The Sealed Message

It was a sultry July afternoon, and in the azure arch of the firmament flamed an unclouded sun. The corn was ripening to a rich yellow in some meadows, and the newly mown hay in others was being piled on lumbering wains by perspiring laborers. The red earth of the sunken lanes was caked, and their blossoming hedges were burnt up by the merciless heat. Under spreading foliage, or knee-deep in rapidly drying pools, stood weary cattle, switching lazy tails to brush away the teasing flies. Honey-bees, ostentatiously industrious, buzzed noisily from flower to flower, and the sleepy birds twittered faintly midst the grateful shade of leaves. The land was parched for want of rain, and the languid hours dragged on slowly to the wished-for evening. On some such day, long ago, must Elijah have sent his servant up the mount to watch for the growing of the small black cloud.

Only by the trout stream was the weather endurable, for the overhanging trees made the atmosphere of translucent green deliciously cool. Yet here and there spears of dazzling light pierced through the emerald twilight to smite the waters. These moved smoothly in amber floods between the grassy banks, and in places swirled pearly-white round moss-grown stones. The stream brawled over pebbles, gushed through granite rifts, and gloomed mysteriously in deep and silent pools, gleaming mirror-like under exposed tree trunks. May-flies dipped to the waters, swallows darted through the warm air, and kingfishers glanced here and there, each a flash of blue fire. And ever the river talked to the voiceless woods as it babbled seawards. From the woods came no reply, for the wind had died away, and the tongues of multitudinous leaves could no longer speak. Had they been able even to whisper, they surely would have rebuked the gay spirits of the two young men who had invaded their sacred solitude.

"This is simply ripping," murmured one, who lay on his back with a battered Panama over his eyes, "we are doing ourselves up to the top hole, I don't think. Heavenly, ain't it?"

"It would be, if you did not chatter," retorted the other, fixing a fly on his line; "why do you desecrate this beauty with slang?"

"Because I'm not a poet like you to spout blank verse."

"There is a medium between mutilation of the language and pedantic usage thereof."

"Huh!" with scorn, "who's pedantic now?"

"My dear Tod, as a lawyer, you should use better English."

"It is only a barrister who requires a superfine jaw," retorted Tod elegantly, "and I'm only a solicitor of sorts. Don't worry, Haskins."

Aware of the futility of argument, the other man merely shrugged his square shoulders and threw a skilful line in a pool wherein lurked a famous wary trout. The fly fell lightly on the water, and would have deceived any fish but the trout in question. There was no response to his dilly-duck-come-and-be-killed invitation, and the angler made another cast with still less success as the fly hit the stream heavily, scaring the trout into retreat. Haskins said one word under his breath, but Tod overheard and giggled. That was exactly like Tod Macandrew: he had no sense of the fitness of things.

"Silly ass!" commented his friend savagely, spinning up the line, "you frighten the fish."

"Not on to your hook, anyhow," chuckled Tod into the depths of his hat, "what a sinfully bad angler you are, Jerry."

"As bad an angler as you are a lover, perhaps," snapped Gerald, throwing his rod on the grass and squatting to manufacture a cigarette.

Tod sat up abruptly with a wounded air. "I call that beastly: to taunt a chap, because a girl won't bite."

"Won't kiss, you mean."

"I'm taking an illustration from your infernal angling," said Tod, with aggressive dignity. "If you were a lover yourself you would understand."

"Oh, I understand well enough," replied the other lightly: he paused to run his tongue along the tissue paper, then added calmly: "I was in love with Charity Bird myself, before you came along, Tod."

"Well, now that I have come along, perhaps you'll call her Miss Bird."

"Right oh! Miss Bird in the hand is worth two----"

"There are not two," interrupted Macandrew indignantly, "but only one schoolgirl cousin. As if," cried Tod to the woods, "I would sell myself."

Gerald Haskins cast a sly look on Tod's ungraceful figure. "I see: you present yourself to Miss Bird as a desirable gift?"

"Well, she wouldn't have you as a gift, anyhow, for all your Family Herald good looks, and halfpenny journal fame."

"Notoriety, Tod, notoriety only. A volume of verse, a book of stories and a dozen of essays do not give me the right to class myself along with the immortals. I'm a failure at thirty, Tod--in my own eyes, I mean. Think of that, Tod, a failure at thirty."

