# The Girl With the Blue Sailor (Ladies' Home Journal serial)/Part 2

from The Ladies' Home Journal, 1905 May, pp. 11–12.

### Chapter III

AS THE rice pattered down in a shower upon the floor Mrs. Roberts gave a gasp of dismay.
“Yes, it's rice,” said Sheldon, coolly stooping and picking up as many of the grains as he could find.
“You seem to value it highly.”
“I do,” he admitted. “It recalls one of the most singular incidents of my life,” and he got out his pocketbook and carefully deposited the rice therein.
“Indeed!” and Mrs. Roberts looked at him suspiciously.
“Yes—last night, as I was stepping on the train at Kingston Point, a lot of people threw it at me.”
“Don't you see, mamma!” cried the youngest daughter. “They mistook him for some one else!”
“Perhaps that was it,” nodded Sheldon, glancing at the fiery countenances of bride and bridegroom. “But I have some scribbling to do,” he added, rising; “a leader that will shake the nation, or a novel that will run into the hundred thousands—I haven't decided which. On the one side, fame; on the other, fortune—you see the choice is difficult. You'll excuse me?”
“Since it's in the cause of humanity,” smiled Mrs. Roberts. “But we've organized a boating party for this evening—may we count upon you?”
“You certainly may,” said Sheldon, and disappeared indoors.
Yet his first movement on entering his room did not indicate any excessive eagerness to labor in the cause of humanity. He filled his pipe, got it to going nicely, pulled a chair up to the window and sat down. Then he stared out at the hillside, puffing contentedly. He was aroused by the violent opening of his door.
“Oh, you hypocrite!” cried Agens. “You double-distilled, unconscionably perjured hypocrite!”
“Cork up and shut the door. Got your pipe?”
“Of course.”
“Then fill up,” and Sheldon indicated his tobacco-pouch. “Where's your wife?”
“In the hands of the Philistines.”
“You coward!”
“Didn't you run away?”
“Yes, but I didn't leave a defenseless wife behind.”
“Oh, she's not defenseless. You don't know her yet. She's been handicapped by circumstances, but she'll come out strong in a day or two. Those Roberts girls aren't bad looking, are they?”
Sheldon grunted.
“Rather nice girls, too; and not in the least stupid.”
“Pity you're married,” Sheldon said.
“The Rock's” eyes became unnaturally bright.
“I knew you'd think so. They're worth marrying, aren't they? Well, I've paved the way for you there, old man. You bet I stayed long enough to do that.”
Sheldon turned an irate eye on him.
“See here, Rock,” he began, “if you've been stuffing those girls with any of your infernal nonsense——”
“I haven't!” cried Agens with a chuckle. “I'm not such a fool. I stuffed the mamma, Deacon. She isn't half-bad, either, once she drops the accent.”
“No, I rather like her,” Sheldon agreed. “She's like a cold bath—refreshing after the first shock. I shall cultivate Mrs. Roberts.”
“And the daughters?”
“Oh, hang the daughters!”
“But, Deacon——”
“Shut up, I tell you!”
Agens performed an extempore war-dance behind his unconscious host.
“Come here and sit down, can't you?” said Sheldon at last. Then he looked around. “Why, what ails the man? Is he crazy?”
“No, only exceedingly happy, Deacon,” and Agens grinned jovially. “Gimme a match.”
Sheldon held out the match silently and watched while the other lit his pipe. Then Agens pulled up a chair beside his companion's and deposited his feet on the window-sill.
“I say, Deacon,” he began, watching a puff of smoke circle upward until it was caught by the draught from the window and whirled outside, “do you remember——”
Magic words! What vision they called to life—the old, gray, ivy-covered building, guarding the front campus; the evenings on the grass beneath the trees with the Seniors singing on the steps; the long winter nights before the fire with half a dozen fellows building castles for the future——
In the dusk of the evening they went down together to the lake, where their hosts were waiting.
“You see, it's not really a lake,” explained Cecil, the eldest, to whom Sheldon, not without an amused perception, found himself allotted. But early every spring the hotel-keepers here get together and build a dam across a narrow place just below, and that backs the water up till it forms quite a little pond.”
“Which has been christened Crystal Lake!” he said. “I understand now why all the boats are flat-bottomed!”
He perceived, also, that most of them were obviously built for two, and it was to one of this class that he and his companion were assigned. He helped her into it, took the oars and shoved off.
