The Magic of the Pine Woods: a tale, etc

Chapter I

" Do I hear some sweet bells ringing? Or the evening breeze at play ? Or is it the heath bells swinging At the close of the dying day?" Spirit- 1 .ices. ALOW line of cliffs crowned with fir-trees, through whose boughs a strong wind rushes, bearing salt spray inland, a sandy beach up which the tide advances sullenly, grey skies overhead, dark waters near at hand, clumps of gorse and furze, intersecting hillocks covered with tussocks of coarse yellow grass or bent. The fir-crowned cliffs, composed of crumbling sand stone, had in many places given way, but one promontory stood up sharply with its scathed pines wildly twisted by the south-westerly gales, making an angle round which a narrow country road wound down to the sea shore. A THE MAGIC OF TBE PINE WOODS. 2 Between the road and the water extended a tract of sand and furze, hilly and rugged, jutting right across the mouth of a harbour, and shutting out the view of the open sea till you were close upon it.

A tract where nothing flourished except gorse and heather, nibbled down by rabbits, over which resounded harsh cries of seagulls and the roar of ocean waves, which afforded little nourishment, and scarcely shelter for any living creature, its only beauty consisting in the rich growth of purple heath and golden furze. Yet, desolate as that long line of sea beach might seem to a stranger, at its very end there was a dwelling place of more pretension than the lowly cottage of the ferryman, whose boat plied daily to an adjacent island. Nay, more, the house had a garden, redeemed from the sandy waste, and fertilised by the sea breeze and salt spray and the droppings from the pine-trees which overhung its ivied walls. It was no modern caprice or speculative mania which had reared that firmly built structure on the edge of the sea and the waste.

It was not likely to succumb to the wild blasts that swept in winter over its grey stone walls, which had their foundations firmly laid on a bed of rock rising high above the level sands. Many a year had the old house overlooked the troubled waters, nor had the stormy winds dislodged it from its apparently perilous position. It had been used frequently as a shooting ledge, where the sons of a family residing far away in the midland counties came to enjoy perfect freedom and such sport as the wild fowl on the coast and adjacent islands afforded, but the race was now almost extinct. It was represented at present by two young girls, neither of whom had the slightest wish to carry a gun or to injure one of God's creatures. Fair Havens, as the place was called, had been of late years deserted ; the lights which used to shine out extin guished ; no merry shout or bark of man, or boy, or dog, had issued from the lonely pile ; the ferryman's work was almost a sinecure ; and such flowers, and there are many, as flourish best under the influences of sea breeze and salt spray grew and blossomed and faded unnoticed and ungathered.

The house had not been neglected during the absence of its owners. Some old family servants, settled in a not distant village farther along the coast, had charge of the place. The man was fond of flowers, and took care of the garden. His wife or daughters often came there in summer and superintended the repairing such damages as the frequent storms occasioned, washing and mending the house linen and furniture. . In fine weather they all loved Fair Havens ; but it was with surprise, and a little dismay, that they obeyed orders transmitted from abroad — to take up their abode there, and prepare for the arrival of the family. Not one of them thought of disputing or disobeying the injunction. They were old-fashioned people, hating changes and making the best of their lot ; but it did strike Rachel Beavor that it was a strange fancy for ladies who had lived hitherto with their parents, and since their death with their guardian's family abroad or in London, to think of dwelling alone among the bent hillocks at the end of the sand banks.

" Depend on it, we shall do very well there," said her husband, cheerfully. " Fair Havens is a pleasant spot enough when you get used to the sound of the wind blowing off the sea and through the pine-tops. I've often stopped there for a week or more with the young Master, and we both of us liked it. For the matter of that, girls, there was a time before you were born when your mother and I bided there longer, and sorry enough we were for the manner of leaving it. But that's neither here nor there. For my part, I'm sick of this village and its gossip about High Church and Low Church, Temperance and Total Abstainers. It's doing us all no good. We shall be far better off among the gulls and puffins and rabbits, at all events for the summer. I doubt the ladies stopping there in the late autumn and winter."

His wife, who was not one of the village gossips, a silent, industrious woman, a mother in Israel to any who needed help, said no more, but set to work at once to prepare for removal. The girls liked the change. They were quite young, and had not as yet any distracting thoughts of lovers to be left behind in the village. Flora, the youngest, was a true gardener's daughter.and followed her fatherlike an affectionate spaniel. Her large, brown eyes dilated with rapture as she ran about the garden, and carried buckets of water, or listened to the notes of the seabirds. An old man who lodged at the Ferry-house had always had charge of the gravel walks and weeded the flower-beds. Though past sixty, he still retained some traces of the soldierly gait which, in his youth, had won him on his return from Canada the sobriquet of Old Wolfe.

