For Love of Country by Cyrus Townsend Brady (best books to read in your 20s .TXT) 📕

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"I am just twenty-seven, madam, and you, I suppose, are--"

"Never be ungallant enough to suppose a young lady's age. You may do those things in Philadelphia, if you like, but 't is not the custom here. Besides, I mean too young a friend; you have not known me long enough, that is."

"Long enough! I have known you ever since Tuesday of last week."

"And this is Friday,--just ten days, ten long days!" she replied triumphantly.

"Long days!" he cried. "Very short ones, for me."

"Long or short, sir, do you think you can know me in that period? Is it possible I am so easily fathomed?" she went on, smiling.

Now it is ill making love in a rowboat at best, and when one is in earnest and the other jests it is well-nigh impossible; so to these remarks Lieutenant Seymour made no further answer, save viciously to ply the oars and drive the boat rapidly toward the landing.

Miss Katharine gazed vacantly about the familiar river upon whose banks she had been born and bred, and, finally noticing the sun had gone down, closing the short day, she once more drew her cloak closely about her and resumed the neglected conversation.

"Won't you please stop looking at me in that manner, and won't you please row harder, or is your strength all centred in your gaze?"

"I am rowing as fast as I can, Miss Wilton, especially with this--"

"Oh, I forgot your wounded shoulder! Does it hurt? Does it pain you? I am so sorry. Let me row."

"Thank you, no. I think I can manage it myself. The only pain I have is when you are unkind to me."

At that moment, to his great annoyance, his oar stuck fast in the oar-lock, and he straightway did that very unsailorly thing known as catching a crab.

Katharine Wilton laughed. There was music in her voice, but this time it did not awaken a responsive chord in the young man. Extricating his oar violently, he silently resumed his work.

"Do you like crabs, Mr. Seymour?" she said with apparent irrelevance.

"I don't like catching them, Miss Wilton," he admitted ruefully.

"Oh, I mean eating them! We were talking about your appetite, were we not? Well, Dinah devils them deliciously. I 'll have some done for you," she continued with suspicious innocence.

Seymour groaned in spirit at her perversity, and for the first time in his life felt an intense sympathy with devilled crabs; but he continued his labor in silence and with great dignity.

"What am I to infer from your silence on this important subject, sir? The subject of edibles, which everybody says is of the first importance--to men--does not appear to interest you at all!"

He made no further reply.

The young girl gazed at his pale face at first in much amusement; but the laughter gradually died away, and finally her glance fell to the water by her side. A few strong strokes, strong enough, in spite of a wounded shoulder, to indicate wrathful purpose and sudden determination to the astute maiden, and the little boat swung in beside the wharf. Throwing the oars inboard with easy skill, Seymour sat motionless while the boat glided swiftly down toward the landing-steps, and the silence was broken only by the soft, delicious lip, lip, lip of the water, which seemed to cling to and caress the bow of the skiff until it finally came to rest. The man waited until the girl looked up at him. She saw in his resolute mien the outward and visible sign of his inward determination, and she realized that the game so bravely and piquantly played since she met him was lost. They had nearly arrived at the foregone conclusion.

"Well, Mr. Seymour," she said finally, "we are here at last; for what are you waiting?"

"Waiting for you."

"For me?"

"Ay, only for you."

"I--I--do not understand you."

"You understand nothing apparently, but I will explain." He stepped out on the landing-stage, and after taking a turn or two with the painter to secure the boat, he turned toward his captive with a ceremonious bow.

"Permit me to help you ashore."

"Oh, thank you, Lieutenant Seymour; if I only could, in this little boat, I would courtesy in return for that effort," she answered with tremulous and transparent bravery. But when the little palm met his own brown one, it seemed to steal away some of the bitterness of the moment. After he had assisted her upon the shore and up the steps into the boathouse, he held her hand tight within his own, and with that promptitude which characterized him he made the plunge.

"Oh, Miss Wilton--Katharine--it is true I have known you only a little while, but all that time--ever since I saw you, in fact, and even before, when your father showed me your picture--I have loved you. Nay, hear me out." There was an unusual sternness in his voice. My lord appeared to be in the imperative mood,--something to which she had not been accustomed. He meant to be heard, and with beating heart perforce she listened. "Quiet that spirit of mockery but a moment, and attend my words, I pray you. No, I will not release you until I have spoken. These are troublous times. I may leave at any moment--must leave when my orders come, and I expect them every day, and before I go I must tell you this."