“We've always liked it so much up here,” continued Cecil. “But it is a little dull this year. There are plenty of other people here, but they're not just——”
Sheldon nodded. “No, I should rather fancy not, from what I've seen of them.”
“And we're always so pleased to meet—interesting people,” she added, dabbling her hand in the water, “especially literary people.”
Sheldon looked at her. She was really attractive—a well-built girl, with earnest, ingenuous, fresh-colored face, and eyes that could smile very nicely. But, he reflected, she was at least thirty, and when a girl is thirty, if she intends to marry at all, it is time to be setting about it. He found himself sympathizing with her—rather liking her. Plainly, his first duty was to dispel any illusions which Agens had thrown about him.
“Upon its Topmost Pinnacle Sat a Figure with a Broad-Brimmed Sailor” “But I'm not at all a literary person, Miss Roberts,” he protested. “I'm merely a newspaper hack, without any reputation to speak of, and earning a precarious living by infinite labor.”
“Oh, you are modest!” she breathed, and Sheldon smiled somewhat bitterly to himself.
“I wish I were,” he said. “I wish I could see myself in any other light; but honestly I can't. This is the first vacation I've been able to give myself since I left college, and I'm awfully glad I happened to come just here. I like you and I like your sisters. I think a family of sisters is adorable.”
“It is very nice,” she assented, but Sheldon perceived the little sigh which accompanied the words. “Don't you like newspaper work, Mr. Sheldon?” she asked after a moment.
“Oh, yes; almost always. It has a fascination. It's a good deal like a maze—one wanders around in it without getting anywhere in particular, but one can't get out.”
He had been letting the boat drift with the stream, and suddenly his companion sat up with a little cry: “There's the dam, Mr. Sheldon! We'll be over in a minute!”
Sheldon backed water desperately, gained ten feet, turned the boat, and was out of danger.
“What an idiot I am!” he said. “I don't deserve to be trusted with a girl! And what a brick you were not to scream.”
She laughed quietly. “There wasn't any danger.”
“Still, I beg your pardon, Miss Roberts; I was careless.”
“It is granted.”
“I had never perceived,” he continued after a moment, “that a woman's screams were proportioned to the danger—they've always seemed to me rather the reverse.”
“I hope you aren't a cynic about women,” she retorted. “I don't like cynics—cynicism of that kind is so cheap.”
“'I'm Not at All a Literary Person, Miss Roberts'” “It is,” he assented instantly. “It's exceedingly cheap. Thank you for calling me down, Miss Roberts.”
“I didn't in the least intend to call you down.”
“I know it; but I merited it, just the same. I hope you won't spare the rod when you see I need it.”
“I won't, if you really need it,” she assured him, laughing with an open comradeship that was very pleasing to him, and whose glamour still endured when they disembarked half an hour later.
He looked at the girls again by the lights on the porch, and found himself more and more approving of them. Ruth was perhaps the prettiest, with her black eyes and hair; but they were all fresh and healthy and happy, with that subtle fascination of maidenhood. He bade them good-night with an almost brotherly feeling for them—rather lingering, in fact, when he came to Cecil; but he ground his teeth as he saw the way Mrs. Roberts beamed upon him.
“Oh, Mr. Sheldon,” she called, as he was turning away, “we've arranged a little excursion for to-morrow to Devasego Falls. We should like so much to have you with us!”
Sheldon hesitated a moment, but he really had no excuse for refusing.
“I shall be glad to go,” he said; “thank you,” and he mounted to his room feeling not very amiable.
Roberts was awaiting him on the stair next morning.
“We start at eight,” he announced, and Sheldon nodded curtly, with an uncomfortable sense of having been waylaid.
He passed on along the hall and out to the front porch, where he found Agens, who saluted him with a bar of “See the Conquering Hero Comes.”
“I hear that you're going over to Devasego Falls to-day,” observed “The Rock,” looking at Sheldon with a broad grin. “The plot thickens!”
“Aren't you going?” asked Sheldon quickly.
“No; I'm married!”
“See here, Rock,” said Sheldon, a little angrily, “I wish you'd let up on this infernal nonsense!”
Agens grinned more broadly still. “I think the Robertses a most interesting family,” he said, with no especial relevance.
“So do I.”
“Which imminent tragedy makes only the more interesting.”
“Tragedy?”
