He bowed and left her.
Half an hour later, as Sara and I were strolling near the far point of the island, we caught through the trees a glimpse of Iris seated in the low, crooked bough of a live-oak, and at her feet John Hoffman, reclining on the white tufted moss that covered the ground. “Absurd!” I said, angrily.
“Why absurd? Is she not good and fair? To me there is something very bewitching about Iris Carew. She is the most graceful little creature; look at her attitude now, swinging in that bough! and when she walks there is a willowy suppleness about her that makes the rest of us look like grenadiers. Then what arch dark eyes she has, what a lovely brunette skin, the real brune! Pretty, graceful little Iris, she is always picturesque, whatever she does.”
“But she is a child, Sara, while he – ”
“Is John Hoffman,” replied Sara, with a little curl of her lip. “Come, Martha, I want to show you some Arcadians.”
“Arcadians?”
“Yes. Not the people who found the tomb in the forest, but some real practical Arcadians, who enjoy life as Nature intended.”
“Who knows what she intended? I am sure I don’t,” I said, crossly.
Near the ruins of the mansion we found the Arcadians, a young man with his wife and child, living in a small out-building which might have been a cow-house. It was not more than ten feet square, the roof had fallen in, and was replaced by a rude thatch of palmetto leaves; there was no window of any kind, no floor save the sand, and for a door only an old coverlet hung up and tied back like a curtain. Within we could see a low settle-bed with some ragged coverings, a stool, powder, shot, and fishing tackle hung up on one side, and an old calico dress on the other; without was a table under a tree, a cupboard hung on the outside of the house, containing a few dishes, and the ashes of the family fire near at hand. Two thin dogs and a forlorn calf (oh, the cadaverous cattle of Florida!) completed the stock of this model farm.
“They eat and cook out-of-doors all the year round, I suppose. What a home! Did any one ever see such poverty,” I said, “and such indolence? They do not even take the trouble to make a door.”
“What do they want of a door? There is nothing to keep out but Nature. And as for poverty, they seem happy enough,” replied Sara.
They did. The woman came to meet us with her brown baby, and the young husband took his gun and went out to find his supper – partridge from the wood, probably, and oysters from the beach. They had lived there three years, the woman said. Her name was Anita, her husband’s Gaspar, the baby was Rafaello. No, they did not work much. They had a few sweet-potatoes yonder, and sometimes she braided palmetto and took it down to the city to sell. Gaspar had a dug-out, and sometimes he sold fish, but not often. They had every thing they wanted. Did she know any thing about this old place? No, she did not. Couldn’t she find out? Yes, she supposed she could; her people had lived along the Matanzas for years; but she never took the trouble to ask. Should she send that brown baby to school when it grew larger?
“To school?” And the young mother laughed merrily, showing even, white teeth, and tossing up the little Rafaello until he crowed with glee. “None of us-uns goes to school, my lady.”
“But what will he do, then?”
“Do? Why, live here or somewhars, jes as we’re doing,” replied Anita. “That’s all he wants.”
“A great many people come over here in the season, do they not?” I asked, abandoning my educational efforts.
“Yes, pleasant days folks come.”
“Do you think the ladies are pretty?”
“Sometimes,” replied Anita, with a critical air.
“Wouldn’t you like to look as they do?”
“Oh no,” replied our “nut-brown mayde,” with a broad, contented smile.
“And the gentlemen. What do you think of them?”
“Eh? the mens, did you say? Oh, they’re so wimpsy!” And bursting into a peal of laughter, the mother tossed up the baby again until he too joined in the merriment over the “wimpsyness,” whatever that was, of the tourists from the North.
“Do you know, I feel as though Calhoun himself was laughing at me from his grave,” I said, as we walked away. “Your Arcadians, Sara, have made me more conscious of my bodily defects than a whole regiment of fine city people. What a shape that woman had! what eyes! what teeth! But what did she mean by wimpsy?”
“Very likely she meant Mokes. He is certainly limpsy; then why not wimpsy? There he is, by-the-way.”
So he was, sitting with (of all persons in the world!) the governess. “In 1648 there were three hundred householders resident in St. Augustine, Mr. Mokes,” we heard her say as we drew near.
“Must have wanted to – beast of a place,” commented Mokes. He looked up doubtfully as we went by, but not having decided exactly how strong-minded Sara might be, he concluded not to venture; the governess at least never posed a fellow with startling questions.
“Poor Mokes!” I said.
“Oh yes, very poor!”
“I was thinking of his forlorn love affair, Sara.”
“Iris may still be Mrs. Mokes.”
“Oh no!”
“Do not be too sure, Martha. In my opinion – nay, experience – a young girl is far more apt to be dazzled by wealth than an older woman. The older woman knows how little it has to do with happiness, after all; the young girl has not yet learned that.”
