The Laurel Bush | Page 5

go into long explanations about this or that; a glance sufficed, or a word, to show each what the other enjoyed; and both had the quiet conviction that they were enjoying it together. Now as that sweet, still, sunshiny view met their mutual gaze, they fell into no poetical raptures, but just stood and looked, taking it all in with exceeding pleasure, as they had done many and many a time, but never, it seemed, so perfectly as now.
"What a lovely afternoon!" she said at last.
"Yes. It is a pity to waste it. Have you any thing special to do? What did you mean to employ yourself with, now your birds are flown?"
"Oh, I can always find something to do."
"But need you find it? We both work so hard. If we could only now and then have a little bit of pleasure!"
He put it so simply, yet almost with a sigh. This poor girl's heart responded to it suddenly, wildly. She was only twenty-five, yet sometimes she felt quite old, or rather as if she had never been young. The constant teaching, teaching of rough boys too--for she had had the whole four till Mr. Roy took the two elder off her hands--the necessity of grinding hard out of school hours to keep herself up in Latin, Euclid, and other branches which do not usually form a part of a feminine education, only having a great natural love of work, she had taught herself--all these things combined to make her life a dull life, a hard life, till Robert Roy came into it. And sometimes even now the desperate craving to enjoy--not only to endure, but to enjoy--to take a little of the natural pleasures of her age--came to the poor governess very sorely, especially on days such as this, when all the outward world looked so gay, so idle, and she worked so hard.
So did Robert Roy. Life was not easier to him than to herself; she knew that; and when he said, half joking, as if he wanted to feel his way, "Let us imitate our boys, and take a half holiday," she only laughed, but did not refuse.
How could she refuse? There were the long smooth sands on either side the Eden, stretching away into indefinite distance, with not a human being upon them to break their loneliness, or, if there was, he or she looked a mere dot, not human at all. Even if these two had been afraid of being seen walking together--which they hardly were, being too unimportant for any one to care whether they were friends or lovers, or what not--there was nobody to see them, except in the character of two black dots on the yellow sands.
"It is low water; suppose we go and look for sea-anemones. One of my pupils wants some, and I promised to try and find one the first spare hour I had."
"But we shall not find anemones on the sands."
"Shells, then, you practical woman! We'll gather shells. It will be all the same to that poor invalid boy--and to me," added he, with that involuntary sigh which she had noticed more than once, and which had begun to strike on her ears not quite painfully. Sighs, when we are young, mean differently to what they do in after-years. "I don't care very much where I go, or what I do; I only want--well, to be happy for an hour, if Providence will let me."
"Why should not Providence let you?" said Fortune, gently. "Few people deserve it more."
"You are kind to think so; but you are always kind to every body."
By this time they had left their position by the laurel bush, and were walking along side by side, according as he had suggested. This silent, instinctive acquiescence in what he wished done--it had happened once or twice before, startling her a little at herself; for, as I have said, Miss Williams was not at all the kind of person to do every thing that every body asked her, without considering whether it was right or wrong. She could obey, but it would depend entirely upon whom she had to obey, which, indeed, makes the sole difference between loving disciples and slavish fools.
It was a lovely day, one of those serene autumn days peculiar to Scotland--I was going to say Saint Andrews; and any one who knows the ancient city will know exactly how it looks in the still, strongly spiritualized light of such an afternoon, with the ruins, the castle, cathedral, and St. Regulus's tower standing out sharply against the intensely blue sky, and on the other side--on both sides--the yellow sweep of sand curving away into the distance, and melting into the sunshiny sea.
Many a time, in their prescribed walks with their young tribe, Miss Williams