“My dear fellow, why mince matters? Why not look them in the face, as I'm sure both Mr. and Mrs. Roberts have done, are doing, must ever do? They have four daughters, all marriageable, and yet none married. Do you blame a fond parent for worrying a little? I don't.”
“Neither do I. Only, one would rather not see it.”
“Well, you won't see it much longer. I'm going to devote my transcendent genius to helping them out.”
“Of course you've only to turn your mind to it!” said Sheldon with deep irony.
“That is all,” agreed “The Rock” serenely. “My success so far leads me to believe——”
“Your success!”
“Certainly; I've provided for one of them. I'm sure she'll make my dearest friend the happiest of men!”
“See here, Agens,” Sheldon said savagely, “I'm in deadly earnest when I tell you I've had enough of this foolery. I prefer to arrange my own love affairs.”
“Still, you ought to welcome an intelligent interest on the part of your friends.”
“Well, I don't!” snapped Sheldon.
Agens eyed him with great gravity. “Now, Deacon,” he began, “I'm going to talk to you candidly. It's six years since you left college, you're nearly thirty, and yet you're not even engaged. You'll excuse my saying that you don't seem to have had any great success in arranging your own love affairs—I refuse to intrust you with their management any longer—I take a hand.”
“I'll be hanged if you do!”
“You'll be single if I don't, which is worse than being hanged. I speak from experience,” and Agens smiled.
“I have known,” observed Sheldon deliberately, “that you deserved hanging, but I never before knew that justice had been executed upon you. I'm glad of it—I'm only sorry that your friends succeeded in reviving you. That certainly was mistaken devotion.”
At the appointed hour Sheldon reported dutifully to Mrs. Roberts, and was promptly assigned to the rear seat in the express, his partner this time being not Cecil, the eldest, but Maud, the next in line. He was to be permitted, then, to taste of them all, as it were! Yet there was something charming in being thus admitted to the company of this family of girls. He looked from one to another with a quick appreciation of their merits.
“I was saying to your sister last night,” he remarked to his companion, “that I thought a family of girls about the nicest thing going.”
“We have had nice times,” she answered, looking up at him quickly. “But I'm afraid this is the last summer we shall all be together like—like girls, you know.”
“Why? What's going to happen? Nothing very terrible, I hope.”
“Well, marriage is always a rather terrible thing for a girl, don't you think?”
“Yes—I suppose so, in a way. But who—pardon me.”
“Oh, it's not a secret, exactly, though we haven't announced it yet. I'm sure mamma won't object to my telling you. Cecil is to be married in the fall.”
Sheldon was conscious of a sudden crimsoning. Fool, ass, idiot, hypocrite, poseur, contemptible egoist! He had fancied himself astute, and had been merely evil-minded! In a flash he saw how utterly vulgar his whole attitude of mind had been; how he had demeaned himself. It was not a pleasant thing to contemplate; yet he had the manhood not to spare himself.
His part in the conversation was somewhat desultory after that, for he was deeply shaken; but no one seemed to notice. The driver chirruped to his horses, and they rolled on and on, rattling at last through the quaint little village of Prattsville, leaning out to see, on a ledge high above them, the fantastically carved and painted rocks which Zadoc Pratt had left for the amusement of posterity. Just beyond was an avenue of magnificent oaks, and five minutes later they were at the falls.
They made a much more imposing appearance than Sheldon had expected, the water foaming from ledge to ledge over a rocky precipice some fifty feet in height, and rushing away down a deep gorge, shut in on each side by a sheer wall of rock. But he idled only for a moment—he had amends to make.
There were many things to do—the women to be helped down the ladders to a wide ledge under the overhanging cliff, hampers to be brought and unpacked, arrangements to be made for supplementary supplies at the nearest house. He took delight in driving himself.
“My dear Mr. Sheldon,” protested Mrs. Roberts at last, “do sit down. You're fatiguing yourself terribly.”
“He might as well sit down, anyway,” observed Maud impartially. “There's nothing more he can do.”
“Are you sure there isn't?” he asked, looking around.
“Quite sure; besides, we are none of us invalids. Please sit down.”
So Sheldon sat down beside Mrs. Roberts and watched the younger women as they spread the cloth and arranged the dishes. Their white gowns and fresh faces were exceedingly pleasant to look upon; and Sheldon, in a side glance, saw that father and mother were enjoying the spectacle as much as he. After all, he told himself with a sharp twinge of conscience, this was no designing family, but merely a simple-minded one.
