CHAPTER I. GREENWATER BROAD
LOOK back, my memory, through the dim labyrinth of the past, throughthe mingling joys and sorrows of twenty years. Rise again, my boyhood'sdays, by the winding green shores of the little lake. Come to me oncemore, my child-love, in the innocent beauty of your first ten years oflife. Let us live again, my angel, as we lived in our first paradise,before sin and sorrow lifted their flaming swords and drove us out intothe world.
The month was March. The last wild fowl of the season were floatingon the waters of the lake which, in our Suffolk tongue, we calledGreenwater Broad.
Wind where it might, the grassy banks and the overhanging trees tingedthe lake with the soft green reflections from which it took its name.In a creek at the south end, the boats were kept--my own pretty sailingboat having a tiny natural harbor all to itself. In a creek at the northend stood the great trap (called a "decoy"), used for snaring thewild fowl which flocked every winter, by thousands and thousands, toGreenwater Broad.
My little Mary and I went out together, hand in hand, to see the lastbirds of the season lured into the decoy.
The outer part of the strange bird-trap rose from the waters of the lakein a series of circular arches, formed of elastic branches bent to theneeded shape, and covered with folds of fine network, making the roof.Little by little diminishing in size, the arches and their net-workfollowed the secret windings of the creek inland to its end. Built backround the arches, on their landward side, ran a wooden paling, highenough to hide a man kneeling behind it from the view of the birds onthe lake. At certain intervals a hole was broken in the paling justlarge enough to allow of the passage through it of a dog of theterrier or the spaniel breed. And there began and ended the simple yetsufficient mechanism of the decoy.
In those days I was thirteen, and Mary was ten years old. Walking on ourway to the lake we had Mary's father with us for guide and companion.The good man served as bailiff on my father's estate. He was, besides, askilled master in the art of decoying ducks. The dog that helped him (weused no tame ducks as decoys in Suffolk) was a little black terrier;a skilled master also, in his way; a creature who possessed, in equalproportions, the enviable advantages of perfect good-humor and perfectcommon sense.
The dog followed the bailiff, and we followed the dog.
Arrived at the paling which surrounded the decoy, the dog sat down towait until he was wanted. The bailiff and the children crouched behindthe paling, and peeped through the outermost dog-hole, which commandeda full view of the lake. It was a day without wind; not a ripple stirredthe surface of the water; the soft gray clouds filled all the sky, andhid the sun from view.
We peeped through the hole in the paling. There were the wildducks--collected within easy reach of the decoy--placidly dressing theirfeathers on the placid surface of the lake.
The bailiff looked at the dog, and made a sign. The dog looked at thebailiff; and, stepping forward quietly, passed through the hole, so asto show himself on the narrow strip of ground shelving down from theouter side of the paling to the lake.
First one duck, then another, then half a dozen together, discovered thedog.
A new object showing itself on the solitary scene instantly became anobject of all-devouring curiosity to the ducks. The outermost of thembegan to swim slowly toward the strange four-footed creature, plantedmotionless on the bank. By twos and threes, the main body of thewaterfowl gradually followed the advanced guard. Swimming nearer andnearer to the dog, the wary ducks suddenly came to a halt, and, poisedon the water, viewed from a safe distance the phenomenon on the land.
The bailiff, kneeling behind the paling, whispered, "Trim!"
Hearing his name, the terrier turned about, and retiring through thehole, became lost to the view of the ducks. Motionless on the water,the wild fowl wondered and waited. In a minute more, the dog had trottedround, and had shown himself through the next hole in the paling,pierced further inward where the lake ran up into the outermost of thewindings of the creek.
