A Maid in Arcady

The clear water of the little river, in which the willows were mirrored quiveringly, shallowed where a tiny bar of silver-white sand thrust the ripples aside. Thus confined, the stream sulked for a moment in a deep, pellucid pool, and then, with sudden rush and gurgle, swept through a miniature narrows and swirled about the naked roots of the willows.

With a quick plunge of the paddle Ethan guided the canoe past the threatening bar. A drooping branch swept his face caressingly as the craft gained the quiet water beyond. Here, as though repentant of its impatience, the river loitered and lapped about a massive granite bowlder, tugging playfully at the swaying ferns and tossing scintillant drops upon the velvety moss. To the left, the fringe of woodland which, in friendly gossip, had followed the little river for a quarter of a mile, parted where a second stream, scarcely more than a brook, flowed placidly into the first. Reinforced, the river widened a little and went slowly, musically on under the drooping branches, alternately sun-splashed and shadowed, until it disappeared at a distant turn. But the canoe did not follow. Instead it rocked lazily by the bowlder, while the ripples broke gently against its smooth sides.

To the bole of an old willow which dropped its leaves in autumn upon the white sand-bar was nailed a weather-gray board, on which faded letters stated:

PRIVATE PROPERTY!

NO TRESPASSING!

Ethan observed the warning meditatively. In view of his later course of action let us credit him with that hesitation. At length, with a faint smile on his face, he turned the nose of the canoe toward the smaller stream and his back to the sign.

To have observed him one would scarcely have believed him capable of deliberately committing the dire crime of trespass. There was something about his good-looking face which bespoke honesty. At least, it would have been difficult to credit him with underhand methods; it seemed easier to believe that if he ever did commit a crime it would be in such a superbly open and above-board fashion as to rob it of half its iniquity. Not that there was anything of classical beauty about his face. His eyes were a shade of brown, his nose was perhaps a trifle too short to reach the standard of the Grecians, his mouth, unhidden by any mustache, did not to any great extent suggest a Cupid’s bow. His chin was aggressive. For the rest, he had the usual allowance of hair of a not uncommon shade of brown, and showed, when he laughed which was by no means infrequently――a set of very white and very capable looking teeth. And yet I reiterate my former adjective; good-looking he was; good-looking in a healthy, frank, happy and rather boyish way that was eminently satisfying.

If the sign on the old willow was right, and he really was trespassing, I have no excuse to offer, or at least none that my conscience will allow me to suggest. I can’t plead ignorance for him, for the simple reason that he had seen the sign and read it and that he knew all about trespass――or as much as was taught in the three-year course at the Harvard Law School, which he had finished barely a fortnight ago.

Meanwhile he has been sending the canoe quietly along the winding water path, dipping the paddle with easy, rhythmic swings of his shoulders, pushing the blade astern through the clear water and swinging it, flashing and dripping, back for the next stroke. He had tossed his light cloth cap into the bottom of the canoe and had laid his coat over a thwart. The summer morning sunlight, slanting through the branches, wove quickly vanishing patterns in gold upon his brown hair. The tiny breeze, just a mere breath from the southwest, fragrant with the odor of damp, sun-warmed soil and greenery, stirred the sheer white shirt he wore and laid it in folds under the raised arm.

The brook was rather shallow; everywhere the pebbled bottom was visible. It was a whimsical brook, full of sudden turns and twistings; rounding tiny promontories of alder and sheepberry, dipping into quiet bays where bush honeysuckles were dripping sweetness from their pale yellow funnels, skirting curving beaches of white sand where standing armies of purple flags held themselves stiffly at attention and restrained the invasion of the eager, swaying fern-rabble.

He had gone several hundred yards by this time against the slow current, and now there was evident a change in the foliage lining the banks, even in the banks themselves. Artifice had aided nature. Pink and white and yellow lilies dotted the stream, while at a little distance a slender, graceful stone bridge arched from shore to shore. Woodbine clustered about it and threw cool, trembling leaf-shadows against the sunlit stones. The arch framed a charming vista of the brook beyond. The canoe slipped noiselessly under the bridge and the strip of shadow rested gratefully for an instant on Ethan’s face. On the left there was a momentary break in the foliage and a brief glimpse of a wide expanse of velvety turf. Then another turn, the canoe brushing aside the broad lily-pads, and the end of the journey had come, and, sitting with motionless paddle, he gazed spellbound.

II.

The banks of the stream fell suddenly away on either side and the canoe glided slowly and softly into a miniature lake. It was perhaps twenty yards across at its widest place and much more than that in length. Occasionally a far-reaching branch threw trembling shadows on the water, but for the most part the trees stood back from the margin of the pool and allowed the fresh green turf to descend unhampered to the water’s edge. At a point farthest from where Ethan had entered a little cascade tumbled. On all sides the ground sloped slightly upward, and in one place a group of larches crowned the summit of a knoll and mingled their delicate branches far above the neighboring maples. Almost concealed among them an uncertain gleam of white caught at moments through the trees to the right suggested a building of some sort――perhaps the marble temple of the divinity, who, seated on the bank with her bare sandaled feet crossed before her, observed the intruder with calm, dreamy, almost smiling unconcern.