He and Roberts wandered away together after the meal for a friendly smoke; Sheldon, indeed, had manœuvred this. He wanted a chance to talk quietly with his host.
“Miss Maud told me on the trip over,” he began, “that her elder sister is to be married this fall. It seems to be a bit of a secret yet, and I was wondering if I might congratulate her?”
“Why, certainly!” cried Roberts. “She will be most pleased.”
“Thank you. I suppose you'll miss her greatly?”
“Oh, yes, indeed! But—well—her mother and I—we don't feel like interfering. She—it's a real attachment—and, of course, all girls ought to marry. But it's a pulling of heartstrings, sir!”
He spoke with real feeling, despite the artificial grandeur of his style.
“They've been engaged for a long time,” he continued after a moment. “He has had misfortunes—a long illness—things looked very black for a time; we—her mother and I—were rather inclined to think she should break it off. You see, there were other—well—but she wouldn't; and she knew best, it seems, for things have straightened themselves out beautifully. What we feel most is that she'll have to leave us—his health compels him to stay in Colorado. I'm talking to you almost as one of the family, Mr. Sheldon.”
“You honor me, sir,” said Sheldon.
“Thank you; I may say, I like you—we all like you. You'll not misunderstand me.”
“No,” said Sheldon quickly. “I repeat, you honor me. You've all been very kind to me.”
“Oh, don't put it that way. We have—shall I say—pleased ourselves? I hope you'll be able to come to us occasionally when we return to New York. Mrs. Roberts joins me in the wish. We'll be glad to see you.”
“And I'll be glad to come. It will be an unaccustomed pleasure. You see, Mr. Roberts, we newspaper hacks have a rather lonely time of it—I have, at least.”
The other nodded. “Yes,” he said, “Mr. Agens gave us to understand—that is, we naturally spoke of you after you left us the other day. Mr. Agens seems a great friend of yours.”
“Agens is a brick!” said Sheldon quickly, with a little mist before his eyes. So Agens had merely told the truth—these people, far from entertaining any illusions about him, had wished merely to be kind.
“We should have liked to have him and his wife with us to-day,” continued his companion, “but we felt that they might prefer to be alone together—when one is newly married, you know——”
“What!” cried Sheldon. “He told you!”
“Mrs. Agens confessed to the girls,” laughed Roberts. “I dare say they worried it out of her. There's no evading a woman.”
Sheldon passed his hand across his eyes in bewilderment; he had need to clear his vision.
“Which reminds me,” added Roberts, “that we would better be rejoining them. We must soon be starting back—they expect—ha! hum!” he ended abruptly, somewhat to his companion's astonishment. “They wish,” he went on stumblingly after a moment, tugging fiercely at his mustache, “I believe, to get back before the st—ah!—before the sun sets.”
“Then we haven't much time to lose,” said Sheldon, turning as he spoke, and wondering why that simple statement should have been so seemingly difficult to make.

### Chapter IV

SHELDON helped the girls back into their seats, and, by a clever bit of generalship, kept the place beside Cecil for himself.
“I suppose you perceived,” he began, as soon as the horses were fairly under way, “how anxious I was to sit beside you?”
“I fancied I detected a certain uneasy management of us,” she smiled, looking up at him with the frank eyes he was growing to like so much. “May I ask why?”
“I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to congratulate you. Your father said I might tell you how glad I am. I wonder if the man knows what a lucky fellow he is?”
Her color heightened just the faintest bit, but her eyes did not waver. “I think he does,” she said softly. “And I'm a very lucky girl, Mr. Sheldon. You'd say so if you knew him.”
“I'd be no lenient critic,” he warned her.
“Oh, he's already passed through the needle's eye. Papa and mamma——”
“Of course, as in duty bound. Do you know, I'm falling in love with you all? I want to be adopted. I shall apply at once to your father.”
“Do! Only please continue to love us collectively. The family mustn't be disrupted any more yet a while.”
“They're nice girls, aren't they?” and his eyes wandered over the occupants of the forward seats.
“Mighty nice,” she agreed, smiling.
“For ten years,” he said, “I've been a man without a family. Heretofore I haven't minded much, because I didn't know what I was missing. Now I begin to understand. Your father has been kind enough to ask me to come to see him in New York.”
“I hope you will.”
“Oh, don't fear; I'll come. Do you know, last night, when I was pointing out to you the beauties of a family of girls, you sighed?”