The second appearance of the terrier instantly produced a second fit ofcuriosity among the ducks. With one accord, they swam forward again,to get another and a nearer view of the dog; then, judging theirsafe distance once more, they stopped for the second time, under theoutermost arch of the decoy. Again the dog vanished, and the puzzledducks waited. An interval passed, and the third appearance of Trim tookplace, through a third hole in the paling, pierced further inland upthe creek. For the third time irresistible curiosity urged the ducks toadvance further and further inward, under the fatal arches of the decoy.A fourth and a fifth time the game went on, until the dog had lured thewater-fowl from point to point into the inner recesses of the decoy.There a last appearance of Trim took place. A last advance, a lastcautious pause, was made by the ducks. The bailiff touched the strings,the weighed net-work fell vertically into the water, and closed thedecoy. There, by dozens and dozens, were the ducks, caught by means oftheir own curiosity--with nothing but a little dog for a bait! In afew hours afterward they were all dead ducks on their way to the Londonmarket.
As the last act in the curious comedy of the decoy came to its end,little Mary laid her hand on my shoulder, and, raising herself ontiptoe, whispered in my ear:
"George, come home with me. I have got something to show you that isbetter worth seeing than the ducks."
"What is it?"
"It's a surprise. I won't tell you."
"Will you give me a kiss?"
The charming little creature put her slim sun-burned arms round my neck,and answered:
"As many kisses as you like, George."
It was innocently said, on her side. It was innocently done, on mine.The good easy bailiff, looking aside at the moment from his ducks,discovered us pursuing our boy-and-girl courtship in each other's arms.He shook his big forefinger at us, with something of a sad and doubtingsmile.
"Ah, Master George, Master George!" he said. "When your father comeshome, do you think he will approve of his son and heir kissing hisbailiff's daughter?"
"When my father comes home," I answered, with great dignity, "I shalltell him the truth. I shall say I am going to marry your daughter."
The bailiff burst out laughing, and looked back again at his ducks.
"Well, well!" we heard him say to himself. "They're only children.There's no call, poor things, to part them yet awhile."
Mary and I had a great dislike to be called children. Properlyunderstood, one of us was a lady aged ten, and the other was a gentlemanaged thirteen. We left the good bailiff indignantly, and went awaytogether, hand in hand, to the cottage.
CHAPTER II. TWO YOUNG HEARTS.
"HE is growing too fast," said the doctor to my mother; "and he isgetting a great deal too clever for a boy at his age. Remove him fromschool, ma'am, for six months; let him run about in the open airat home; and if you find him with a book in his hand, take it awaydirectly. There is my prescription."
Those words decided my fate in life.
In obedience to the doctor's advice, I was left an idle boy--withoutbrothers, sisters, or companions of my own age--to roam about thegrounds of our lonely country-house. The bailiff's daughter, like me,was an only child; and, like me, she had no playfellows. We met inour wanderings on the solitary shores of the lake. Beginning by beinginseparable companions, we ripened and developed into true lovers. Ourpreliminary courtship concluded, we next proposed (before I returned toschool) to burst into complete maturity by becoming man and wife.
I am not writing in jest. Absurd as it may appear to "sensible people,"we two children were lovers, if ever there were lovers yet.
We had no pleasures apart from the one all-sufficient pleasure whichwe found in each other's society. We objected to the night, because itparted us. We entreated our parents, on either side, to let us sleep inthe same room. I was angry with my mother, and Mary was disappointed inher father, when they laughed at us, and wondered what we should wantnext. Looking onward, from those days to the days of my manhood, I canvividl
y recall such hours of happiness as have fallen to my share. But Iremember no delights of that later time comparable to the exquisite andenduring pleasure that filled my young being when I walked with Mary inthe woods; when I sailed with Mary in my boat on the lake; when I metMary, after the cruel separation of the night, and flew into her openarms as if we had been parted for months and months together.
What was the attraction that drew us so closely one to the other, at anage when the sexual sympathies lay dormant in her and in me?
We neither knew nor sought to know. We obeyed the impulse to love oneanother, as a bird obeys the impulse to fly.
Let it not be supposed that we possessed any natural gifts, oradvantages which singled us out as differing in a marked way from otherchildren at our time of life. We possessed nothing of the sort. I hadbeen called a clever boy at school; but there were thousands of otherboys, at thousands of other