated, and the agent of the
railway station, leaning against the door of the baggage room, looked
with curious scrutiny after her.

"I should like to know who she is. No ordinary person, that is clear.
Such a grand figure and walk, and such a steady look in her big solemn
eyes, as if she saw straight through a person, clothes, flesh and all.
Wonder what her business can be with the old general?"
From early childhood Beryl had listened so intently to her mother's
glowing descriptions of the beauty and elegance of her old home "Elm
Bluff," that she soon began to identify the land-marks along the road,
alter passing the cemetery, where so many generations of Darringtons
slept in one corner, enclosed by a lofty iron railing; exclusive in death
as in life; jealously guarded and locked from contact with the
surrounding dwellers in "God's Acre."
The October day had begun quite cool and crisp, with a hint of frost in
its dewy sparkle, but as though vanquished Summer had suddenly
faced about, and charged furiously to cover her retreat, the south wind
came heavily laden with hot vapor from equatorial oceanic caldrons;
and now the afternoon sun, glowing in a cloudless sky, shed a
yellowish glare that burned and tingled like the breath of a furnace;
while along the horizon, a dim dull haze seemed blotting out the
boundary of earth and sky.
A portion of the primeval pine forest having been preserved, the trees
had attained gigantic height, thrusting their plumy heads heavenward,
as their lower limbs died; and year after year the mellow brown carpet
of reddish straw deepened, forming a soft safe nidus for the seeds that
sprang up and now gratefully embroidered it with masses of golden rod,
starry white asters, and tall, feathery spikes of some velvety purple
bloom, which looked royal by the side of a cluster of belated evening
primroses.
Pausing on the small but pretty rustic bridge, Beryl leaned against the
interlacing cedar boughs twisted into a balustrade, and looked down at
the winding stream, where the clear water showed amber hues, flecked
with glinting foam bubbles, as it lapped and gurgled, eddied and sang,
over its bed of yellow gravel. Unacquainted with "piney- woods'
branches," she was charmed by the novel golden brown wavelets that
frothed against the pillars of the bridge, and curled caressingly about

the broad emerald fronds of luxuriant ferns, which hung Narcissus-like
over their own graceful quivering images. Profound quiet brooded in
the warm, hazy air, burdened with balsamic odors; but once a pine burr
full of rich nutty mast crashed down through dead twigs, bruising the
satin petals of a primrose; and ever and anon the oboe notes of that shy,
deep throated hermit of ravines--the russet, speckled-breasted
lark--thrilled through the woods, like antiphonal echoes in some vast,
cool, columned cloister.
The perfect tranquillity of the scene soothed the travel-weary woman,
as though nestling so close to the great heart of nature, had stilled the
fierce throbbing, and banished the gloomy forebodings of her own; and
she walked on, through the iron gate, where the bronze mastiffs glared
warningly from their granite pedestal--on into the large undulating park,
which stretched away to meet the line of primitive pines. There was no
straight avenue, but a broad smooth carriage road curved gently up a
hillside, and on both margins of the graveled way, ancient elm trees
stood at regular intervals, throwing their boughs across, to unite in
lifting the superb groined arches, whose fine tracery of sinuous lines
were here and there concealed by clustering mistletoe--and gray lichen
masses--and ornamented with bosses of velvet moss; while the
venerable columnar trunks were