“Did I? I didn't suspect you were such a close observer.”
“You sighed,” he repeated remorselessly.“Why was that?”
“Well,” she answered slowly, “I suppose it was because a family of girls must, in the end, be separated.”
“And boys?”
“Oh, with boys it's different. Besides, boys don't care so much. They go out into the world, anyway, before they're married.”
“And yet you wouldn't have girls remain spinsters?”
“Oh,no! Certainly not. I came very near it, didn't I—apparently, at least? I rather imagined I detected a gleam of compassion in your eyes once or twice.”
He colored under her laughing gaze—so it had been visible! He had been cur enough to let it be visible!
“We like Mr. Agens, too,” she went on, sparing him, “and his wife. She was very shy, of course, poor dear, but we——”
“You were as kind to her as you were to me, I don't doubt,” said Sheldon with conviction.
“But there's no credit in that—one likes to be kind. Besides, we weren't especially so—we were dying of boredom. Even a family like ours gets tired of itself sometimes. Of course, at home——”
“This isn't like home.”
“There aren't any homes in the Catskills—only boarding-houses.”
“That doesn't sound like you—it's too satirical.”
“Then I'll withdraw it. I don't want to shatter your ideal.”
“It's a high one,” he said; “but you can't shatter it, because it's none too high.”
Supper was awaiting them when they reached the hotel, and as soon as it was over Sheldon grabbed Agens's arm and marched him sternly away to the clump of trees before the house.
“Now, you insufferable hypocrite,” he began, “fill your pipe and then I'll have it out with you.”
Agens chuckled as he got out his tobacco.
“Well, you did make a fool of yourself, didn't you?”
“You made a fool of me. They're the nicest girls going.”
“They are—with one exception.”
“The whole family took compassion on me.”
“They did—I accomplished that for you. I told you I had paved the way—but I paved it with pity, not with admiration. You should have heard me when I got the tremolo stop on.”
“Confound you! I might have made an awful ass of myself.”
“I confidently expected you to.”
“And you'd have let me?”
“I certainly should.”
“Oh, no, you wouldn't!”
“My son,” said Agens solemnly, “I've undertaken the task of impressing you with the advantages and delights of the married state. I had first to break down your insufferable conceit.”
“Go on,” said Sheldon, as “The Rock” paused. “Don't spare the bludgeon.”
“I intend to go on, for you deserve the bludgeon; only wait till I get my pipe to going. This is a bit of educational work—missionary work—which I've undertaken purely for your own good. Besides, my wife wants to see you married.”
“She's very kind,” remarked Sheldon, “to interest herself——”
“Oh, it's not in you she's interested,” interrupted Agens.“How could she be when she has me? I fancy she fears that while you're single you'll have a sort of detrimental influence on me—lowering, you know.”
Sheldon placed his pipe carefully in the crotch of a tree, swooped down upon Agens, caught him by the knees, tipped him back upon the grass and sat on him. Then he worked his legs violently up and down.
“Oh, oh!” yelled “The Rock.” “Get off, you brute. Help! Murder!”
“Lowering, hey?” growled Sheldon, bouncing up and down.
“Oh, oh! I wondered—how much—you'd stand. Help!”
“Yell away; you don't get up yet a while.”
The victim writhed desperately, but to no avail. Meanwhile the bouncing continued with clocklike regularity.
“Help! Murder!” yelled “The Rock” hoarsely again, and this time there was an answering cry and a rush of feet toward them.
“Oh, what is it?” cried a voice. “Is it you, Harry?”
“Yes, Mrs. Agens,” answered Sheldon grimly, over his shoulder, “it's Harry. I'm giving him a little dose of medicine for his own good. He hasn't the nerve to take it quietly, like a man.”
“He—he's killing me!” gasped Agens, between bumps. “Heave—a rock—at him—Edith! Smash him—in the—head!”
“Oh, but I can't! Oh, Mr. Sheldon——”
“It's for his own good,” repeated Sheldon. “He'll recover in time, Mrs. Agens. I never knew the treatment to be fatal.”
“Edith,” cried “The Rock,” with a last flash of inspiration, “get his—pipe there—in the tree. Smash it—against the—trunk!”
Sheldon turned pale at the thought. “No, no,” he protested. “Don't touch it, Mrs. Agens; I'll let him up!”
He arose quickly, and Agens lay for a moment panting.