The Osceola carried us northward again, and then around into a creek where was the landing-place of Anastasia Island.
“This Anastasia was a saint,” I said, as we strolled up the path leading to the new light-house. “She belonged to the times of Diocletian, and we know where to find her, which is more than I can say of Maria Sanchez over in the village.”
“And who is this Maria Sanchez?” inquired Aunt Diana, in her affable, conversational tone. Aunt Di always asked little questions of this kind, not because she cared to know, but because she esteemed it a duty to keep the conversation flowing.
“Ah! that is the question, aunt – who was she? There are persons of that name in the town now, but this creek bore the name centuries ago; wherefore, nobody knows. Maria is a watery mystery.”
The new light-house, curiously striped in black and white like a barber’s pole, rose from the chaparral some distance back from the beach, one hundred and sixty feet into the clear air; there was nothing to compare it with, not a hill or rise of land, not even a tall tree, and therefore it looked gigantic, a tower built by Titans rather than men.
“Let us go up to the top,” said Iris, peeping within the open door. We hesitated: one hundred and sixty feet of winding stairway may be regarded as a crucial test between youth and age.
“Oh, Aunt Di, not you, of course! nor you either, Miss Sharp, nor the Professor, nor Cousin Martha,” said Iris, heedlessly. “You can all sit here comfortably in the shade while the rest of us run up; we shall not stay long.”
Upon this instantly we all arose and began to climb up those stairs. Sit there comfortably in the shade, indeed! Not one of us!
The view from the summit seemed wonderfully extensive – inland over the level pine-barrens to the west; the level blue sea to the east; north, the silver sands of the Florida main-land; and south, the stretch of Anastasia Island, its backbone distinctly visible in the slope of the low green foliage.
“How soft and blue the ocean looks!” said Iris. “I should like to sail away to the far East and never come back.”
“If I only had my yacht here now, Miss Iris!” said Mokes, gallantly. “But we should want to come back some time, you know. Egypt and the Nile – well, they are dirty places; although I – er – I always carry every thing with me, it is almost impossible to live properly there.”
We all knew what Mokes meant; he meant his portable bath. He aped English fashions, and was always bringing into conversation that blessed article of furniture, which accompanied him every where in charge of his valet. So often indeed did he allude to it that we all felt, like the happy-thought man, inclined to chant out in chorus, to the tune of the Mistletoe Bough,
“Oh, his portable ba-ath!
Oh, his por-ta-ble ba-ath!”
“You have, I am told, Mr. Mokes, the finest yacht in this country,” said John Hoffman.
Well, it wasn’t a bad one, Mokes allowed.
“I don’t know which I would rather own,” pursued John, “your yacht or your horses. Why, Sir, your horses are the pride of New York.”
I glanced at John; he was as grave as a judge. Mokes glowed with satisfaction. Iris listened with downcast eyes, and Aunt Diana, who had at last reached the top stair, gathered her remaining strength to smile upon the scene. Mokes came out of his shell entirely, and graciously offered his arm to Aunt Diana for the long descent.
But Aunt Di could – “excuse me, Mr. Mokes” – really hold on “better by the railing;” but “perhaps Iris – ”
Yes, Iris could, and did.
John looked after the three as they wound down the long spiral with a smile of quiet amusement.
“All alike,” he said to me, with the “old-comrade” freedom that had grown up between us. “La richesse est toujours des femmes le grand amour, Miss Martha.”
“Don’t quote your pagan French at me,” I answered, retreating outside, where on the little platform I had left Sara gazing out to sea. She was looking down now, leaning over the railing as if measuring the dizzy height.
“If I should throw myself over,” she said, as I came up, “my body would go down; but where would my soul go, I wonder?”
“Don’t be morbid, Sara.”
“Morbid? Nonsense! That is a duty word, a red flag which timid people always hang out the moment you near the dangerous ground of the great hereafter. We must all die some time, mustn’t we? And if I should die now, what difference would it make? The madam-aunt would think me highly inconsiderate to break up the party in any such way; Iris would shed a pretty tear or two; Mokes would really feel relieved; the Professor would write an account of the accident for the Pith-and-Ponder Journal, with a description of the coquina quarry thrown in; Miss Sharp would read it and be ‘so interested;’ and even you, Martha, would scarcely have the heart to wish me back again.” Tears stood in her eyes as she spoke, her face had softened with the sad fancies she had woven, and for the moment the child-look came back into her eyes, as it often comes with tears.
“And John Hoffman,” I said, involuntarily. I knew he was still within hearing.
“Oh, he would decorously take his prayer-book and act as chief mourner, if there was no one else,” replied Sara, with a mocking little laugh.
