when saturday proved to be the fairest of june days, the poet decided that it was a pity to remain in city pent when three hours on the train would carry him to waupegan, a spot whose charms had been brought freshly to his attention by the sheaf of verses fulton had sent him. he had hoped to find fulton on the train; but when the young man did not appear,[81] he found compensation in the presence of mrs. waring, who was bound for waupegan to take possession of her house.

“marian took marjorie up yesterday. it occurred to me, after i’d posted elizabeth off with a servant to straighten up my house, that i’d done the crudest thing imaginable, for elizabeth went honeymooning to waupegan—i gave her and miles my house for a fortnight, as you may remember. i wanted to get her out of town and i never thought of that until she’d gone.”

“isn’t it a good sign that elizabeth would go? it shows that the associations of the lake still mean something to her.”

“oh, but they don’t mean anything to him—that’s the trouble! if there ever was a brute—”

“there are worse men—or brutes,” the poet mildly suggested.

“i can’t imagine it!” mrs. waring replied tartly.

[82]“i’m going fishing,” the poet explained, when mrs. waring demanded to know what errand was carrying him lakeward. his dislike of railway journeys was well known to all his friends; and no one had ever heard of his going fishing.

“i have asked you to the lake scores of times to visit me, and you have scorned all my invitations. now that i’ve caught you in the act of going up alone, i demand that you make me the visit you’ve been promising for twenty years.”

“fishing,” observed the poet soberly, “is a business that requires the closest attention and strictest privacy. i should be delighted to make that visit at this time, but when i fish i’m an intolerable person—unsociable and churlish; you’d always hate me if i accepted your hospitable shelter when i would a-fishing go.”

“you’ll not find the hotel a particularly[83] tranquil place for literary labor, and the food at my house couldn’t be worse than you’ll get there. i’ve warned you!”

she was frankly curious as to the nature of his errand, and continued to chaff him about his piscatorial ambitions. he gave his humor full rein in adding to her mystification.

“perhaps,” he finally confessed, “i shall hire a boy to do the fishing for me, while i sit under a tree and boss him.”

“no boy with any spirit would fish for anybody else—no respectable, well-brought-up boy would!”

“there’s where you’re quite mistaken! i expect to find a boy—and a pretty likely young fellow he is, reared on a farm, and all that—i expect to find him ready for business in the morning. mind you, he didn’t promise to come, but if he’s the youngster i think he is, he’ll be there right side up with care to-morrow morning.”

[84]“i don’t believe i like you so well when you play at being mysterious. this idea, that if you serenely fold your hands and wait—john burroughs, isn’t it?—your own will come to you, never worked for me. i should never have got anywhere in my life if i had folded my hands and waited.”

“there must always be one who journeys to meet him who waits, and with your superb energy you have done the traveling. i’m playing both parts in this affair just as an experiment. to-day i travel; to-morrow i shall sit on the dock and wait for that boy who’s to do my fishing for me. i’m not prepared for disappointment; i have every confidence that he will arrive in due season. particularly now that you tell me marian is already illuminating the landscape!”

mrs. waring was giving him only half attention, but she pricked up her ears at this statement.

[85]“marian! what on earth has she to do with this fishing-trip?”

“nothing, except that i have a message for her from the cool slopes of parnassus. it’s almost like something you read of in books—her being here waiting for the sacred papyri.”

he tapped his pocket and smiled.

“i hadn’t the slightest idea she was up there waiting,” he continued. “you must confess that it’s rather remarkable! folding her hands, utterly unconscious of what fate has in store for her; and poems being written to her, and my fisher-boy on the trail looking for me—and her!”

“i’m sure i don’t know what you’re driving at, but you’d better keep your verses for somebody else. marian’s a much more practical girl than elizabeth; i don’t quite see her receiving messages from the muses with more than chilly politeness. you may be sure she will profit by elizabeth’s experience. elizabeth married a[86] man with an artistic temperament and she’s paid dearly for it. a blow like that falling so close to marian is bound to have its effect. if you want to win her smiles, don’t appeal to her through poetry. as i was saying the other day, poetry is charming, and sometimes it’s uplifting; but we’re getting away from it. these are changing times, and pretty soon it won’t be respectable to be decent!”

“you said something to the same effect the other day when your garden was full of children. i was greatly disappointed in you; it wasn’t fair to the children to talk that way—even if they didn’t hear you. i was all broken up after that party; i haven’t been the same man since!”

“oh, i didn’t mean to reflect on you or your work; you know that!”