He was quite in his element now, and laughed scornful')* at Flora when she complained that gardening made her back ache. " Well, thank goodness, that's a pain I never yet was troubled with," he said, lifting his long, thin frame from the terrace walk he was weeding. " When my time comes I shall be ready ; but I do hope to get this place free of weeds before the young ladies set foot in the grounds." Within doors Rachel and her active helpers had made great changes. Carpets were laid down and curtains hung up; old-fashioned screens kept off the draughts that swept down the long passages from the rooms prepared for the young ladies ; china bowls filled with the earliest spring flowers sweetened the atmosphere ; everything that the brief time permitted was done to make the long forsaken house cheerful in its first aspect to its young mistresses.

Fortunately, they were not hard to please, and they were determined to make the best of everything. Frances and Rosalind Avenell were young and buoyant. It was their own fancy to come to this end of the world to seclude themselves among the blooming furze and dark beds of heather under the shifting sand-hills. They had the braver)*, perhaps rashness, of inexperienced youth, and could see no obstacle in the way of carrying out their romantic intentions. " So much better than settling near London or some fashionable watering-place, as our friends advised," said Rosalind, enthusiastically, as she flitted from window to window admiring sea and sky. " Brighton, for sooth, where I might continue to have lessons from the best masters ; or Cheltenham, where I might attend the Ladies' College or School, whichever they choose to call it, as if I had not had enough of lessons and masters.

I shall learn better things here." " Yes, I am quite satisfied with our choice," said her older and graver sister. " I have not the least wish to be within reach of the best society, or to avail ourselves of the counsels of old friends. We have no near relations. Here we shall be quite untrammelled. For good or ill, we can take our own course." "Delightful!" exclaimed Rosalind, joyfully. "I am so glad you agree with me. Look at this glorious sea-view, and the rabbits scampering about among the hillocks. They are as free as we are, dear little things ! They can do no mischief, seeing there are no crops to devour, and that love of a garden is walled in. They look as happy as if they were playing at some game. I should like to know the rules and to join them" The two girls stood at the window with arms inter laced watching the frolicsome gambols of the rabbits.

They had come out of their burrows at eventide, and seemed as gay and fearless as themselves. Under the windows lay a smooth space of turf kept closely mown, on either hand thick beds of heath and clumps of gorse. The evening wind was sighing softly through the pine-trees. '•I hope we shall be happy here, my Rosebud !" said Frances softly, almost timidly. " I feel a little afraid of the responsibility. But I know you will help me. We must be very good and steady." " I feel as firm as a rock," said Rosalind ; "just like this old house, against whose walls so many storms have beaten in vain. It has not fallen, and why should we?" Then in a softer tone she added, " I hope, I think, Frances, that our trust is built on the same sure Foundation." " I think so too," said her sister, gravely. " We love each other, and we trust in Providence.

If storms come, as they will whether in solitude or crowds, let us breast them together — not in our own strength — and, Heaven helping the orphans, we shall ride out the gale." Rosalind turned her eyes from the sea view and the sportive rabbits and kissed her sister. "Yes, that is the secret spell that works wonders — Love and Faith," she said reverentially. " You are older than I am, Frances, and ever so much wiser. In all reasonable things I promise to obey you. I know you will ask nothing out of reason, and that you will not be haunted by prejudices and conventionalities, like the excellent but rather tiresome friends we have quitted." " No, I am ready to give you all possible liberty and to take the same myself," said Frances, gaily. " We are not likely here to be fettered by conventionalities of society, as we have been lately.

We are our own mis tresses at last, excepting in business matters. There, till your next birthday, we are still under control ; but no matter, the summer days will pass only too quickly." As she ceased speaking, a louder gust swept through trie pine tops, and a small cloud rose on the horizon line. It spread and deepened rapidly, before nightfall the heavens were black with wind and rain. Rosalind disliked storms, and crept into her sister's room when, at midnight, the highest notes of the tempest rang out. As she had often done in their childhood, Frances opened her arms to shelter from any evil, physical or mental that assailed her, the little sister. In an hour or two the storm died av/ay, after tearing off mighty boughs and laying some of the tall pines low, but the two girls did not separate.

