XVI.
The clouds sailed across the irregular space of pale blue Northern skywhich the break in the woods opened for them overhead. It was so stillthat they heard, and smiled to hear, the broken voices of the others,who had gone to get berries in another direction--Miss Anderson's hoarsemurmur and Munt's artificial bass. Some words came from the party on therocks.
"Isn't it perfect?" cried the young fellow in utter content.
"Yes, too perfect," answered the girl, rousing herself from the reveriein which they had both lost themselves, she did not know how long."Shall you gather any more?"
"No; I guess there's enough. Let's count them." He stooped over on hishand's and knees, and made as much of counting the bunches as he could."There's about one bunch and a half a piece. How shall we carry them? Weought to come into camp as impressively as possible."
"Yes," said Alice, looking into his face with dreamy absence. It wasgoing through her mind, from some romance she had read, What if hewere some sylvan creature, with that gaiety, that natural gladness andsweetness of his, so far from any happiness that was possible to her?Ought not she to be afraid of him? She was thinking she was not afraid.
"I'll tell you," he said. "Tie the stems of all the bunches together,and swing them over a pole, like grapes of Eshcol. Don't you know thepicture?"
"Oh yes."
"Hold on! I'll get the pole." He cut a white birch sapling, and sweptoff its twigs and leaves, then he tied the bunches together, and slungthem over the middle of the pole.
"Well?" she asked.
"Now we must rest the ends on our shoulders."
"Do you think so?" she asked, with the reluctance that complies.
"Yes, but not right away. I'll carry them out of the woods, and we'llform the procession just before we come in sight."
Every one on the ledge recognised the tableau when it appeared, andsaluted it with cheers and hand-clapping. Mrs. Pasmer bent a look on herdaughter which she faced impenetrably.
"Where have you been?" "We thought you were lost!" "We were justorganising a search expedition!" different ones shouted at them.
The lady with the coffee-pot was kneeling over it with her hand on it."Have some coffee, you poor things! You must be almost starved."
"We looked about for you everywhere," said Munt, "and shouted ourselvesdumb."
Miss Anderson passed near Alice. "I knew where you were all the time!"
Then the whole party fell to praising the novel conception of thebouquets of blueberries, and the talk began to flow away from Alice andMavering in various channels.
All that had happened a few minutes ago in the blueberry patch seemed afar-off dream; the reality had died out of the looks and words.
He ran about from one to another, serving every one; in a little whilethe whole affair was in his hospitable hands, and his laugh interspersedand brightened the talk.
She got a little back of the others, and sat looking wistfully out overthe bay, with her hands in her lap.
"Hold on just half a minute, Miss Pasmer! don't move!" exclaimed theamateur photographer, who is now of all excursions; he jumped to hisfeet, and ran for his apparatus. She sat still, to please him; but whenhe had developed his picture, in a dark corner of the rocks, roofed witha waterproof, he accused her of having changed her position. "But it'sgoing to be splendid," he said, with another look at it.
He took several pictures of the whole party, for which they fell intovarious attitudes of consciousness. Then he shouted to a boat-load ofsailors who had beached their craft while they gathered some drift fortheir galley fire. They had flung their arm-loads into the boat, and hadbent themselves to shove it into the water.
"Keep still! don't move!" he yelled at them, with the imperiousness ofthe amateur photographer, and they obeyed with the helplessness of hisvictims. But they looked round.
"Oh, idiots!" groaned the artist.
"I always wonder what that kind of people think of us kind of people,"said Mrs. Brinkley, with her eye on the photographer's subjects.
"Yes, I wonder what they do?" said Miss Cotton, pleased with thespeculative turn which the talk might take from this. "I suppose theyenvy us?" she suggested.
"Well, not all of them; and those that do, not respectfully. Theyview, us as the possessors of ill-gotten gains, who would be in a verydifferent place if we had our deserts."
"Do you really think so?"
"Yes, I think so; but I don't know that I really think so. That'sanother matter," said Mrs. Brinkley, with the whimsical resentment whichMiss Cotton's conscientious pursuit seemed always to rouse in her.
"I supposed," continued Miss Cotton, "that it was only among the poorin the cities, who have begin misled by agitators, that the-well-to-doclasses were regarded with suspicion."
"It seems to have begun a great while ago," said Mrs. Brinkley, "and notexactly with agitators. It was considered very difficult for us to getinto the kingdom of heaven, you know."
"Yes, I know," assented Miss Cotton.
"And there certainly are some things against us. Even when the chancewas given us to sell all we had and give it to the poor, we couldn'tbring our minds to it, and went away exceeding sorrowful."
"I wonder," said Miss Cotton, "whether those things were ever intendedto be taken literally?"
"Let's hope not," said John Munt, seeing his chance to make a laugh.
Mrs. Stamwell said, "Well, I shall take another cup of coffee, at anyrate," and her hardihood raised another laugh.
"That always seems to me the most pitiful thing in the whole Bible,"said Alice, from her place. "To see the right so clearly, and not to bestrong enough to do it."
"My dear, it happens every day," said Mrs. Brinkley.
"I always felt sorry for that poor fellow, too," said Mavering. "Heseemed to be a good fellow, and it was pretty hard lines for him."
Alice looked round at him with deepening gravity.
"Confound those fellows!" said the photographer, glancing at his hastilydeveloped plate. "They moved."