“i know nothing of the kind,” returned the poet amiably. “you have said it twice, though the first time was enough. i’m a different[87] person; you’ve changed the whole current of my life! i’m making a journey, on a very hot afternoon, that i should never have thought of making if it hadn’t been for your cynical remarks. i’ve taken employment as an agent of providence, just to prove to you that my little preachments in rhyme are not altogether what our young people call piffle. i’ve come down out of the pulpit, so to speak, to put my sermons into effect—a pretty good thing for all parsons to do. or, to go back to the starting-point, i’ve hung my harp on the willows that i may fish the more conveniently.”

“you ought to be ashamed of yourself to make sport of a woman of my years! you had better tell me a funny story,” said mrs. waring, fearing that he was laughing at her.

“i shall do nothing of the kind! i am heavily armed with magazines and i shall read the rest of the way to waupegan. besides, i need[88] time for planning my work to-morrow. it will be my busiest day!”

it was dark when the train paused at the lake station, and mrs. redfield was waiting, having come over in a launch to meet mrs. waring. she was wrapped in a long coat and carried a lantern, which she held up laughingly to verify her identification of the poet.

“marian and i have just been talking of you! she and marjorie have told me all about the garden-party, and of the beautiful time you gave the children.”

“if she didn’t mention the beautiful time they gave me, she didn’t tell the whole story. and if i hadn’t gone to mrs. waring’s party, i shouldn’t be here!”

“don’t pay any attention to him,” interposed mrs. waring, counting her trunks as they were transferred to the miniature steamer[89] that plied the lake. “there’s some joke about his coming here; he’s told you one story and an hour ago he was assuring me that he had come up to fish!”

she turned away for a moment to speak to some old friends among the cottagers, leaving mrs. redfield and the poet alone.

“i’m glad you are here,” said the poet, “for i shall stay a few days and i hope we can have some talks.”

“i hope so; but i must go very soon. i’ve only been waiting for mrs. waring to come. it was like her to make a chance for me to get away; you know waupegan is like home; my father used to have a cottage here and we children were brought up on the lake.”

she was a small, dark-eyed woman, a marked contrast to her tall, fair sister. her sense of fun had always been a delight to her friends; she was a capital mimic and had been a star in amateur theatricals. the troubles of the past[90] year—or of the years, to accept redfield’s complaint at its full value—had not destroyed her vivacity. she was of that happy company who carry into middle life and beyond the freshness of youth. she had been married at twenty, and to the poet’s eyes she seemed little older now.

he had been wondering since his interview with redfield how he had ever dared go as far in meddling with other people’s affairs. face to face with redfield’s wife, he was more self-conscious than was comfortable. it would not be easy to talk to elizabeth of her difficulties, for the poet was not a man whom women took into their confidence over a teacup. he abused himself for leaving his proper orbit for foolish adventures in obscure, unmapped corners of the heavens.

he said that the stars were fine, and having failed to amplify this with anything like the grace that might be expected of a poet, he[91] glanced at her and found her eyes bright with tears. this was altogether disconcerting, but it illustrated the embarrassments of the situation into which he had projected himself. clearly the ambition to harmonize poetry and life was not without peril; he felt that as the ambassador from the court of poesy it might be necessary to learn a new language to make himself understood at the portals of life. instead of promoting peace, he might, by the least tactless remark, prolong the war, and the thought was dismaying.

as she turned her head to hide treasonable tears he saw her draw herself up, and lift her head as though to prove to him that there was still courage in her heart, no matter if her eyes did betray the citadel.

“you see, we hung up a new moon in honor of your coming. it’s like a little feather, just as rossetti says.”

“too suggestive of a feather duster,” he remarked[92] lightly; and seeing mrs. waring walking toward them he added, gravely:—

“i’ve lied like the most miserable of sinners about this trip; i came in answer to your letter. i find that most letters will answer themselves if you wait long enough. yours is just seven years old!”

“oh,” she cried, with a quick catch of the breath; “you don’t mean that you kept that!”

“i most certainly did! it was a very beautiful letter. i happened to be re-reading it the other night and decided that it deserved an answer; so here i am!”

“i’m both sorry and glad you came. it’s immensely good of you; it’s just like you! but it’s no use; of course you know that!”

“oh, i should never have come on my own hook! i’m only the humble representative of thousands and thousands of people, and the stars—maybe—and that frugal slice of[93] melon up there we call the moon. nobody else wanted the job, so i took it.”

he laughed at the puzzled look in the dark eyes, which was like the wondering gaze of a child, half-fearful, half-confiding.

“elizabeth, are you going to stand there all night talking to any poet that comes along!” demanded mrs. waring; and as she joined them the poet began talking amusingly to allay suspicion.

he again declined to accompany her home, protesting that he must not disappoint the boy who would certainly be on hand in the morning to fish for him. he waved his hand as the launch swung off, called the man who was guarding his suit-case and followed him to the inn.