"Don't chuck it," advised Macandrew politely, "you may be a success at forty."

"That won't compensate me for coming grey hairs and inevitable wrinkles," said the other bitterly, and smoked in dour silence.

Tod crossed his legs and held forth.

"Gerald Wentworth Julian Haskins," he remarked solemnly, "all the fairies came to your nasty little cradle with gifts save the one who could have endowed you with gratitude. Consider your beastly good looks, and abominably healthy constitution, and silly popularity, not to speak of your undeserved five hundred a year private income, and take shame to yourself. Why with half your advantages I could marry Charity to-morrow."

"H'm! The advantages you mention were practically offered to her, but she didn't seem to desire possession. I expect she prefers the last representative of an ancient Scots family with an embarrassed estate, a reputation as a rising solicitor, and a heart of gold enshrined in an agreeable-looking body."

"Agreeable-looking!" Words failed Tod, and he sprang up to wreath a strong arm round Gerald's neck. Haskins remonstrated as well as he could for laughter, but was forced to the very verge of the bank. Here Tod made him look into the mirror of the still pool below. "Caliban and Ferdinand: Apollo and Vulcan: Count D'Orsay and John Wilkes," growled Macandrew. "Look at this picture and at that, you blighter."

Almost choking, for Tod was powerful and none too gentle in his grip, Gerald humored his friend sufficiently to stare into the water glass, thinking meanwhile of a near revenge. He saw his own handsome brown face with bronze-colored hair and mustache of the same hue, curling under a straight Greek nose, which divided two hazel eyes. He saw also Macandrew's round, ruddy countenance, devoid of hair on chin and lips and cheeks, but haloed with crisp red curls, suggestive of his foxy nickname. Tod assuredly could not be called good-looking, with freckles and wide mouth and aquiline nose, proof of high descent. But so much good humor and genuine honesty gleamed from his sea-blue eyes that he did himself a gross injustice in undervaluing a most ingratiating appearance. Tod was Tod, when all was said and done; the best fellow in the world, and the most unnecessarily modest. But Haskins was not going to pander to Tod's desire for compliments.

"You footling idiot," he breathed, possessed by a spirit of mischief, "as if you weren't worth a dozen of me. Talk about ingratitude--you shall be punished, my friend--thus!" and souse into the pool they went. When Tod got his breath again, after some spluttering, he used it to a bad purpose. Gerald, keeping himself afloat, watched the stout little man climb the bank dripping like an insane river god, and heard him excel himself in language which he could scarcely have used in court.

"I'll pay you out for this," swore Tod, hastily stripping off his wet flannels, and Haskins, fearing his righteous wrath, swam upstream, clothes and all, with light easy strokes, laughing until the woods rang.

"What about your confounded fish?" sang out Macandrew, when his apparel was drying in the hot sun, and he was sitting unashamed amid the grass. "You won't catch any more."

"I haven't caught any as it is," shouted Gerald, swimming back. "I want to come ashore. Pax, Toddy, Pax, you--you unclothed biped."

"Wait till I get you here," cried Tod, shaking his fist.

"He is not wise who ventures into the enemy's camp," quoth Haskins, and crossed to the opposite bank of the stream. Owing to the heat he had earlier shed all his clothing save a silk shirt and a pair of flannel trousers, so there was not much left to dry. In a few minutes he also was sitting in Adamic simplicity on the farther shore, imploring Tod to throw over a tobacco pouch and a pipe. But Tod wouldn't: and smoked, chuckling, on his side of the stream, while Haskins remonstrated. "I'll sleep then," announced Gerald, seeing that his efforts to soften Macandrew were unavailing.

"No, don't," shouted Tod. "I want to talk about her."

"Not a word, unless I get my smoke."

"Here you are then," and Macandrew threw across the necessary materials for the pipe of peace. "Now then!" he cried, and the woods rang with his cry. "What am I to do about Charity?"

"Marry her," cried back Haskins, lighting his briar; and after that introduction the conversation resolved itself into high-pitched talking from bank to bank, while the stream rippled between. It was lucky that no one was within hearing--as the young men well knew--for Tod shouted out his dearest secrets to the wide world.