Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 February 1900 — AN AMERICAN GIRL ABROAD. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AN AMERICAN GIRL ABROAD.

BY WILLIAM BLACK.

CHAPTER IX—(Continued.) And so once more we arc gilding on through the still, wooded landscape; and the lartyi are filling all the wide spaces of the air with their singing; and the sunlight lies warm on the hedges and fields. And this is Miss Peggy, who is perched up here asteru, with more or less complete control of the tiller; although, as she seems rather absent-eyed, one has to exercise a general sort of surveillance over her. “Why, what’s that?” she exclaims, suddenly, catching sight of something ahead. “It looks like a series of gigantic steps and stairs, doesn’t it? But it is really ■ succession of locks. We have got to climb a hill, that’s about all. And it will be a very tedious process. You’d better go inside and tell them we will have luncheon now’, and send Murdoch out to take the tiller.” By the time luncheon was over Miss Peggy discovered that we were in the last of the locks, and her proposal that we should seize the opportunity to get ashore was unanimously and immediately adopted. We now found ourselves on a considerable height, and all around us lay a richly wooded country, the abundant foliage of which kept shimmering or darkening as the slow-moving sun rays and wide shadows trailed across the landscape. Miss Peggy, as we walked along, spoke but little; perhaps she was peopling those woods and open spaces and darker glades with mysterious phantoms. Her eyes, at any rate, had no mischief in them now. But as we drew' near to Wootton Wawen she turned her attention to the wild flowers we were passing, and from time to time she stooped to add to the little nosegay in her hand. We knew her purpose. We knew whither was going that variegated little collection of red campions, blue hyacinths, yellow bed-straw, purple, self-heal, golden cowslips and the like simple blossoms. “It is a very little trouble,” she says, “and think of the gratitude I shall reap when they get them over there! I suppose T may honestly say, ‘From the Forets of Arden,’ in the letter?” Overhead the silvery gray heavens were now mottled with soft lilac; toward the west were long bands of purple cloud, their lower edges fringed with crimson fire; beneath these, and behind the various clumps of foliage in front of us. were breadfhs of golden yellow, that only reached ns through the darkened branches in mild flashes of light. We had been seriously delayed by one or two difficult bridges. It was resolved to call a halt for the night. Wo were tb be up betimes in the morning, for there was a long day before us, to say nothing of the wild peril and adventure of getting through the King’s Norton and West Hill Tunnels. So we chose out a meadow bank where there were some convenient willow stumps and alder bushes, and there we made fast; and then Murdochnow in the Forest of Arden, and probably wishing he were at home in a better place, though his courtesy would not allow him to say so—was besought to prepare some food for his comrades and brothers in exile.

CHAPTER X. This is Sunday morning, still and beautiful, the sunlight lying warmly over the wide Worcestershire landscape, with its far-stretching valleys and copse-crowned hills, its smiling farms and mansions half hidden among woods. The perfect silence is hardly lessened, rather it seems heightened, by the universal singing of the birds--a multitudinous and joyous din that almost drowns the velvet-soft note of the cuckoo. “Good morning!’’ says Miss Peggy, coming out into the white light with her cheeks fresh-tinted as the rose, and her speedwell-blue eyes shining. “This is a surprise! I made sure it was raining hard—there was such a pattering on the roof ” “And didn't you know what the pattering was?” > “Since it wasn’t rain, I suppose it was rats." “Not - at all. It was birds. They were hopping about in search of crumbs among all that rubbish that we scraped off in the tunnel. Murdoch must get a brush and sweep the roof; it isn’t like him to be so neglectful.” “1 know why,” she says. “He can hardly take his eyes off Col. Cameron; and he listens to nar'one else. 1 suy« pose Col. Cameron Jis a great hero in Murdoch’s eyes.” “Well, you see, the Highlanders have a strong regard for these old families, although the clans and clanship have long been abolished. There isn’t much that a Highlander wouldn’t do for Lochiel, or Cluny, or Lord Lovat, or some of those, and you-must remember that Ewen Cameron’s name is known—slightly—to other people besides the Highlanders.” “I think he is almost too gentle for a soldier, don’t you?” she says. "No, 1 won’t say that, for I like him very much, Aid I’m not the least bit afraid of him now. Yes, I like him very much indeed; und that’s honest now; and I don't see how anyone can help liking him. There is a kind of proud simplicity about him that is so different from—well, from the kind of meek gallantry that yonng men think so fine. Oh, 1 wish girls could talk!” “Can’t tliex?” “I wish they were allowed to speak their minds —some people would be surprised! Why, they’ll come to you—a perfect stranger—and they’ll profess to be so complaisant', mid give them selves such, fascinating' airs, and pretend to be charmed, too, by your superior accomplishments; and they think you're such a fool as not to see through, it ail! .And of course a girl can’t say. ‘Oh, go away and don’t make, a. simpleton of yourself !*” “It certainly would not be usual for a

