AS ever woman in so distressful a case?' she cried, flinging her hands with a smack upon the water.
I rapped my boot in meditation. 'The devil's in the job,' said I; 'I can see no way out of the predicament. It is certain, then,' I asked, 'that these garments went afloat?'
'Certain!' she echoed. 'No sooner was I sporting in the shallows than this libertine of a river had snatched them in a twinkling; and away they scurried, shooting on the current like a racer. Certain!' she wailed. 'Faith, I chased them down the stream to the brink of exhaustion.'
'I have gone up and down the banks,' said I, 'and there's never a visible vestige.' She lifted a white arm out of the pool and threw back her streaming hair.
'You have been very good,' said she. 'Some kindly providence surely despatched you on this walk.'
'’Twas a vague humour,' I explained, 'an indifferent desire of solitude. I had been used so ill at the manor that the sight of my fellows grew distasteful, and'
'It is no time for reproaches,' she broke in quickly; 'you had nothing beyond your deserts, I vow.' I shrugged my shoulders. ' The question is,' said she, 'this inglorious position of mine. I pray you, put your wits to work. Oh, that this caprice ever took my silly fancy!'
The river ran in little whirls and singing eddies between its heavy banks; deep buried in the quiet pool she clung distressfully to the osiers of the tiny islet; overhead shone the noontide sun from the depths of a blue heaven; and in the pleasant shadows of the willows I sat and looked at her. 'Let us consider the facts with care,' said I. Imprimis: the village lies five miles in the valley. Should I start forthwith, 'twill be nigh two hours ere you shall once more have the liberty of clothes.'
'Two hours in this ticklesome stream!' she cried; 'two hours of chance perils!'
Item,' said I, 'of chance hopes also. May be at a cottage'
'None within miles,' she wailed. '’Tis a wilderness, a wilderness. Else I had not ventured on this prank.'
'H'm,' said I. Item: your sex, ere this, has masqueraded in knee-breeches. As for myself, even though 'twas not you in the case, two hours in these cool waters were no great penance this midsummer. Such as it be, this poor raiment is at your service.'
'’Twould fit me so ill!' she complained; 'and to be seen so I should die of shame.' Her own whims had reduced us to a quandary, and I stared at a loss for a single suggestion more. Silence fell upon us. Through the ruffled mirror of the pool the contour of her white body wavered and zigzagged. The sun glistered on her golden tresses through the osier branches. A sense of her beauty took me at this absurd time very pleasantly, and I laughed softly at the fancy.
'Those golden locks—' said I; 'what better vesture for you than that glorious hair?'
A pink flush got up in her cheeks; she turned away her head.
'You are unkind,' said she, 'and the jest is in poor taste.'
'’Twas no jest, indeed,' I protested warmly.
'Then,' said she plumply, 'you have taken leave of your wits.'
'Maybe,' I answered. 'They have bid me good-bye these many weeks I have known you; and to have come suddenly upon you thus has robbed me of my remaining judgment. I had dreamed of river-nymphs in such a place. On my soul, you play the Naiad most delicately well.'
She smiled faintly at my speech, but in a moment a shadow leapt over her face.
'Oh, it is absurd!' she cried. 'This odious country! and this is all come of my affectation of the rustic habit! London at her dullest held at least no such embarrassment. Oh! 'tis humiliating. I hate you. Go.'
'I cannot but think,' said I gravely, 'that this adventure is in the nature of a retribution. Yet, for all you have entreated me so evilly for weeks together, my gay coquette, I cannot,' quoth I, 'endure to triumph over you.'
With that I turned to be gone, but ere I had taken a dozen paces a noise in the copse arrested my attention; and next moment a rustic maiden pushed through the underwood and stepped out upon the open patch by the river. She wore a dainty gown that swayed about her ankles as she walked, and her high bodice paused over her bosom for all the world as though she were a shepherdess from Arcady. Her blue eyes stared widely from myself to the water and its pretty nymph.
'Ho! ho!' said I. 'Good-day to you, young mistress of the roses. You have come in the nick of time to wrest a creature from despair.' I ducked to her and pointed to the osiers.
'For shame!' says she, eyeing me with some scorn.