Her downcast eyes could still see him blush and then pale a little under the sunburn and windburn of his face, as he went on speaking.

"I have no one; never had I a sister, I can remember no mother; believe me, I entreat you, when I tell you that to no woman have I ever said what I have just said to you. We sailors think and speak and act quickly, it is a part of our profession; but if I should wait for years I should think no differently and act in no other way. I love you! Oh, Katharine, I love you as my soul."

There was a note of passion in his voice which thrilled her heart with ecstasy; the others had not made love this way.

"You seem to me like that star I have often watched in the long hours of the night, which has shown me the way on many a trackless sea. I know I am as far beneath you as I am beneath that star. But though the distance is great, my love can bridge it, if you will let me try. Katharine--won't you answer me, Katharine? Is there nothing you can say to me? 'Dost thou love me, Kate?'" he quoted softly, taking her other hand. How very fair, but how very far away she looked! The color came and went in her cheek. He could see her breast rise and fall under the mad beating of a heart which had escaped her control, though hitherto she had found no difficulty in keeping it well in hand. There was a novelty, a difference, in the situation this time, a new and unexpected element in the event. She hesitated. Why was it no merry quip came to the lips usually so ready with repartee? Alas, she must answer.

"I--I--oh, Mr. Seymour," she said softly and slowly, with a downcast face she fain would hide, he fain would see. "I--yes," she murmured with great reluctance; "that is--I think so. You see, when you defended father, in the fight with the brig, you know, and got that bullet in your shoulder you earned a title to my gratitude, my--"

"I don't want a title to your gratitude," he interrupted. "I want your love, I want you to love me for myself alone."

"And do you think you are worthy that I should?" she replied with a shadow of her former archness.

He gravely bent his head and kissed her hand. "No, Katharine, I do not. I can lay no claim to your hand, if it is to be a reward of merit, but I love you so--that is the substance of my hope."

"Oh, Mr. Seymour, Mr. Seymour, you overvalue me. If you do that with all your possessions, you will be-- Oh, what have I said?" she cried in sudden alarm, as he took her in his arms.

"My possessions! Katharine, may I then count you so? Oh, Kate, my lovely Kate--" It was over, and over as she would have it; why struggle any longer? The landing was a lonely little spot under the summer-house, at the end of the wharf; no one could see what happened. This time it was not her hand he kissed. The day died away in twilight, but for those two a new day began.

The army might starve and die, battles be lost or won, dynasties rise and fall, kingdoms wax and wane, causes tremble in the balances,--what of that? They looked at each other and forgot the world.


CHAPTER II


The Country First of All

"Oh, what is the hour, Mr.--John? Shall I call you Seymour? That is your second name, is it not? But what would people say? I-- No, no, not again; we really must go in. See! I am not dressed for the evening yet. Supper will be ready. Now, Lieutenant Seymour, you must let me go. What will my father think of us? Come, then. Your hand, sir."

The hill from the boat-landing was steep, but Mistress Kate had often run like a young deer to the top of it without appreciating its difficulties as she did that evening. On every stepping-stone, each steep ascent, she lingered, in spite of her expressed desire for haste, and each time his strong and steady arm was at her service. She tasted to the full and for the first time the sweets of loving dependence.

As for him, an admiral of the fleet after a victory could not have been prouder and happier. As any other man would have done, he embraced or improved the opportunity afforded him by their journey up the hill, to urge the old commonplace that he would so assist her up the hill of life! And so on. The iterations of love never grow stale to a lover, and the saying was not so trite to her that it failed to give her the little thrill of loving joy which seemed, for the moment at least, to tame her restless spirit, that spirit of subtle yet merry mockery which charmed yet drove him mad. She was so unwontedly quiet and subdued that he stopped at the brow of the hill, and said, half in alarm, "Katharine, why so silent?"

She looked at him gravely; a new light, not of laughter, in her brown eyes, saying in answer to his unspoken thought: "I was thinking of what you said about your orders. Oh, if they should come to-day, and you should go away on your ship and be shot at again and perhaps wounded, what should I do?"

"Nonsense, Katharine dear, I am not going to be wounded any more. I 've something to live for now,