It was a beautiful scene into which Ethan had floated. Overhead was a blue sky against which a few soft white clouds hung seemingly motionless as though, like Narcissus, they had become enamored of their reflections in the pool there below. On a tiny islet in the pool, dwarf willows caressed the water with the tips of their pendulous branches. Further on a trio of white swans sunned themselves, and about the margin the bosom of the pool was carpeted with lily-pads and starred with a multitude of fragrant blooms, white, rose-hued, carmine, pale violet, sulphur-colored and blue. The gauze wings of darting dragon-flies caught the sunlight, insects hovered above the flower-cups and in the branches around many a feathered cantatrice was singing her heart out. And for background there was always the varied green of encircling trees.

Yes, it was very beautiful, but Ethan had no eyes for it. With paddle still suspended between gunwale and water he was staring in a fashion at once depicting surprise, curiosity, and admiration at the figure on the grass. And what wonder? Who would have thought to find a Grecian goddess under New England skies? Ethan’s thoughts leaped back to mythology and he sought a name for her. Diana? Minerva? Venus? Iris? Penelope?

And all the while――a very little while despite the telling――his eyes ranged from the sandaled feet to the warm brown hair with its golden fillet. A single garment of gleaming white reached from the feet to the shoulders where it was caught together on either side with a metal clasp. The arms were bare, youthfully slender, aglow in the sunlight. And yet it was to the eyes that his gaze returned each time. “Minerva!” his thoughts triumphed, “‘Minerva, goddess azure-eyed!’” And yet in the next instant he knew that while her eyes were undeniably blue she was no wise Minerva. Such youthful softness belonged rather to Iris or Daphne or Syrinx.

And all the while――just the little time it took for the canoe to glide from the stream well into the pool――she had been regarding him tranquilly with her deep blue eyes, her bare arms, stretching downward to the grass, supporting her in an attitude suggesting recent recumbency. And now, as the craft brushed the lily-pads aside, she spoke.

“Do you not fear the resentment of the gods?” she asked gravely. “It is not wise for a mortal to look upon us.”

“I crave your mercy, O fair goddess,” he answered. “Blame rather this tiny argosy of mine which, propelled by hands invisible, has brought me hither. I doubt not that the gods hold me in enchantment.” He mentally patted himself on the back; it wasn’t so bad for an impromptu!

She leaned forward and sunk her chin in the cup of one small hand, viewing him intently as though pondering his words.

“It may be so,” she answered presently. “What call you your frail vessel?”

“From this hour, Good Fortune.” Her gaze dropped.

“Will you deign to tell me your name, O radiant goddess?” he continued. She raised her eyes again and he thought a little smile played for a moment over her red lips.

“I am Clytie,” she answered, “a water-nymph. I dwell in this pool. And you, how are you called?”

He answered readily and gravely: “I am Vertumnus, clad thus in mortal guise that I may gain the presence of Pomona. Long have I wooed her, O Nymph of the Pool.”

“I too love unrequited,” she answered sadly. “Apollo has my heart. Though day by day I watch him drive his fiery chariot across the heavens he sees me not.”

She arose and turned her face upward to the sun. Slowly she raised her white arms and stretched them forth in tragic appeal.

“Apollo!” she cried. “Apollo! Hear me! Clytie calls to you!”

Such a passion of melancholy longing spoke in her voice that Ethan thrilled in spite of himself. Unconsciously his gaze followed hers to the blazing orb. The light dazzled his eyes and blinded him for a moment. When he looked again toward the bank it was empty, but between the trees, along the slope, a white garment fluttered and was lost to sight.

“Clytie!” he called in sudden dismay. And again.

“Clytie!”

A wood-thrush in a nearby tree burst into golden melody. But Clytie answered not.

III.

The Roadside Inn at Riverdell sprawls its white length along the old post-road over which many years ago the coaches swayed and rattled between New York and Boston. The Roadside, known in those days as Peppit’s Tavern, has changed but little. The front room over the porch, has held notable guests: Washington, Hancock, Adams, Lafayette and many more. On the tap-room windows you may still find the diamond-etched initials of by-gone celebrities. And much of the old-time atmosphere remains.

The room into which Ethan had his bag taken after his return from his adventure in Arcady was low-ceilinged and dim. The two small windows, one overlooking the dilapidated orchard at the rear and the little river beyond, the other revealing the murmuring depths of a big elm, afforded little light. The floor was delightfully uneven; Ethan went downhill to the washstand and uphill again to the old mahogany bureau. The wide fire-place held a pair of antique andirons coveted by many a visitor, and the narrow shelf above was adorned with an equally desirable brass candlestick and a couple of opaque white glass vases which, ancient as they were, post-dated the shelf itself by half a hundred years. The bedstead, of mahogany, with rolling footboard, had made concessions to modernity. The pegs along the side, from which ropes had once been stretched, remained, but an up-to-date wire spring and hair mattress had superseded the olden furnishings.