CHAPTER XIX.
GIPSY'S DARING.
"It is a fearful night; a feeble glare Streams from the sick moon in the overclouded sky, The ridgy billows, with a mighty cry, Rush on the foamy beaches wild and bare. What bark the madness of the waves will dare!" --BYRON.
Gipsy was once more at Sunset Hall. Archie had escorted her home andthen returned to Washington. He would have mentioned their engagement tothe squire, and asked his consent to their union, but Gipsy said:
"No, you mustn't. I hate a fuss; and as I don't intend to be marriedfor two or three years yet, it will be time enough to tell them all byand by."
So Archie, with a sigh, was forced to obey his capricious little loveand go back, after making her promise to let him come down every monthand see her; for she wouldn't write to him--it was "too much bother."
It began again to seem like old times at St. Mark's. There was Gipsy atSunset Hall, keeping them all from dying of torpor, and astonishing thewhole neighborhood by her mad freaks. There was Minnette--the proud,cold, but now beautiful Minnette--living alone at Deep Dale; for thedoctor had gone from home on business. There was sweet Celeste, the Starof the Valley, in her little cottage home--the fairest, loveliest maidenthe sun ever shone upon.
It was a lovely May morning. The air was made jocund with the songs ofbirds; the balmy breeze scarce rippled the surface of the bay, where thesunshine fell in golden glory.
Through the open doors and windows of Valley Cottage the bright Maysunbeams fell warm and bright; they lingered in broad patches on thewhite floor, and touched gently the iron-gray locks of Miss Hagar, asshe sat knitting in her leathern chair in the chimney-corner, as uprightand gray as ever. Years seemed to pass on without touching her; for justas we first saw her at Lizzie Oranmore's bridal, the same does sheappear to-day.
In the doorway stands a young girl, tall and graceful, dressed in softgray muslin, fastened at her slender waist by a gold-colored belt. _Can_this young lady be our little, shy Celeste? Yes; here is the same superbform, the same dainty little head, with its wealth of pale-gold hair;the same clear, transparent complexion; the soft, dove-like eyes ofblue; the broad, white queenly forehead; the little, rosy, smilingmouth. Yes, it is Celeste--celestial, truly, with the promise of herchildhood more than fulfilled. The world and its flatterers--and she hasheard many--have had no power to spoil her pure heart, and she hasreturned the same gentle, loving Celeste--the idol of all who know her,radiating light and beauty wherever she goes, a very angel of charity tothe poor, and beloved and cherished by the rich. More hearts thanCeleste likes to think of have been laid at her feet, to be gently andfirmly, but sadly, refused; for that sound, unsullied heart has neveryet been stirred by the words of man.
She stood in the doorway, gazing with parted lips and sparkling eyes onthe balmy beauty of that bright spring morning, with a hymn of gratitudeand love to the Author of all this beauty filling her mind.
Suddenly the sylvan silence of the spot was broken by the thunder ofhorse's hoofs, and the next instant Gipsy came bounding along upon theback of her favorite Mignonne.
"Good-morning, dear Gipsy," said Celeste, with her own bright smile, asshe hastened to open the gate for her. "Have you been out, as usual,hunting this morning?"
"Yes, and there are the spoils," said Gipsy, throwing a well-filledgame-bag on the ground. "I come like a true hunter--a leal knight of thegay greenwood--to lay them at the feet of my liege lady. I fancied acanvas-back duck and a bright-winged partridge would not come amiss thismorning. I know my gallop has made me perfectly ravenous."
"You shall have one of them presently for breakfast," said Celeste,calling Curly, their little black maid-of-all-work. "Tie Mignonne there,and come in."
"By the way, Celeste, you don't seem to think it such an appalling actto shoot birds now as you used to," said Gipsy, springing from herhorse; "it was once a crime of the first magnitude in your eyes."
"And I confess it seems a needless piece of cruelty to me still. I couldscarcely do it if I were starving, I think."
"You always were--with reverence be it spoken--rather a coward, Celeste.Do you remember the day I shot the bird that Louis saved for you, andyou fell fainting to the ground?" said Gipsy, laughing at theremembrance.