“Come down!” called Aunt Di’s voice from below; “we are going to the coquina quarry.”
I lingered a moment that John might have full time to make his escape, but when at length we went inside, there he was, leaning on the railing; he looked full at Sara as she passed, and bowed with cold hauteur.
“It is useless to try and make any body like her,” I thought as I went down the long stairway. “Why is it that women who write generally manage to make themselves disagreeable to all mankind?”
We found Miss Sharp seated on a stair, half-way down, loaded with specimens, shells, and the vicious-looking roots of Fish Island.
“I am waiting for Professor Macquoid,” she explained, graciously. “He came as far as this, and then remembering a rare plant he had forgotten to take up, he went back for it, leaving the other specimens with me. I have no doubt he will soon return; but pray do not wait.”
We did not; but left her on the stair.
Sara and I strolled over to the old light-house – a weather-beaten tower standing almost in the water, regularly fortified with walls, angles, and loop-holes – a lonely little stronghold down by the sea. It was a picturesque old beacon, built by the Spaniards a long time ago as a look-out; when the English came into possession of Florida, in 1763, they raised the look-out sixty feet higher, and planted a cannon on the top, to be fired as a signal when a vessel came in sight. The light that we had so often watched flashing and fading in the twilight as we walked on the sea-wall was put in still later by the United States government; in old times a bonfire was lighted on top every night.
“I like this gray old beacon better than yonder tall, spying, brand-new tower,” I said. “This is a drowsy old fellow, who sleeps all day and only wakes at night, as a light-house should, whereas that wide-awake striped Yankee over there is evidently keeping watch of all that goes on in the little city. Iris must take care.”
“Do you think he can spy into the demi-lune?” said Sara, smiling.
At the coquina quarry we found the Professor, scintillating all over with enthusiasm. “A most singular conglomerate of shells cemented by carbonate of lime,” he said, putting on a stronger pair of glasses – “a recent formation, evidently, of the post-tertiary period. You are aware, I suppose, that it is found nowhere else in the world? It is soft, as you see, when first taken out, but becomes hard by exposure to the air.” Knee-deep in coquina, radiating information at every pore, he stood – a happy man!
“And Miss Sharp?” I whispered.
“On the stair,” replied Sara.
Not until we were on our way back to the sail-boat was the governess relieved from her vigil; then she heard us passing, and came out of her own accord, loaded with the relics.
“Why, Miss Sharp, have you been in the light-house all this time?” asked Aunt Diana.
The governess murmured something about a “cool and shady place for meditation,” but bravely she held on to her relics, and was ready to hear every thing about coquina and the post-tertiary, as well as a little raid into the glacial theory, with which the Professor entertained us on the way to the landing.
“Do you hear the drum-fish drumming down below?” said John, as the Osceola sailed merrily homeward. We listened, and caught distinctly the muffled tattoo – the marine band, as Iris said.
“I came across an old dilapidated book, written, I suppose, fifty years ago,” said John. “Here is an extract about the old light-house and the drum-fish, which I copied from the coverless pages: ‘We landed on Anastasia Island, and walked to the old light-house. Here a Spaniard lives with his family, the eldest, a beautiful dark-eyed little muchacha (young girl), just budding into her fourteenth year. Here, in this little fortified castle, Señor Andro defies alike the tempests and the Indians. Having spent an hour or two in the hospitable tower, and made a delicious repast on the dried fish which garnishes his hall from end to end, eked out with cheese and crackers and a bottle or two of Frontignac, besides fruit and brandy, we bade farewell to the pretty Catalina and the old tower, for it was time to go drumming. Fair Anastasia, how delightful thy sunny beach and the blue sea that kisses buxomly thy lonely shore! Before me rolls the eternal ocean, mighty architect of the curious masonry on which I stand, the animal rock which supports the vegetable soil. How many millions upon millions of these shell-fish must have been destroyed to form a substratum for one rood of land! But it was time for drumming, the magic hour (between the fall of the ebb and the rise of the flood) for this delightful sport, whose superior enchantment over all others in the Walton line I had so often heard described with rapture – the noble nature of the fish, his size and strength, the slow approach which he makes at first to the hook, like a crab; then the sudden overwhelming transport that comes over you when you feel him dashing boldly off with the line is comparable to nothing save pulling along a buxom lass through a Virginia reel.’ What do you say to that, Mokes? That part about the Virginia reel, now, is not to be despised.”
But Mokes had never danced the Virginia reel – had seen it once at a servants’ ball, he believed.
“What are you doing, Sara?” I said, sleepily, from the majestic old bed, with its high carved posts and net curtains. “It is after eleven; do put up that pencil, at least for to-night.”
