The Californians

  XXI

  Magdalena did not see Trennahan alone again; he did not ask her to ridewith him on the following morning, and left for town immediately afterbreakfast. But before taking his seat in the char-a-banc he held herhand a moment and assured her with such emphasis that he owed the greatpleasure of his visit entirely to her, that her spirits, which had beenin weeds, flaunted into colour and song; and she went at once to hernook in the woods, feeling that the fire in her mind was nothing lessthan creative.

  But she did not write for some time. The sun was already intensely hot;even in those depths the air was heavy, the heat waves shimmered amongthe young green of the undergrowth.

  Magdalena stretched herself out lazily and looked up into the greenrecesses of the trees. The leaves were rustling in a light hot wind. Shefancied that they sang, and strained her ears to catch the tune. Itlooked so cool and green and dark up there; surely the birds, thesquirrels, the very tree-toads,--those polished bits of malachite,--mustbe happy and fond in their storeyed palace. What a poem might be writtenabout them! but they would not raise their voices above that indefinitemurmur, and the straining ears of her soul heard not either.

  She sat up and began to write, endeavouring to shake some life into herheroine, but only succeeding in making her express herself in veryaffected old English, with the air of a marionette.

  Then mechanically, almost unconsciously, she began the story again. Atthe end of an hour she discovered that she had dressed up Trennahan invelvet and gold, doublet and hose. She laughed with grim merriment.Ignorant as she was, she was quick to see the incongruity between modernman in his quintessence and the romantic garments of a buried century.Also, her hero had addressed his startled friends in this wise:

  "I can't stand that rat-hole any longer. I'm going to stay down herewith the rest of you, whether I'm hanged for it or not."

  This was undoubtedly what Trennahan would have said; but not theCavalier, Lord Hastings of Fairfax. She had a vague prompting that onthe whole it was preferable to,--

  "Gadsooks, my bold knights, and prithee should a man rot in a rat-riddencupboard while his friends make merry? Rather let him be drawn andquartered, then fed to ravens, but live while he may."

  But she dismissed the thought as treason to letters, and proceeded onher mistaken way with the Lady Eleanora Templemere. Shakspere and Scottwere her favourite writers; she felt that she must fumble into thesacred lines of literature by such feeble rays as they cast her. Sheliked and admired the great realists whose bones were hardly dust; butthey did not inspire her, taught her nothing.