"Yes, I remember. I was rather an absurd little thing in those days,"said Celeste, smiling. "How I _did_ love that unlucky little bird!"
"Oh! that was because Louis gave it to you. There! don't blush. Aproposof Louis, I wonder where he is now?"
"In Rome, I suppose; at least Mrs. Oranmore told me so," repliedCeleste.
"Yes; when last we heard from him he was studying the old masters, as hecalls them--or the old grannies, as Guardy calls them. I shouldn'twonder if he became quite famous yet, and--oh, Celeste! where did youget that pretty chain and cross?" abruptly asked Gipsy, as her eye fellon the trinket.
"A present," said Celeste, smiling and blushing.
Gipsy's keen eyes were fixed on her face with so quizzical anexpression, that the rose-hue deepened to crimson on her fair cheek asthey passed into the house. And Gipsy went up and shook hands with MissHagar, and seated herself on a low stool at her feet, to relate themorning's adventures, while Celeste laid the cloth and set the table forbreakfast.
After breakfast Gipsy rode off in the direction of Deep Dale. Onentering the parlor she found Minnette sitting reading.
Minnette--now a tall, splendidly developed, womanly girl, with theproud, handsome face of her childhood--rose and welcomed her guest withcold courtesy. The old, fiery light lurked still in her black eyes; butthe world had learned her to subdue it, and a coldly-polite reserve hadtaken the place of the violent outburst of passion so common in hertempestuous childhood.
"Don't you find it horribly dull here, Minnette?" said Gipsy, swallowinga rising yawn.
"No," replied Minnette; "I prefer solitude. There are few--_none_,perhaps--who sympathize with me, and in books I find companions."
"Well, I prefer less silent companions, for my part," said Gipsy. "Idon't believe in making an old hermit or bookworm of myself foranybody."
"Every one to her taste," was the cold rejoinder.
"When do you expect your father home?" inquired Gipsy.
"To-night."
"Then he'll have a storm to herald his coming," said Gipsy, going to thewindow and scanning the heavens with a practiced eye.
"A storm--impossible!" said Minnette. "There is not a cloud in the sky."
"Nevertheless, we shall have a storm," said Gipsy. "I read the sky astruly as you do your books; and if he attempts to enter the bayto-night, I'm inclined to think that the first land he makes will be thebottom."
Minnette heard this intelligence with the utmost coolness, saying only:
"Indeed! I did not know you were such a judge of the weather. Well,probably, when they see the storm coming, they will put into some placeuntil it is over."
"If they don't, I wouldn't give much for their chance of life," saidGipsy, as she arose to go; "but don't worry, Minnette--all may be rightyet."
Minnette looked after her with a scornful smile. Fret! She had littleintention of doing it; and five minutes after the departure of Gipsy shewas so deeply immersed in her book as to forget everything else.
As the day wore on and evening approached, Gipsy's prophecy seemed aboutto prove true. Dark, leaden clouds rolled about the sky; the wind nolonger blew in a steady breeze, but howled in wild gusts. The bosom ofthe bay was tossing and moaning wildly, heaving and plunging as thoughstruggling madly in agony. Gipsy seized her telescope, and running up toone of the highest rooms in the old hall, swept an anxious glance acrossthe troubled face of the deep. Far out, scarcely distinguishable fromthe white caps of the billows, she beheld the sail of a vessel driving,with frightful rapidity, toward the coast--driving toward its own doom;for, once near those foaming breakers covering the sunken reefs ofrocks, no human being could save her. Gipsy stood gazing like o
nefascinated; and onward still the doomed bark drove--like a lost soulrushing to its own destruction.
Night and darkness at last shut out the ill-fated ship from her view.Leaving the house, she hastily made her way to the shore, and standingon a high, projecting peak, waited for the moon to rise, to view thescene of tempest and death.
