The Old Stone House | Page 9

It was a pleasant piazza, fronting towards the south, overlooking the old-fashioned garden with its little box-bordered paths, and entirely cut off from the lake winds, which are apt to have an easterly sharpness in them. On this piazza sat Sibyl and Graham Marr, and the two listeners above caught fragments of their poetical conversation. "I say, Bessie, do you know what a 'lambent waif' is?" whispered Hugh. "What a calf that Marr is! How can Sibyl listen to him? He has not common sense."
"I believe he is to have uncommon cents, sometime," said Bessie, punning atrociously. "However, if my knowledge of Sibyl is worth anything, I should say she really prefers Mr. Leslie."
"What, the minister!" exclaimed Hugh; "I am surprised. Not that I object at all, but ministers' wives sometimes have a hard life."
"Gideon Fish says, that ministers' wives ought to be the happiest women on earth, because their husbands are always at home, brightening the domestic shrine with their presence," quoted Bessie, with a dramatic tone.
"That is a fish-story; I know it by the sound. I say, Bessie, wouldn't it be fine fun to throw the great red blanket down on their heads in the middle of the next verse?"
As Bessie highly approved of this suggestion, the two conspirators crept away softly to find their blanket. But it was safely packed away in the bottom of a chest, and some search was necessary to bring it to the surface; in the midst of which, Tom and Gem appeared on the scene, curious to know what was going on.
"Run away, children, and shut the door after you!" said Hugh, coming up from the chest with a red face.
"No, Mr. Fitz!" replied Tom, deliberately seating himself on a box; "not one step do I go until I know what you're up to--some fun, I know. Come, Bessie; tell us, that's a good fellow."
"We shall have to tell them, Hugh," said Bessie, "or they might spoil the whole thing." So the plan was hastily explained.
"Come along, Gem," said Tom, in great glee.
"All right, Bessie, we won't spoil your fun."
The two children ran off down the back stairs and out upon the terrace behind the house. "Don't you say one word, Gem Morris," said Tom in an excited whisper, "but I'm going to be in this game, if I know myself. The blanket's very well, but the dogs are better, and Graham Marr is terribly afraid of 'em. I never liked him since he called me 'my lad,' and this will be a good chance to pay him off." So saying, Tom started towards the carriage-house, closely followed by Gem; for, as Hugh said, they always hunted in couples, and whether they played or quarrelled, they were always together.
Opening a side door of the carriage-house, Tom called out Pete and Grip; Turk had a kennel of his own, and sleepily obeyed his master's summons.
"Now Gem," said Tom, "I shall go round to the big barberry-bush, and when the blanket comes down I shall send the dogs at it. They won't hurt anybody,--they never do,--but they'll make believe to be awful savage, and Grip will bark like mad. You'd better slip round into the parlor and look through the blinds; it's dark there." Gem obeyed softly, and Tom disappeared around the corner of the house, followed by the dogs, who understood from their master's low order, that a secret reconnaissance was to be made, and moved stealthily behind him single file, big Turk first, then Pete Trone, Esq., and last of all plebeian Grip, his tail fairly sweeping the ground in the excess of his caution.
On the piazza all was peaceful and romantic. No thought of coming danger clouded the poet's fancies, as he repeated a stanza composed the previous evening by the light of the moon. "I never write by gas-light, Miss Warrington," he said, "but I keep pencil and paper at hand to transcribe the poetical thoughts that come to me in the moonlight. Here is a verse that floated into my mind when the moon was at its highest splendor last night:--
'Shine out, Oh moon! in the wide sky,-- The creamy cloud,--the dreamy light-- My heart is seething in the night. Shine out, Oh moon! and let me die.'"
"I think we'd better let him, don't you?" whispered Hugh to Bessie at the upper window. She assented, and down went the great blanket on the heads of the two below, enveloping them in sudden darkness. At the same instant the three dogs plunged forward and pawed at the dark mass; Grip barking furiously, and Pete nosing underneath as if he was in search of a rat-hole. The noise brought Aunt Faith to the door.
"What is it?" she said in alarm, gazing at the struggling blanket with her near-sighted eyes.
"Nothing, Aunt Faith,