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Englishwoman's Love-Letters, An

<h2>LETTER XLI.</h2> Dearest: This letter will travel with me: we leave to-day. Our movements are to be too restless and uncomfortable for the next few days for me to have a chance of quiet seeing or quiet writing anywhere. At Riva we shall rest, I hope. Yesterday a storm began coming over towards evening, and I thought to myself that if it passed in time there should be a splendid sunset of smolder and glitter to be seen from the Campanile, and perhaps by good chance a rainbow. I went alone: when I got to the top the rain was pelting hard; so there I stayed happily weather-bound for an hour looking over Venice "silvered with slants of rain," and watching umbrellas scuttering below with toes beneath them. The golden smolder was very slow in coming: it lay over the mainland and came creeping along the railway track. Then came the glitter and the sun, and I turned round and found my rainbow. But it wasn't a bow, it was a circle: the Campanile stood up as it were a spoke in the middle,—the lower curve of the rainbow lay on the ground of the Piazzetta, cut off sharp by the shadow of the Campanile. It was worth waiting an hour to see. The islands shone mellow and bright in the clearance with the storm going off black behind them. Good-by, Venice! <hr style='width: 45%;' /> Verona began by seeming dull to me; but it improves and unfolds beautiful corners of itself to be looked at: only I am given so little time. The Tombs of the Della Scalas and the Renaissance façade of the Consiglio are what chiefly delight me. I had some quiet hours in the Museo, where I fell in love with a little picture by an unknown painter, of Orpheus charming the beasts in a wandering green landscape, with a dance of fauns in the distance, and here and there Eurydice running;—and Orpheus in Hades, and the Thracian women killing him, and a crocodile fishing out his head, and mermaids and ducks sitting above their reflections reflecting. Also there is one beautiful Tobias and the Angel there by a painter whose name I most ungratefully forget. I saw a man yesterday carrying fishes in the market, each strung through the gills on a twig of myrtle: that is how Tobias ought to carry his fish: when a native custom suggests old paintings, how charming it always is! <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Riva. </div> </div> We have just got here from Verona. In the matter of the garden at least it is a Paradise of a place. A great sill of honeysuckle leans out from my window: beyond is a court grown round with creepers, and beyond that the garden—such a garden! The first thing one sees is an arcade of vines upon stone pillars, between which peep stacks of roses, going off a little from their glory now, and right away stretches an alley of green, that shows at the end, a furlong off, the blue glitter of water. It is a beautifully wild garden: grass and vegetables and trees and roses all grow in a jungle together. There are little groves of bamboo and chestnut and willow; and a runnel of water is somewhere—I can hear it. It suggests rest, which I want; and so, for all its difference, suggests you, whom also I want,—more, I own it now, than I have said! But that went without saying, Beloved, as it always must if it is to be the truth and nothing short of the truth. While this has been waiting to go, your letter has been put into my hands. I am too happy to say words about it, and can afford now to let this go as it is. The little time of waiting for you will be perfect happiness now; and your coming seems to color all that is behind as well. I have had a good time indeed, and was only wearying with the plethora of my enjoyment: but the better time has been kept till now. We shall be together day after day and all day long for at least a month, I hope: a joy that has never happened to us yet. Never mind about the lost letter now, dearest, dearest: Venice was a little empty just one week because of it. I still hope it will come; but what matter?—I know you will. All my heart waits for you.—Your most glad and most loving. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <h2>LETTER XLII.</h2> Dearest: I saw an old woman riding a horse astride: and I was convinced on the spot that this is the rightest way of riding, and that the sidesaddle was a foolish and affected invention. The horse was fine, and so was the young man leading it: the old woman was upright and stately, with a wide hat and full petticoats like a Maximilian soldier. This was at Bozen, where we stayed for two nights, and from which I have brought a cold with me: it seems such an English thing to have, that I feel quite at home in the discomfort of it. It had been such wonderful weather that we were sitting out of doors every evening up to 9.30 P.M. without wraps, and on our heads only our "widows' caps." (The M.-A. persists in a style which suggests that Uncle N. has gone to a better world.) Mine was too flimsy a work of fiction, and a day before I had been for a climb and got wet through, so a chill laid its benediction on my head, and here I am,—not seriously incommoded by the malady, but by the remedy, which is the M.-A. full of kind quackings and fierce tyranny if I do but put my head out of window to admire the view, whose best is a little round the corner. I had no idea Innsbruck was so high up among the mountains: snows are on the peaks all around. Behind the house-tops, so close and near, lies a quarter circle of white crests. You are told that in winter creatures come down and look in at the windows: sometimes they are called wolves, sometimes bears—any way the feeling is mediæval. Hereabouts the wayside shrines nearly always contain a crucifix, whereas in Italy that was rare—the Virgin and Child being the most common. I remarked on this, which I suppose gave rise to a subsequent observation of the M.