After repeating together the prayer for those at sea, for the men who go down to the deep waters and see God's wonders, they talked a little. Then the gale lulled, and they fell asleep in each other's arms. So passed the first night in their new home. Morning dawned radiantly beautiful. The sea shone like a golden shield, the winds were hushed into sighing breezes ; but, nevertheless, in the channel more than one mariner's bark had gone down. There was weeping in many a fisherman's home ere evening, for men who had gone out gay with hope who would return to them never more. No such misfortune had befallen the fair sisters, who slept soundly during the early morning hours after the disturbed tempestuous night. They went out upon the sands where the tide came rippling in gently. Out to sea there were some signs of the gale, and a sad, subdued moaning in the pine woods.

But all was still and bright on the beach, and in the walled garden where the flowers lifted their heads to the light breeze which swept the lingering raindrops from their swaying cups and petals, and soon dried up the pools where the water had run down the gravelled path ways.

Chapter II

" Voices seem whispering among the trees, As their branches toss in the evening breeze ; Over the heath comes a murmuring thrill, Wings folding, unfolding — now all is still." Spirit- Voices. ON the other side of the winding road which led past Fair Havens to the seashore was a pinewood traversed only by a few straggling pathways. Rosalind loved the smell of the resinous bark, and to hear the cones open and crackle in the warm sunshine. There too she listened for the first time to the curious whirring note of the fern owls. The birds soon grew used to her; and their little half-fledged young ones, which looked very desolate, for the parents build no nests, looked up at her fearlessly from their lair in the sand beside the pathway. In one of their first walks the sisters discovered a cave in the limestone crag which came down nearly to the verge of the wood, and of which at times large frag ments had fallen ; but, search as she might in her solitary rambles, Rosalind could not again find its entrance.

She questioned Michael Beavor and his assistant Jakes, the old weeding-man, but their answers were evasive. i It might be the Smugglers' Hole, one of them thought, but the other doubted it — surely that had fallen in long ago ' The days of Free-trading were quite gone by ; there was no use for it now. The crags were always falling. The young ladies had best not go too nigh them. Another time Rosalind made the old man leave his work and go with her to clear out a choked-up pathway through furze and brambles leading into an enclosure which excited and baffled her curiosity. " It looks as if it had once been a garden," she said, after Jakes had made an opening in the brambles large enough for her to scramble through. " See, here are jonquils, anemones, and tulips coming up as if this had been a border, and the roses on that bank are not wild ones."

" I mind when it was a garden, and I'll warrant ye, not to have found a weed in the walks," said the old man, who had followed her slowly. " Glory de Dijin and Giant of Battles — lots of the best sorts. There's weeds enough here now an)* way," he added, vengefully pulling up a handful. " But who could have made a garden in this wild place ? " said his young mistress. " There is no dwelling house near but ours, and the Ferry cottage where you lodge." " Right you be, sure/j'. There be no other habitation hereabouts, but this be a garden. Who should mind it better than I ? Many's the weed I've pulled up in this here bit of ground we're standing on. She was like I. She couldn't abide weeds and varmint. There used to be snakes here, but the young Master and I scotched 'em. There's none of 'em left; but the nettles and thistles and couch-grass and Bishops-weed be plentiful."

" Did this garden once belong to a lady ? Who was the young Master? Of how long ago are you speaking?" exclaimed Rosalind, with a rapidity which sorely perplexed her companion. Jakes sat down deliberately on a fallen tree trunk before answering her questions. " She hailed from over the sea, from Canada. That's where I went with my young Master, who was an officer in Her Majesty's army. Ye'll bear in mind that's why the saucy lads in the village call me Old Wolfe, though he was long afore my time. I've seen his effigy out yonder." Rosalind was less anxious to hear his travelling reminiscences than his local information, and asked somewhat impatiently, "Who was the lady? Was she married to your young Master ? " " Well, I can't say exactly as I saw them wedded, but she came home in the ship with us.

It was not a transport, 'twas for passenger traffic. He was main fond of her then, and the first words he said after we got here were, 'Jakes, we must make a garden on the heath for my Transatlantic flower.' I mind the saying well, though it's a good deal more than a score of years since he said it." The old man paused, and passed his withered hand over his eyes. Presently he went on speaking : " She was mortal like a flower — not one of your flaunting Morning Glories, but a faint blush rose. There's a Bourbon Queen that's not unlike her (she were French too), and I planted some of 'em beside her grave in the Island churchyard where the Master and I stood by when they laid her." " She died," said Rosalind softly, looking sadly round the place which had once been sacred to love and happiness.

