THE HONEYMOON.
“Around the very place doth brood
A calm and holy quietude.”—Rev.
Isaac Williams.
The level beams of a summer sun, ending one of his
longest careers, were tipping a mountain peak with
an ineffable rosy purple, contrasting with the deep
shades of narrow ravines that cleft the rugged sides,
and gradually expanded into valleys, sloping with green
pasture, or clothed with wood. The whole picture,
with its clear, soft sky, was retraced on the waters
of the little lake set in emerald meadows, which lay
before the eyes of Rachel Keith, as she reclined in
a garden chair before the windows of a pretty rustic-looking
hotel, but there was no admiration, no peaceful contemplation
on her countenance, only the same weary air of depression,
too wistful and startled even to be melancholy repose,
and the same bewildered distressed look that had been
as it were stamped on her by the gaze of the many
unfriendly eyes at the Quarter Sessions, and by her
two unfortunate dinner parties.
The wedding was to have been quietness itself, but
though the bridegroom had refused to contribute sister,
brother-in-law, or even uncle to the numbers, conventionalities
had been too strong for Mrs. Curtis, and “just
one more” had been added to the guests till a
sufficient multitude had been collected to renew all
Rachel’s morbid sensations of distress and bewilderment
with their accompanying feverish symptoms, and she
had been only able to proceed on her journey by very
short stages, taken late in the day.
Alick had not forgotten her original views as to travelling,
and as they were eventually to go to Scotland, had
proposed beginning with Dutch reformatories and Swiss
cretins; but she was so plainly unfit for extra fatigue
and bustle, that the first few weeks were to be spent
in Wales, where the enjoyment of fine scenery might,
it was hoped, be beneficial to the jaded spirits,
and they had been going through a course of passes
and glens as thoroughly as Rachel’s powers would
permit, for any over-fatigue renewed feverishness and
its delusive miseries, and the slightest alarm told
upon the shattered nerves.
She did not easily give way at the moment, but the
shock always took revenge in subsequent suffering,
which all Alick’s care could not prevent, though
the exceeding charm of his tenderness rendered even
the indisposition almost precious to her.
“What a lovely sunset!” he said, coming
to lean over the back of her chair. “Have
you been watching it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you very much tired?”
“No, it is very quiet here.”
“Very; but I must take you in before that curling
mist mounts into your throat.”
“This is a very nice place, Alick, the only
really quiet one we have found.”
“I am afraid that it will be so no longer.
The landlord tells me he has letters from three parties
to order rooms.”