-A.'s: "I think the Tyrolese are a good people: they are not given over to Mariolatry like those poor priest-ridden Italians." I think, however, that they merely have that fundamental grace, religious simplicity, worshiping—just what they can get, for yesterday I saw two dear old bodies going round and telling their beads before the bronze statues of the Maximilian tomb—King Arthur, Charles the Bold, etc. I suppose, by mere association, a statue helps them to pray. The national costume does look so nice, though not exactly beautiful. I like the flat, black hats with long streamers behind and a gold tassel, and the spacious apron. Blue satin is a favorite style, always silk or satin for Sunday best: one I saw of pearl-white brocade. Since we came north we have had lovely weather, except the one day of which I am still the filterings: and morning along the Brenner Pass was perfect. I think the mountains look most beautiful quite early, at sunrise, when they are all pearly and mysterious. We go on to Zurich on Thursday, and then, Beloved, and then!—so this must be my last letter, since I shall have nowhere to write to with you rushing all across Europe and resting nowhere because of my impatience to have you. The Mother-Aunt concedes a whole month, but Arthur will have to leave earlier for the beginning of term. How little my two dearest men have yet seen of each other! Barely a week lies between us: this will scarcely catch you. Dearest of dearests, my heart waits on yours. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <h2>LETTER XLIII.</h2> My Dearest: See what an effect your "gallous young hound" episode has had on me. I send it back to you roughtly done into rhyme. I don't know whether it will carry; for, outside your telling of it, "Johnnie Kigarrow" is not a name of heroic sound. What touches me as so strangely complete about it is that you should have got that impression and momentary romantic delusion as a child, and now hear, years after, of his disappearing out of life thus fittingly and mysteriously, so that his name will fix its legend to the countryside for many a long day. I would like to go there some day with you, and standing on Twloch Hill imagine all the country round as the burial-place of the strong man on whose knees my beloved used to play when a child. It must have been soon after this that your brother died: truly, dearest, from now, and strangely, this Johnnie Kigarrow will seem more to me than him; touching a more heroic strain of idea, and stiffening fibers in your nature that brotherhood, as a rule, has no bearing on. A short letter to-day, Beloved, because what goes with it is so long. This is the first time I have come before your eyes as anything but a letter-writer, and I am doubtful whether you will care to have so much all about yourself. Yet for that very reason think how much I loved doing it! I am jealous of those days before I knew you, and want to have all their wild-honey flavor for myself. Do remember more, and tell me! Dearest heart, it was to me you were coming through all your scampers and ramblings; no wonder, with that unknown good running parallel, that my childhood was a happy one. May long life bless you, Beloved! (Inclosure.) <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> My brother and I were down in Wales, And listened by night to the Welshman's tales; He was eleven and I was ten. We sat on the knees of the farmer's men After the whole day's work was done: And I was friends with the farmer's son. His hands were rough as his arms were strong, His mouth was merry and loud for song; Each night when set by the ingle-wall He was the merriest man of them all. I would catch at his beard and say All the things I had done in the day— Tumbled bowlders over the force, Swum in the river and fired the gorse— "Half the side of the hill!" quoth I:— "Ah!" cried he, "and didn't you die?" </div> <div class="stanza"> "Chut!" said he, "but the squeak was narrow! Didn't you meet with Johnnie Kigarrow?" "No!" said I, "and who will he be? And what will be Johnnie Kigarrow to me?" The farmer's son said under his breath, "Johnnie Kigarrow may be your death Listen you here, and keep you still— Johnnie Kigarrow bides under the hill; Twloch barrow stands over his head; He shallows the river to make his bed; Bowlders roll when he stirs a limb; And the gorse on the hills belongs to him! And if so be one fires his gorse, He's out of his bed, and he mounts his horse. Off he sets: with the first long stride He is halfway over the mountain side: With his second stride he has crossed the barrow, And he has you fast, has Johnnie Kigarrow!" </div> <div class="stanza"> Half I laughed and half I feared; I clutched and tugged at the strong man's beard, And bragged as brave as a boy could be— "So? but, you see, he didn't catch me!" </div> <div class="stanza"> Fear caught hold of me: what had I done? High as the roof rose the farmer's son: How the sight of him froze my marrow! "I," he cried, "am Johnnie Kigarrow!" </div> <div class="stanza"> Well, you wonder, what was the end? Never forget;—he had called me "friend"! Mighty of limb, and hard, and blown; Quickly he laughed and set me down. "Heh!" said, he, "but the squeak was narrow, Not to be caught by Johnnie Kigarrow!" </div> <div class="stanza"> Now, I hear, after years gone by, Nobody knows how he came to die. He strode out one night of storm: "Get you to bed, and keep you warm!" Out into darkness so went he: Nobody knows where his bones may be. </div> <div class="stanza"> Only I think—if his tongue let go Truth that once,—how perhaps I know. Twloch river, and Twloch barrow, Do you cover my Johnnie Kigarrow? </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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