It lifted its wan, spectral face at last from behind a bank of dull,black clouds, and lit up with its ghastly light the heaving sea anddriving vessel. The tempest seemed momentarily increasing. The wavesboiled, and seethed, and foamed, and lashed themselves in fury againstthe beetling rocks. And, holding by a projecting cliff, Gipsy stoodsurveying the scene. You might have thought her the spirit of thestorm, looking on the tempest she had herself raised. Her black hair andthin dress streamed in the wind behind her, as she stood leaningforward, her little, wild, dark face looking strange and weird, with itsblazing eyes, and cheeks burning with the mad excitement of the scene.Down below her, on the shore, a crowd of hardy fishermen were gathered,watching with straining eyes the gallant craft that in a few momentswould be a broken ruin. On the deck could be plainly seen the crew,making most superhuman exertions to save themselves from the terriblefate impending over them.
All in vain! Ten minutes more and they would be dashed to pieces. Gipsycould endure the maddening sight no longer. Leaping from the cliff, shesprang down the rocks, like a mountain kid, and landed among thefishermen, who were too much accustomed to see her among them in sceneslike this to be much startled by it now.
"Will you let them perish before your eyes?" she cried, wildly. "Are youmen, to stand here idle in a time like this? Out with the boats; andsave their lives!"
"Impossible, Miss Gipsy!" answered half a dozen voices. "No boat couldlive in such a surf."
"Oh, great heaven! And must they die miserably before your very eyes,without even making an effort to save them?" she exclaimed,passionately, wringing her hands. "Oh, that I were a man! Listen!Whoever will make the attempt shall receive five hundred dollarsreward!"
Not one moved. Life could not be sacrificed for money.
"There she goes!" cried a voice.
Gipsy turned to look. A wild, prolonged shriek of mortal agony roseabove the uproar of the storm, and the crew were left struggling forlife in the boiling waves.
With a piercing cry, scarcely less anguished than their own, the madgirl bounded to the shore, pushed off a light _batteau_, seized theoars, and the next moment was dancing over the foaming waves.
A shout of fear and horror arose from the shore at the daring act. Sheheeded it not, as, bending all her energies to the task of guiding herfrail bark through the tempestuous billows, she bent her whole strengthto the oars.
Oh! surely her guardian angel steered that boat on its errand of mercythrough the heaving, tempest-tossed sea! The salt spray seemed blindingher as it dashed in her face; but on she flew, now balanced for a momenton the top of a snowy hill of foam, the next, sunk down, down, as thoughit were never more to rise.
"Leap into the boat!" she cried, in a clear, shrill voice, that madeitself heard, even above the storm.
Strong hands clutched it with the desperation of death, and two heavybodies rolled violently in. The weight nearly overset the light skiff;but, bending her body to the oars, she righted it again.
"Where are the rest?" she exclaimed, wildly.
"All gone to the bottom. Give me the oars!" cried a voice.
She felt herself lifted from where she sat, placed gently in the bottomof the boat, and then all consciousness left her, and, overcome by theexcitement, she fainted where she lay.
When she again opened her eyes she was lying in the arms of some one onthe shore, with a circle of troubled, anxious faces around her. Shesprang up wildly.
"Are they saved?" she exclaimed, looking around.
"Yes; thanks to your heroism, our lives are preserved," said a voicebeside her.
She turned hastily round. It was Doctor Nicholas Wiseman. Another formlay stark and rigid on the sand, with men bending over him.
A deadly sickness came over Gipsy--she knew not why it was. She turnedaway, with a violent shudder, from his outstretched hand, and bent overthe still form on the sand. All made way for her with respectfuldeference; and she knelt beside him and looked in his face. He was aboy--a mere youth, but singularly handsome, with a look of deep reposeon his almost beautiful face.
"Is he dead?" she cried, in a voice of piercing anguish.
"No; only stunned," said the doctor, coming over and feeling his pulse.
"Take him to Sunset Hall, then," said Gipsy, turning to some of the menstanding by.
A shutter was procured, and the senseless form of the lad placed uponit, and, raising it on their shoulders, they bore him in the directionof the old mansion-house.
Doctor Wiseman went toward his own home. And Gipsy, the free mountainmaid, leaped up the rocks, feeling, for the first time in her life, sickand giddy. Oh! better, far better for her had they but perished in theseething waves!