“I am amusing myself writing up the sail this afternoon. Do you want to hear it?”
“If it isn’t historical.”
“Historical! As though I could amuse myself historically!”
“It mustn’t be tragedy either: harrowing up the emotions so late at night is as bad as mince-pie.”
“It is light comedy, I think – possibly farce. Now listen: it begins with an ‘Oh’ on a high note, sliding down this way: ‘Oh-o-o-o-o-h!’
“MATANZAS RIVER
“Oh! rocking on the little blue waves,
While, flocking over Huguenot graves,
Come the sickle-bill curlews, the wild laughing loons,
The heavy old pelicans flying in platoons
Low down on the water with their feet out behind,
Looking for a sand-bar which is just to their mind,
Eying us scornfully, for very great fools,
In which view the porpoises, coming up in schools,
Agree, and wonder why
We neither swim nor fly.
“Oh! sailing on away to the south,
There, hailing us at the river’s mouth,
Stands the old Spanish look-out, where ages ago
A watch was kept, day and night, for the evil foe —
Simple-minded Huguenots fleeing here from France,
All carefully massacred by the Spaniard’s lance
For the glory of God; we look o’er the side,
As if to see their white bones lying ’neath the tide
Of the river whose name
Is reddened with the shame.
“Oh! beating past Anastasia Isle,
Where, greeting us, the light-houses smile,
The old coquina beacon, with its wave-washed walls,
Where the spray of the breakers ’gainst the low door falls,
The new mighty watch-tower all striped in black and white,
That looks out to sea every minute of the night,
And by day, for a change, doth lazily stand
With its eye on the green of the Florida land,
And every thing doth spy —
E’en us, as we sail by.
“Oh! scudding up before wind and tide,
Where, studding all the coast alongside,
Miles of oysters bristling stand, their edges like knives,
Million million fiddler-crabs, walking with their wives,
At the shadow of our sail climb helter-skelter down
In their holes, which are houses of the fiddler-crab town;
While the bald-headed eagle, coming in from the sea,
Swoops down upon the fish-hawk, fishing patiently,
And carries off his spoil,
With kingly scorn of toil.
“Oh! floating on the sea-river’s brine,
Where, noting each ripple of the line,
The old Minorcan fishermen, swarthy and slow,
Sit watching for the drum-fish, drumming down below;
Now and then along shore their dusky dug-outs pass,
Coming home laden down with clams and marsh grass;
One paddles, one rows, in their outlandish way,
But they pause to salute us, and give us good-day
In soft Minorcan speech,
As they pass, near the beach.
“Oh! sweeping home, where dark, in the north,
See, keeping watch, San Marco looms forth,
With its gray ruined towers in the red sunset glow,
Mounting guard o’er the tide as it ebbs to and fro;
We hear the evening gun as we reach the sea-wall,
But soft on our ears the water-murmurs fall,
Voices of the river, calling ‘Stay! stay! stay!
Children of the Northland, why flee so soon away?’
Though we go, dear river,
Thou art ours forever.”
After I had fallen asleep, haunted by the marching time of Sara’s verse, I dreamed that there was a hand tapping at my chamber door, and, half roused, I said to myself that it was only dreams, and nothing more. But it kept on, and finally, wide awake, I recognized the touch of mortal fingers, and withdrew the bolt. Aunt Diana rushed in, pale and disheveled in the moonlight.
“What is the matter?” I exclaimed.
“Niece Martha,” replied Aunt Di, sinking into a chair, “Iris has disappeared!”
Grand tableau, in which Sara took part from the majestic bed.
“She went to her room an hour ago,” pursued Aunt Di; “it is next to mine, you know, and I went in there just now for some camphor, and found her gone!”
“Dear, dear! Where can the child have gone to?”
“An elopement,” said Aunt Di, in a sepulchral tone.
“Not Mokes?”
“No. If it had been Mokes, I should not have – that is to say, it would have been highly reprehensible in Iris, but – However, it is not Mokes; he is sound asleep in his room; I sent there to see.” And Aunt Diana betook herself to her handkerchief.
“Can it be John Hoffman?” I mused, half to myself.
“Mr. Hoffman went up to his room some time ago,” said Sara.
“And pray how do you know, Miss St. John?” asked Aunt Di, coming out stiffly from behind her handkerchief. “Mr. Hoffman would have been very glad to – and, as it happens, he is not in his room at all.”
“Then of course – Oh, irretrievable folly!” I exclaimed, in dismay.
“But it isn’t John Hoffman, I tell you,” said Aunt Diana, relapsing into dejection again. “He has gone out sailing with the Van Andens; I heard them asking him – a moonlight excursion.”
Then the three of us united:
