‘We had screwed our courage to the sailing-point, and now, when we have to wind ourselves up again, how do you know but I may fail? Maybe I shall give it up altogether, and take that little trip to the church we spoke about, and my father wants us to make.’
‘No, Philip, you will not fail; and in any case, we shall not take that trip until next harvest is over.’
‘Next harvest!’ ejaculated the invalid, pretending to groan. ‘How old shall we be then?—or rather, how old shall I be? for I don’t believe you will ever grow old.’
‘We shall both have added exactly one year to our experience,’ she said cheerfully, ‘and we shall begin life so much the more wisely.’
‘Shall we? Well, you can have the experience and the wisdom. I should like to have a Rip van Winkle sleep till then, and waken up just in time to give the necessary answers to the vicar. I say: have you been studying _the_ service?’
‘What a question!’ she answered, blushing.
Of course she had gone over The Service more than once, with that sweet tremulous wonder—compound of curiosity, timid, only half-acknowledged anticipation and awe—which is inspired by those mysterious words that have the power of making two lives one. Was there ever a maiden passed her teens without doing and feeling so? Was there ever a maiden who has not strained her eyes into the misty future that overhangs the altar, and speculated upon the shape in which her fate was to appear? And what maiden was ever ready to make frank confession to her lover of those vague day-dreams in which he has had no definite existence?
‘To be sure you have,’ says Philip gaily, notwithstanding the feebleness of his voice; ‘but I have not. So you will have to coach me for the exam.—I mean the occasion.’
The sunshine of youth was still in their hearts, and they could talk with gay fearlessness of the responsibilities they were to take upon themselves by-and-by. That ‘By-and-by’ makes such a difference in our views of things: even the coward is brave whilst the battle is to be fought by-and-by.
In spite of broken bones and disappointment and restraint, they were pleasant days those to the lovers. Pleasanter still when Philip was declared out of danger, and was permitted to spend two of the sunny hours daily in the garden, which was still brilliant with flowers. ‘Nature and me to keep the place bonnie all the year round,’ Sam Culver used to say, and in the autumn especially, the combined forces produced marvellous effects.