“He'll be all right in a second,” said Sheldon reassuringly, as he took possession of his beloved meerschaum and struck a match. “He's just winded. He's grown too fat.”
“The Rock” picked up his pipe and lit it calmly.
“All right,” he said; “we're quits—only I got the best of it, Edith. My fun lasted nearly two days! How did you happen down this way?”
“I was looking for you. I want you and Mr. Sheldon to take me a boat ride.”
“You don't want me at all,” said Sheldon, “and you know it. I'll vamoose.”
“No, really!” she cried. “I do want you. We do want him, don't we, Harry?”
Sheldon fancied he detected a sort of telegraphic exchange of signals between them.
“Of course we want you,” echoed Agens. “Come on, old man.”
“Is this another plot?” demanded Sheldon. “Are you going to take me out there and drown me?”
“A plot?” laughed Mrs. Agens. “What nonsense!”
“You're dreaming!” said Agens, and led him away.
They drifted up and down, talking and talking, taking no heed of the flight of time. When they got back to the house Sheldon was astonished to find how late it was. His companions seemed to be astonished, too, but he fancied that he saw Agens wink at his wife.
“Suppose we go up the ridge in the morning, Deacon,” suggested “The Rock” as they paused to say good-night at the stair-head.
“We? Do you mean to say you'll go? Why, you're too lazy!”
“Shall I knock for you?”
“All right; but if I wait till you knock I'll miss breakfast.”
“You'll see,” said Agens. “Good-night.”
He was as good as his word, for Sheldon was just turning over with a self-satisfied smile in the morning when the door opened and Agens stuck in his head.
“Get up, you beggar,” he called threateningly, “and shake a leg, or I'll be off without you.”
“Is that you or your ghost, Rock?”
“It's I, all right!”
“Walking in your sleep? Oh, I see; hypnotized by that bluff you made last night.”
“I give you three minutes,” said Agens, and shut the door.
Three minutes was more than Sheldon needed, and he was downstairs well inside the limit.
“But I can't understand,” he repeated, as he steered “The Rock” carefully away from the barnyard, where he suspected the milkmaid was at work. “It seems incredible to see you awake at this hour of the morning. How marriage has changed you!”
“Solicitude for your health, my son,” Agens assured him, and turned away his head to hide a fiendish grin.
They walked on for some moments in silence, breathing deep draughts of the clear air, relishing the perfect morning.
“Here's the woods,” said Sheldon at last. “Look up the valley.”
They gazed a moment without speaking—at the green hills, the white houses, the silver stream sparkling over its rocky bed—and then resumed the upward journey. It was not such easy going now, for the underbrush was very dense in places, and Agens was soon flying signals of distress. Sheldon stopped and looked at him.
“Want to go back, Rock?” he asked.
“No; I'll go on. This ought to reduce my weight a little.”
“You are too fat, and that's a fact. But you always were lazy. I don't understand what possesses you this morning, man.”
“Never mind; let's go on.”
So on they went and up, until “The Rock's” breathing came in gasps and profuse perspiration bathed him from head to foot. Sheldon stopped again.
“I say, Rock,” he protested, “this is torture. You sit down here and rest, and I'll go up to the summit and then come back for you. It isn't much farther—I can do it in fifteen minutes, and you can get your wind again.”
“No,” said Agens, mopping his face, “I'm going with you.”
“You're not.”
“Will you go clear to the summit?”
“Yes.”
“And on top of the big rock there?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
“All right; go ahead,” and he sat down on a mossy stone with a great sigh of relief.
Sheldon paused a moment, looking down at him with speculative eye; then he turned and pushed his way upward.
Ten minutes later he came out upon the summit, just beneath the great boulder, and the full glory of the morning burst upon him. It flooded his soul, it set his heart to singing and his lips to repeating those brave lines of Lowell's:
“Over our manhood bend the skies;
Against our fallen and traitor lives
The great winds utter prophecies;
With our faint hearts the mountain strives;
Its arms outstretched, the druid wood
Waits with its benedicite;
And to our age's drowsy blood
Still shouts the inspiring sea.”
Yet a moment he stood drinking in the morning, with a face somewhat touching in its earnestness—then he turned to scramble up Old Sentinel. But he stopped, petrified. For upon its topmost pinnacle sat a figure—a white-waisted, blue-skirted figure—and the hat that it wore was a broad-brimmed sailor with a blue ribbon.
CONTINUED IN THE JUNE JOURNAL