" So young and happy." "She were young, sure/)'," said Jakes, interrupting her. " Don't ye be so sure she were happy. Ye see, she left her friends and her country, maybe her parents, to come with us, and I hope we did our duty by her. I am sure / did, to the best of my ability, by her and by the garden. It was in fine order, with not a weed in bed or border. I've not had the heart to come here since till you fetched me. But it was very lonesome by times here for her. She faded early." " Did he, her " Rosalind hesitated. " Did your young Master leave her too much alone?" " I won't say that exactly," said Jakes, stooping to pull up an obnoxious bit of couch-grass. " Ye see, I had to mind the garden. 'Twasn't my place to spy upon my superiors, and she said nothing. She made no moan. But I've seen her often — I can see her now — walking about here by herself, just pulling a flower and sticking it in her waistband, or holding it ready, like as if she meant to give it to somebody, but no one came, and she just threw it away, which I thought was a pity.

Flowers has feelings, I fancy, same as human beings, and it hurts us all to be neglected ; but, there now, she never thought about it in that way. She would not have injured a bit of stone-crop or common gilly-flower if she knowed it. The .thing just dropped out of her little hand as it fell by her side." Rosalind's eyes filled with tears. " We will have her garden put in order, Jakes ; you shall take charge of it. I am sure you were fond of her, and will like the task." "Ay, ay, I'll do my best," said the old man ; " I hate to see weeds and rubbish where flowers used to grow. This bit of ground is not ungrateful soil. It will yield ye a fair return. 'Twas dug and trenched, and the hard crust removed that lies under the heath, and well manured long ago ; but what's been done once, and well done, is done for aye.

That makes the groundwork. Whatever ye may choose to build on it afterwards, I'll warrant ye the foundation is laid." He took up his billhook and slashed away vigor ously, considering his age, at some obtrusive brambles ; while his young mistress, without asking him any more questions, in a very thoughtful mood, walked across the heath to Fair Havens. Michael Beavor looked up from his work in the walled garden when Rosalind suddenly addressed him. "Who was the lady — a French Canadian, I believe — for whom the garden on the heath was made? Jakes has been talking to me about her." " Oh, Madam, you must not listen to that old fellow's nonsense, 'specially when he runs on about Canada. Why, I thought there was no trace left of all the trouble that was taken about that fancy for having flowers in the hollow under the Scotch firs, where some folk say the frost never touches them.

It led to a deal of mischief, and is best forgotten. Miss Frances has been out looking for you, and told me she'd be glad to speak to you indoors." He turned away and busied himself with his work. Rosalind's face flushed impatiently, but she restrained herself from farther questioning. She would ask Frances, who was older than herself, and might know more of what was probably one of those family skeletons which ought, if handled at all, to be treated delicately. But when she went indoors Frances was occupied with other matters. A letter, the first received in their new home, had been brought from the village post office. It was from their old family friend and man of business, the only person to whom they had as yet communicated their address, and its contents were not uninteresting. Mr. Hastings had had an interview with his co-guardian, their father's cousin, Mr. Avenell, who had just returned from his travels in Syria.

Letters from the ladies of his family had awaited his arrival, with the news of the unexpected departure of their young relations from their temporary home in the Riviera, showing utter ignorance of their plans for the future. " I reminded him," the lawyer went on to say, " that his control over your persons terminated when Miss Frances attained the age of twenty-five, and was competent to take charge of her sister ; but this did not seem to satisfy his fastidious sense of responsibility. 1 It was a great, a very anxious charge,' he said, and a good deal more to the same purpose. He got no further information from me, excepting that I knew you were both of you in excellent health and spirits, and in perfect safety, and that I knew your present place of abode to be suitable and befitting; more I was not at liberty to disclose without your permission. 1 assure you, he went away in no enviable mood."

"Well, I must own I rather like the notion that somebody is troubling themselves about us in any way," said Rosalind ; " it has seemed so strange to get no letters all this long time." " Why, you foolish girl, how could we hear from our friends— we have not a great many — when no one knew where to write ? It was your own wish more than mine to keep our destination secret." " Yes," said Rosalind, " I know it was, my dear matter-of-fact sister, but I am not consistent like you. I do not regret it ; but, still, it does seem rather lonely and desolate to find that no one misses us, after all those heaps of presents and notes and letters and cards of congratulation when you came of age, many of them from people we have never seen in our lives !" " And who cared as little about us personally as this revered guardian probably does," replied Frances.

