"Well, neither it is, sir--_such_ compet.i.tors," said Georgia, scornfully. "I should like a greater conquest than that."

"Georgia's ambition takes a bolder flight; she looks down on the common people of this world," said Mrs. Murray, with a peculiar smile.

Georgia colored at the implied rebuke, but her disdainful look remained.

Father Murray looked at her half pityingly, half sorrowfully.

"It will not do, Georgia," he said kindly: "you will have to stop. The Mountain of High-and-Mighty-dom is a very dazzling eminence to be sure, but the sun shines brighter in the valley below."

At that moment Fly entered for her young mistress, and Georgia arose to go.

"Good-by, Mrs. Murray; good-by, Em; good-night, Father Murray."

"Good-night, Georgia," he said, laying his hand on her shining, haughty young head, "and Heaven bless you, my child!"

She folded her hands almost meekly to receive his benediction, and feeling as though that blessing were sorely needed, she pa.s.sed out and was gone.

Gone! As for you and me, reader, the _child_ Georgia has gone forever.

Let the curtain drop on the first act in her drama of life, to rise when the child shall be a woman.

CHAPTER IX.

OLD FRIENDS MEET.

"It was not thus in other days we met; Hath time and absence taught thee to forget?"

And three years pa.s.sed away.

Elsewhere these three years might have wrought strange changes, but they made few in good old Burnfield. The old, never-ending, but ever new routine of births, and deaths, and marriages went on; children were growing up to be men and women--there were no young _ladies_ and _gentlemen_ in Burnfield--and other children were taking their place.

The only marked change was the introduction of a railway, that brought city people to the quiet sea-coast town every summer, and gave a sort of impetus to the stagnating business of the place. Very dazzling and bewildering to the eyes of the sober-going Burnfieldians were those dashing city folks, who condescended to patronize them with a lofty superiority quite overwhelming.

One other change these three years had wrought--the girl Georgia was a woman in looks and stature, the handsome, haughty, capricious belle of Burnfield. Time had pa.s.sed unmarked by any incident worth mentioning.

Life was rather monotonous in that little sea-sh.o.r.e cottage, and Georgia might have stagnated with the rest but for the fiery life in her heart that would never be at rest long enough to suffer her to fall into a lethargy.

Georgia's physical and mental education had been rapidly progressing during these three years. She could manage a boat with the best oarsman in Burnfield; and often, when the winds were highest and the sea roughest, her light skiff--a gift from an admirer--might be seen dancing on the waters like a sea-gull, with the tall, slight form of a young girl guiding it through the foam, her wild black eyes lit up with the excitement of the moment, looking like some ocean G.o.ddess, or the queen of the storm riding the tempest she had herself raised.

Georgia braved all dangers because they brought her excitement, and she would have lived in a constant fever if she could; danger sent the hot blood bounding through her veins like quicksilver, and fear was a feeling unknown to her high and daring temperament. So when the typhus fever once, a year previously, raged through the town, carrying off hundreds, and every one fled in terror, she braved it all, entered every house where it appeared in its most malignant form, braved storm, and night, and danger to nurse the pest-stricken, and became the guardian-angel of the town. And this--not, reader, from any high and holy motive, not from that heavenly charity, that inspires the heroic Sister of Charity to do likewise--but simply because there was excitement in it, because she was fearless for herself and exulted in her power at that moment, and perhaps, to do Georgia justice, she was urged by a humane feeling of pity for the neglected sufferers. She watched by the dead and dying, she boldly entered lazar houses where no one else would tread, and she did not take the disease. Her high, perfect bodily health, her fine organization and utter fearlessness, were her safeguards. Georgia had already obtained a sort of mastery over the townfolks; that deference was paid to her that simple minds always pay to lofty ones; but now her power was complete. She reigned among them a crowned queen; the dark-eyed, handsome girl had obtained a mastery over them she could never lose; she had only to raise her finger to have them come at her beck; she was beginning to realize her childish dream of power, and she triumphed in it. And so, free, wild, glad, and untamed, the young conqueress reigned, queen of the forest and river, and a thousand human hearts; looked up to, as comets are--something to admire and wonder at, at a respectful distance.

