Chapter 8

The afterglow of sunset was long. The dilated moon, rising from the waters of the Bay, shone pale at first; but as it climbed the shoulder of the mountain Wave-of-the-Sea and its light fell upon the farther margin of the lake, its clear disk was pure argent.

Champney looked his approval. It was the kind of night he had been hoping for. He walked leisurely down the road from The Gore for the night was warm. It was already past eight, but he lingered, purposely, a few minutes longer on the lake shore until the moonlight should widen on the waters. Then he went on to the grounds.

He entered by the lane and crossed the lawn to an arching rose-laden trellis near the bay window; beneath it was a wooden bench. He looked up at the window. The blinds were closed. So far as he could see there was no light in all the great house. Behind the rose trellis was a group of stately Norway spruce; he could see the sheen of their foliage in the moonlight. He took his banjo out of its case and sat down on the bench, smiling to himself, for he was thoroughly enjoying, with that enjoyment of youth, health, and vitality which belongs to twenty-one, this rustic adventure. He touched the strings lightly with preliminary thrumming. It was a toss-up between "Annie Rooney" and "Oft in the stilly night." He decided for the latter. Raising his eyes to the closed blinds, behind which he knew the witch was hiding, he began the accompaniment. The soft thrum-thrum, vibrating through the melody, found an echo in the whirring wings of all that ephemeral insect life which is abroad on such a night. The prelude was almost at an end when he saw the blinds begin to separate. Champney continued to gaze steadily upwards. A thin bare arm was thrust forth; the blinds opened wide; in the dark window space he saw Aileen, listening intently and gazing fixedly at the moon as if its every beam were dropping liquid music.

He began to sing. His voice was clear, fine, and high, a useful first tenor for two winters in the Glee Club. When he finished Aileen deigned to look down upon him, but she made no motion of recognition. He rose and took his stand directly beneath the window.

"I say, Miss Aileen Armagh-and-don't-yer-forget-it, that isn't playing fair! Where's my token?"

There was a giggle for answer; then, leaning as far out as she dared, both hands stemmed on the window ledge, the child began to sing. Full, free, joyously light-hearted, she sent forth the rollicking Irish melody and the merry sentiment that was strung upon it; evidently it had been adapted to her, for the words had suffered a slight change:

"Och! laughin' roses are my lips, Forget-me-nots my ee, It's many a lad they're drivin' mad; Shall they not so wi' ye? Heigho! the morning dew! Heigho! the rose and rue! Follow me, my bonny lad, For I'll not follow you.

"Wi' heart in mout', in hope and doubt, My lovers come and go: My smiles receive, my smiles deceive; Shall they not serve you so? Heigho! the morning dew! Heigho! the rose and rue! Follow me, my bonny lad, For I'll not follow you."

It was a delight to hear her.

"There now, I'll give yer my token. Hold out yer hands!"

Champney, hugging his banjo under one arm, made a cup of his hands. Carefully measuring the distance, she dropped one rosebud into them.

"Put it on yer heart now," was the next command from above. He obeyed with exaggerated gesture, to the great delight of the serenadee. "And yer goin' to keep it?"

"Forever and a day." Champney made this assertion with a hyper-sentimental inflection of voice, and, lifting the flower to his nose, drew in his breath—

"Confound you, you little fiend—" he sneezed rather than spoke.

The sneeze was answered by a peal of laughter from above and a fifteen-year-old's cracked "Haw-haw-haw" from the region of the Norway spruces. Every succeeding sneeze met with a like response—roars of laughter on the one hand and peal upon peal on the other. Even the kitchen door began to give signs of life, for Hannah and Ann made their appearance.

The strong white pepper, which Romanzo managed to procure from Hannah, had been cunningly secreted by Aileen between the imbricate petals, and then tied, in a manner invisible at night, with a fine thread of pink silk begged from Ann. It was now acting and re-acting on the lining of the serenader's olfactory organ in a manner to threaten final decapitation. Champney was still young enough to resent being made a subject of such practical joking by a little girl; but he was also sufficiently wise to acknowledge to himself that he had been worsted and, in the end, to put a good face on it. It is true he would have preferred that Romanzo Caukins had not been witness to his defeat.

The sneezing and laughter gradually subsided. He sat down again on the bench and taking up his banjo prepared, with somewhat elaborate effort, to put it into its case. He said nothing.

"Say!" came in a sobered voice from above; "are yer mad with me?"

Ignoring both question and questioner, he took out his handkerchief, wiped his face and forehead and, returning it to his pocket, heaved a sigh of apparent exhaustion.

"I say, Mr. Champney Googe, are yer mad with me?"

To Champney's delight, he heard an added note of anxiety. He bowed his head lower over the banjo case and in silence renewed his simulated struggle to slip that instrument into it.

"Champney! Are yer rale mad with me?" There was no mistaking the earnestness of this appeal. He made no answer, but chuckled inwardly at the audacity of the address.

"Champ!" she stamped her foot to emphasize her demand; "if yer don't tell me yer ain't mad with me, I'll lave yer for good and all—so now!"

"I don't know that I'm mad with you," he spoke at last in an aggrieved, a subdued tone; "I simply didn't think you could play me such a mean trick when I was in earnest, dead earnest."

"Did yer mane it?"

"Why, of course I did! You don't suppose a man walks three miles in a hot night to serenade a girl just to get an ounce of pepper in his nose by way of thanks, do you?"

"I thought yer didn't mane it; Romanzo said yer was laughing at me for telling yer 'bout the lords and ladies a-making love with their guitars." The voice indicated some dejection of spirits.

"He did, did he! I'll settle with Romanzo later." He heard a soft brushing of branches in the region of the Norway spruces and knew that the youth was in retreat. "And I'll settle it with you, too, Miss Aileen Armagh-and-don't-you-forget-it, in a way that'll make you remember the tag end of your name for one while!"

This threat evidently had its effect.

"Wot yer going to do?"

He heard her draw her breath sharply.

"Come down here and I'll tell you."

"I can't. She might catch me. She told me I'd got to stay in my room after eight, and she's coming home ter-night. Wot yer going to do?"

Champney laughed outright. "Don't you wish you might know, Aileen Armagh!" He took his banjo in one hand, lifted his cap with the other and, standing so, bareheaded in the moonlight, sang with all the simulated passion and pathos of which he was capable one of the few love songs that belong to the world, "Kathleen Mavoureen"; but he took pains to substitute "Aileen" for "Kathleen." Even Ann and Hannah, listening from the kitchen porch, began to feel sentimentally inclined when the clear voice rendered with tender pathos the last lines:

"Oh! why art thou silent, thou voice of my heart? Oh! why art thou silent, Aileen Mavoureen?"

Without so much as another glance at the little figure in the window, he ran across the lawn and up the lane to the highroad.