well brought up young lady to speak in that way.” “It’a only their vanity,” continues Miss Peggy, with contemptuous vehemence. “And what they say to you they say to the next, and to the next dozen, and to the next hundred; and they think that girls are so simple as not to know. Well, we’re simple enough, but we’ve ceased to be infants, I suppose ” How far her indignation might have carried her, it is impossible to guess; but at this moment the door was again opened and out came a tall figure with another “Good morning!” while Miss Peggy was instantly struck silent, and that with some obvious embarrassment. She even flushed slightly; and, to cover her not quite intelligible confusion, one had to say, quickly: “Here is Miss Rosslyn, Cameron, who wants to know' al! about the Highland clans, and the clansmen, and their relations to the chiefs. And about the *45 rising, too; she is to be a partisan of Prince Charlie; she must be turned into a Jacobite if there’s going to be any peace and quietude on board this boat. And who can do that better than yourself?” “Oh, no,” he said, with a smile, “no, no, no; all that is past and gone now. Chiefs and clansmen are alike loyal nowadays; we are the queen’s ‘loyal Highlanders,’ and proud to wear the title.” “Yes, but don’t you understand,” one says to him, “how interesting it must be to an ingenuous young student from America, where all the institutions and habits and customs are comparatively new, to hear of this very old-world state of society; yes, and to hear of it from one related to the people who were ‘out’ in the ’45?”

“Well, when you think of it,” says Inverfask, “it does seem strange that the elan system was actually in existence in the last century, and within a couple of days’ ride—or a single day’s ride, you might almost say—from the city of Edinburgh. And very little the good people of Edinburgh knew about the Highlanders and their ways. I suppose you never heard the story of what happened to Lord Kilmarnock at Falkirk? Lord Kilmarnock had raised a troop of horses for the prince, and had been with him all through the expedition into England, and all through the retreat, and so must have got some knowledge of tbe clansmen and their customs. But what happened at Falkirk no doubt puzzled him. The day after the battle the prince and he were looking down from the window of a house in town, and, to their surprise, they saw a soldier coming along in the English uniform and wearing a black cockade in his hat. Lord Kilmarnock immediately went down stairs and into the street, went up to the man, struck off his hat, and put his foot on the black cockade. The next moment one of the Highlanders standing by had rushed on Lord Kilmarnock and shoved him away; Kilmarnock instantly pulled out his pistol and presented it at bis assailant; the Highlander drew his dirk; and goodness only knows what would have happened if a number of the Highlander’s companions had not interposed on behalf of their comrade and driven Lord Kilmarnock off. And what was it all about? Why, the man with the black cockade was a Cameron who had been in an English regiment, and who, of course, deserted,to join the standard of his chief as soon as he got the chance; and, being a Cameron, the other Camerons standing around would not have him interfered with by anyone, whatever his rank.”

Breakfast over Captain Columbus makes his appearance without, and presently Murdoch is standing at the door of the saloon, awaiting orders. Now, this being Sunday, Queen Tita would rather have given our gay young mariners and their diligent horse a rest; but, as appeared from our noble captain’s report, there were ominous rumors abroad among the canal-folk of intended repairs somewhere or other; and he himself was distinctly of opinion that we should at least push forward and get through the two tunnels. So we assented to that, poled the boat across to the towpath, had the line affixed to the harness, and were once more gliding along. But when we came to the first of the tunnels, we found we had just missed the steam launch, which had disappeared with its long convoy into that black hole in the earth; and as there was now a considerable time for ns to wait, we all got ashore, and proceeded to explore the neighboring wood, which is known as Shortwood Dingle. We Wandered alone through the picturesque dingle, and up to a height from which there is a wide view over the adjacent country, and eventually back to the canal, where there were nowseveral boats besides our own awaiting the arrival of the steam launch. Wheft that far from gay Vessel arrived, we were all water-proofed and ready for the ordeal—all except Mrs. Threepennybit, who preferred to sit by herself in the saloon, awaiting events, and consoling herself with the reflection that these two Tardebigg tunnels were shorter than the West Hill one. Shorter we found them, but’ also much darker; indeed, absolutely dark, for the bargemen did not seem to consider it necessary to light their lamps on this occasion. We scraped and tore our way along first the one tunnel, and then—with an interval of smooth sailing in the white day—through its rock-hewn successor, until, ahead of us in the dark, there grew up and waxed brighter and brighter a sort of fuliginous, confused, opalescent glare; then finally we plunged into that bewildering glory—broirae-hued or stiffr<m-hucd it appeared as we approached it—and suddenly emerged into a sunlighted greenness of foliage and the quietude of the outer world. “How many more of these shall we have to go through?” asks Queen . Tita. “Nat another one; that is the last. The next pbssible danger we have to face is going down the Severn, and I dare say we shall be able to manage somehow. ‘W’c’ll wnrlso through.’ ” “Oh, I don’t mind what it is, so long ns there is,,daylight,”, she aays, and then she adds, looking back Ur the low ercltwayJ of the tunnel, “but I confess I am not