Under the auspices of Father Murray her education had progressed rapidly. As his congregation was not very numerous, his labors were not very arduous, and he found a good deal of spare time for himself. Being a profound scholar, he determined to devote himself to the education of his little niece Emily, and at her solicitation Georgia also became his pupil. Poor, simple, happy little Emily was speedily outstripped and left far behind by her gifted companion, who mastered every science with a rapidity and ease really wonderful. By nature she was a decided linguist, and learned French, and German, and Latin with a quickness that delighted the heart of good Father Murray. All the religious training the wild girl had ever received in her life was imbibed now, but even yet it was only superficial; it just touched the surface of her sparkling nature, nothing sunk in. She professed no particular faith; she believed in no formal creed; she worshiped the Lord of the mighty sea and the beautiful earth, the ruler of the storm and king of the universe, in a wild, strange, exultant way of her own, but she looked upon all professed creeds as so many trammels that no one with an independent will could ever submit to. Ah! it was Georgia's hour of highest earthly happiness then; she did not know how the heart of all atheists, infidels, and heretics cry out involuntarily to that merciful All Father in their hour of sorrow. Georgia was as one who "having eyes saw not, having ears heard not." In the summer time of youth, and health, and happiness she _would not_ believe, and it was only like many others when the fierce wintry tempest beat on her unsheltered head, when the dark night of utter anguish closed around her, she fell at the feet of Him who "doeth all things well," offering not a fresh, unworldly heart, but one crushed, and rent, and consumed to calcined ashes in the red heat of her own fiery pa.s.sions.

Georgia rarely went to church; her place of worship was the dark solemn, old primeval forest, where, lying under the trees, listening to the drowsy twittering of the birds for her choir, she would dream her wild, rainbow-tinted visions of a future more glorious than this earth ever realized. Ah! the dreams of eighteen!

It was a wild, bl.u.s.terous afternoon in early spring, a dark, dry, windy day. Miss Jerusha, the same old cast-iron vestal as of yore, sat in the best room, knitting away, just as you and I, reader, first saw her on Christmas Eve five years ago, just looking as if five minutes instead of years had pa.s.sed since then, so little change is there in her own proper person or in that awe-inspiring apartment, the best room. The asthmatic rocking-chair seems to have been attacked with rheumatism since, for its limbs are decidedly of a shaky character, and its consumptive wheeze, as it saws back or forward, betokens that its end is approaching. Curled up at her feet lies that intelligent quadruped, Betsey Periwinkle, gazing with blinking eyes in the fire, and deeply absorbed in her own reflections. A facetious little gray-and-white kitten (Betsey's youngest), is amusing itself running round and round in a frantic effort to catch its own little shaving-brush of a tail, varying the recreation by making desperate dives at Miss Jerusha's ball of stocking yarn, and invariably receives a kick in return that sends it flying across the room, but which doesn't seem to disturb its equanimity much. Out in the kitchen that small "cullud pusson," Fly, is making biscuits for supper, and diffusing around her a most delightful odor of good things. Miss Jerusha sits silently knitting for a long time with pursed-up lips, only glancing up now and then when an unusually high blast makes the little homestead shake, but at last the spirit moves her, and she speaks:

"It's abominable! it's disgraceful! the neglect of parents nowadays!

letting their young 'uns run into all sorts of danger, and without no insurance on 'em neither. If that there little chap was mine, I'd switch him within an inch of his life afore I'd let him carry on with such capers. He'll be drowned just as sure as shootin', and sarve him right, too, a venturesome, fool-hardy little limb! You, Fly!"

Miss Jerusha's voice has lost none of its shrillness and sharpness under the mollifying influence of Old Father Time.

"Yes, Mist," sings out Fly, in a shrill treble.

"Ken you see that little viper yet, or has he got drownded?"

"He's a-driftin' out'n de riber, ole Mist; shill I run and tell his folks when I puts der biscuits in de oben?" says Fly, straining her eyes looking out of the kitchen window.

"No, you sha'n't do no sich thing! if his folks don't think he's worth a-lookin' arter thimselves, I ain't a-goin' to put myself out noways 'bout it. _Let_ him drown, ef he's a mind to, and perhaps they'll look closer arter the rest. A young 'un more or less ain't no great loss.

Don't let them ere biscuits burn, you Fly! or it'll be wuss for you! I wish Georgia was here; it's time she was to hum."