" You know, Rosie, his father was our grandfather's favourite, and adopted heir, though not so nearly related to him as ours was. If he had not grievously offended his benefactor, a great part of the property would have been left to him, even if he had not, as the old man desired, married his only child, our mother, and inherited the whole. Most likely he hates us. Mr. Hastings hinted to me, when we saw him in London last month, that we had better be on our guard, as he had every reason to be our enemy." " Yes, I remember his saying something of the kind," said Rosalind. " I thought our old friend seemed a little jealous of any interference with his authority. I was not much interested then, but now I should like to hear more about family matters. Do you know what the grievous offence was which led to Mr. Avenell's disinheritance ?

" Frances was silent for a few moments, then she said, "My father thought that his cousin had been hardly used in regard to the inheritance. There were misunder standings, strong prejudices, which influenced our grandfather, a mystery which has never been cleared up. Rosalind, what has made you take an interest just now in these family chronicles ? " " I have been with old Jakes on the heath and made the discovery of a wonderful garden in the dell hidden by that group of tall Scotch fir-trees," said her young sister. " I have heard quite a romance about a lovely French Canadian lady for whom the garden was dug and trenched, and filled with all manner of beautiful things — Giants of Battle and Glories of Dijon and Bourbon Queen roses — who seems after a while to have been left forlorn. Michael would not tell me anything about her, but she was some how connected with the young Master he often talks about, with whom he used to come here and to the Islands for wild-fowl shooting.

Frances, was he our guardian's father, and could this foreign lady have had anything to do with his disinheritance ? " Frances looked thoughtful. " That is quite possible," she said ; " we will ask Mrs. Beavor about her. But, first of all, what am I to say to Mr. Hastings, as he wishes for an immediate answer, authorising him either to speak or to keep silence. Rosie, are you getting tired of our solitude ? Do you wish for a visit from this solicitous guardian ?" " No, a thousand times, no ! " said her sister. " I am delighted with our Hermitage, and with our having cut ourselves off from humanity. As soon as you came of age I perceived that you would have as many troublesome suitors as Penelope, perhaps this disinherited guardian among them. By all means, let us remain secluded. This is the very last place where he will think of looking for us, as it must be very distasteful to the son of the man whose folly, or wickedness, caused his summary exclusion from this paradise among the sand-hills."

Chapter III

"And, methought, a solemn sound Through the fluttering rose leaves stole, Like the voice of one to a far shore bound — The sigh of a passing soul." The Lily, the Rose, and the Passion-flower. DAY by day Rosalind loved better the little oasis in the wilderness, which was growing into revived beauty under her fostering care. She went early and often stayed late in the heath garden, discovering in it fresh beauties as the fine season advanced. Wild birds came to drink at the little rill, which welled up and formed a pool in a hollow rock under the fir-trees, and was said never to have run dry. She loved to see the gay little songsters take their morning bath, and to hear their joyous pæan as they plumed themselves and shook out their feathers ; and, when their wings were dried, to see them float away into the blue ether.

Michael, after his first protest, entered almost as fully as Jakes into their young mistress's humour, enhanced as it was by old associations, of which, however, they said little. When the men's labour set free some 17 i! garden plant or flowering shrub, buried among brambles, Rosalind fancied that they sometimes recalled the past ; but it was principally to please her, and because the work was a novelty, that they gave themselves up to it so readily. She did not ask any more questions ; it suited her better to spin her own webs of fancy about the garden and its former occupiers. Facts, dry and hard, might dispel the romance which hung over the place. Long after the men had shouldered their spades and gone away, Rosalind would sit under the fir-trees, looking across the garden to the heath, where the ground glowed with golden furze, and the blossoms of the wild cherry and plum trees, which hung above the turf fence, were blown away like white feathers by the spring breeze.

In fancy, the girl saw the spirit of the foreign lady bending over the turf bank crowned with fern-leaves, listening for steps that came not ; for a voice which no longer responded to her mute appeal ; for one who, perhaps, had heard unmoved " those passionate com plaints that wring a woman's heart, but never bring redress." All was vague and uncertain except the watching, waiting, solitary figure. The wind, as it wandered over the heath, seemed to bring to her ear snatches of a forsaken woman's monody in the words of one who, far from friends and country, full of life and true genius, met with a still sadder fate : — " I have caught the last wave of his snow-white plume; How fast to-night closes the evening gloom ! I have heard the last sound of his horse's feet ; Ye winds ! once more the echoes repeat.