anxious tor any more experiences of that kind.” “But jus* think of the story you wfll have to tell when you go buck to Loudon!” says Miss Peggy, putting her ana round her friend’s neck for a moment, as she is passing along to her cabin, tn get the sand and wet out of her pretty brown hair. CHAPTER XI. The approach to Worcester by way of the canal is extremely pleasant; there are suburban villas on sloping banka and surrounded with gardens, which, at this time of the year, were a mass of blossom. The wharves, when we got to them, were not so captivating, of course; yet we had little reason to complain; for we found the people very good natured. What a wild Maelstrom of a place this was into which we now plunged! The pavements were impassable with crowds of people; our eyes were bewildered with the staring shop windows and signs: our ears distracted with the rattle of innumerable wheels. Our faint recollection of Worcester had been that it was rather an old-fashioned and sleepy town; now we found ourselves suddenly transferred from the remoteness and the silence of those pastoral wanderings into the full roaring blast of nineteenth-century life. “I expected moats and battlements — gates, portcullises, draw bridges, and so on,” said Miss Peggy, as we sat at lunch at the Unicorn, “but" it is quite a modern city.” “It is not a warlike town any longer," her hostess admitted; “it is more of an ecclesiastical town; wait till we take you to the cathedral, and show you all the quaint old buildings attached to it—with their pretty gardens and ivied walls, and their look of learned repose.” Late that night the miniature manageress of this wandering party was in her own -room, engaged in overhauling her millinery purchases of the day, and disposing them so as to admit of their bring packed on the morrow. She seemed a little thoughtful, and was mostly silent; but at length she said, in a cautious sort of way:

“Do you know what Peggy told me before we went to the theater this evening?” “I do not.” “She told me that Col. Cameron had promised to give her some relic from Fassiefern House —a little mirror, I believe.” “I was aware of it.” She looked up quickly. “Oh, you knew?” And then she said, rather slowly, and with no great air of conviction —indeed, she seemed questioning instead of assenting—“l suppose it is nothing. Oh, of course not. It is an interesting thing for an American girl to take home with her, especially when coming from Invcrfask; a souvenir, that" is all.” And yet, somehow, she docs not seem quite satisfied in her own mind. The millinery does not receive much of her attention. Finally she turns from the table altogether. “Do be frank now! tell me!” she says, in a half-pleading, half-frightened way. “Have you noticed anything? Don’t you think that Col. Cameron's admiration for Peggy is just a little too marked? And she herself, too—have you noticed the way in which she speaks of him? Oh, good gracious, I have been trying to shut my eyes and ears; but it anything were to happen between those two, and me responsible!” “But how are you responsible?" one says to this incoherent" person. “We brought them together; isn't that enough?” she exclaims. “And there he is, a widower, twice her age at least, with an encumbered estate; and I suppose hardly anything beyond his pay. Think what her people would say of it! They wouldn't" see any romance in it; they wouldn't find any fascination in her becoming Lady Cameron of Inverfask, and living up there in the north and winning the affection and gratitude of those poor people, which is quite clearly what Sir Ewen was talking about to-day. What do you suppose they care for the traditions of the Highland dans, or for Col. Cameron’s reputation as a soldier, either? Why, it's madness! He ought to marry a rich woman, if he marries at all, and get Inverfask cleared of its burdens, and live there. And she must marry someone with money.” “I think you will find that Peggy will marry the man she wants to marry without" taking your advice or the advice of anyone else.” - (To be continued.)