"_Quand un parle du diable on en voit le vue!_" says a clear, musical voice, and the present Georgia, a tall, superbly formed girl, with the shining eyes, and glossy hair of her childhood, but with a higher bloom and brighter smile than that tempestuous childhood ever knew, enters and stands before her, her dark hair blown out by the wind that has sent a deeper glow to her dark crimson cheeks, and a more vivid light to her splendid eyes.

"Oh, you've come, hev you?" says Miss Jerusha, rather crossly, "and a talkin' of Hebrew and Greek, and sich other unG.o.dly lingo, again. It's suthin' bad, I know, or you wouldn't be a sayin' of it in thim onchristian langergers. I allurs said nothin' good would come of your heavin' away of your time and larning thim. I know it ain't right; don't sound as if it war. I feel it in my bones that it ain't. Where hev you bin?"

"Over to Emily's," Georgia said, laughingly, as she s.n.a.t.c.hed up Betsey Periwinkle, junior, and stroked her soft fur. "What did you want me for when I came in?"

"Oh," said Miss Jerusha, "it's all along of that little imp, Johnny Smith, as has been and gone and went out in a boat, and I expect is upsot and gone to the bottom afore this."

Georgia sprang to her feet in consternation.

"What! gone out in a boat! to-day! that child! Miss Jerusha, what do you mean?"

"Why, just what I say," said Miss Jerusha, testily; "that there little cuss has a taste for drowndin', for he's never out of a boat when he can get into one, and I do b'lieve it's more'n half your fault, too, abringing of him out with you every day in your derned little egg-sh.e.l.l of a skiff. Ef he hain't got to the bottom before this it's a wonder."

"Oh, that child! that child! he will be drowned! Good Heaven, Miss Jerusha, why did you not send and tell his parents?"

"Well, 'taint my place to look arter other folks' young 'uns, is it?"

said Miss Jerusha, shifting uneasily under the stern, indignant gaze bent upon her. "Let every tub stand on its own bottom, _I_ say."

"Oh, Miss Georgia! Miss Georgia!" cried Fly, excitedly, "dar he is! run right into dat ar rock out'n de riber, an' now he can't get off, an' de tide is a risin' so fast he'll be swep' off pooty soon."

Georgia sprang to the window and looked out. The river, swollen and turbid by the spring freshets, and lashed into fury by the high winds, was one sheet of white foam, like the land in a December snow-storm. The boat had struck a high rock, or rather small island, out in the river, and there stood a lad of about ten years old with outstretched arms, evidently shrieking for help; but his cries were drowned in the uproar of the winds and waves. In ten minutes it was evident the sea would sweep over the rock, and then----

Georgia with a wild, frenzied gesture, turned and fled from the house, seized two light oars that lay outside the door, threw them over her shoulder, and sped with the lightness and fleetness of a mountain deer down the rocks to the beach.

"Oh, Miss Jerry! Miss Jerry! she's a-goin' arter him," shrieked Fly.

"Oh, laudy! dey'll bof be drowned _dead_! Oh! Oh! Oh!" And shrieking, Fly rushed out and darted off toward the nearest house to tell the news.

New settlers had lately come to Burnfield, and Miss Jerusha's nearest neighbors, the parents of the venturesome little Smith, lived within a quarter of a mile of her. Mercury himself was not a fleeter messenger than Fly, and soon the Smiths and other people around were alarmed and hurrying in crowds to the beach. As Fly, still screaming out the news, was darting hither and thither, a hand was laid on her arm, and looking up, she saw a gentleman, young and handsome, m.u.f.fled in a Spanish cloak, and with his hat pulled down over his eyes.

"What's all this uproar about, my good girl? Where are all these people hurrying to?" he asked, arresting her.

"Oh, to der beach! Miss Georgia will be drowned," cried Fly, breaking from him, and darting off among the crowd.

The stranger hurried on with the rest, and a very few minutes brought him to the beach, already thronged with the alarmed neighbors. On a high rock stood Miss Jerusha, wringing her hands and gesticulating wildly, and more wildly urging the men to go to Georgia's a.s.sistance, going through all the phrases of the potential mood, "exhorting, commanding, entreating," in something after the following fashion: