SPRING was late in coming, and the flowers, with
hidden heads, wondered
sadly if he had forgotten.
Slowly they matured in the gloom of their
coverings,
lamenting the days usurped from their short
lives in sight
of the sun. Already some impatient
blossoms, betrayed by a fleeting·
noon-day warmth,
had ventured forth, but had died with the sunset.
Human folk, too, were faint and fain for change and southern
breezes. Winter
had come early and long outstayed his doubtful
welcome. Last Summer seemed
weary years away, and all
its sunny memories soiled and dim. The unkind
season held
man and beast in joyless case, bound all with cold and
tortured
many with the pincers of famine. The merciless north wind
scourged the land, and wrung from men's hearts a sinister
confusion of
cries and threatenings, which he caught up as he
passed and carried abroad.
It seemed as if there might be
worse things yet than outcry, and rulers
speculated uneasily on
broken, the crisis
averted; for Spring the Deliverer came over
the horizon, bringing gladness
to Nature and awaking the
good that was in men's hearts. Warm winds spread
themselves
over sea and shore, and routed the loitering fog from
cellar and garret, from wood and glen and airy hill-top. The
flowers burst
forth with a little cry of joy that was heard and
repeated by all the
friends who lived with and understood
them—by bird and bee and tree
and fountain. The battle of
the year had again been won after a stern fight
which had been
in secret progress for many weeks. No one had been
aware
of the fluctuations of the struggle, the advance, the repulse,
the force of the succourer waxing steadily unperceived; of
anything but the
declaratory success. 'Spring has come in a
day,' they said.
Who could resist the rare influence of the first Spring morning?
Not Dives
nor Lazarus; not the invalid who cannot stir nor
the careless school-boy
who cannot rest; not the city clerk
who, strangely dissatisfied with his
favourite literature, throws
the paper out 0' window and enjoys his railway
rush and
the unpolluted air; not the loafer who neglects his vocation
and saunters about the roadway with a sudden pleasure in
living and moving,
astonishing to himself; not the 'bus-driver
who has a flower in his
button-hole; nor the ploughman who,
seeing so many flowers, might again be
inspired to music and
poetry, as ploughmen have been, ere now, on a like
provocation;
not even pale-faced Agnes, who has been in the habit of
not noticing things much for a long while now. But this
morning there was
an unremarked magic in the air which
made her smile at herself—a
little sadly still—in the glass, and
brought her forth from her room
singing.
'You are so gay this morning, Agnes! ' said her mother by and
by, with a
small tremor that was partly joy and partly solicitude
—and
altogether love. Her daughter was tying on a
rather old-fashioned hat with
dark green ribbons.
gay
morning. Do you know, I believe the Spring has actually
come for good. So I
shall first water these hyacinths, and then
off to the fields to look for
primroses—for you.'
So Agnes tended the plants, which must have loved her; for
they filled that
cottage with more amazing perfume than the
rarest of their kind thought it
worth while to give forth in the
King's palace. Then she tripped upstairs
for a packet—a very
tiny packet—of crumpled letters, which
she hid in her dress.
This, to be sure, was very foolish j but many of the
letters in
that packet were terribly tear-stained, which perhaps
accounts
for it. She also brought back with her a shawl, a wonderfully
gay shawl, which she substituted for the faded brown one
round her mother's
shoulders, artfully, without that smiling old
lady being aware of her own
transformation. As she set out,
she asked her heart what had lightened it
so, and her heart
smiled and said nothing, but insensibly led her to be at
one
with everything around. The sparrows were having the first
and
most luxurious dust bath of the season, and she understood
and sympathised
with their enjoyment. She called back
to the robins, clapped her hands at
the singing of the larks,
and strained her hearing to catch the distant
cooing of the
wood pigeons. She examined the buds on either hand, and
her walk was a zigzag from hedge to hedge. She had just
discovered a
primrose hiding beneath a mossy stone, and was
stooping over it with
delight, when suddenly she jerked herself
upright with a little gasp, and
with a look in her eyes that may
have been fear, and may have been hope,
but was more probably
both. For the postman had entered the lane leading
to
the cottage. She thought to turn and fly; but instead, she
walked
slowly towards him, in a mist of memories. He put a
letter in her hand. She
scarcely noticed it for a moment, then,
with a little cry, carried it to
her lips and bounded back with
the speed of gladness.
All this while a train, that had left the city in early morning,
In one compartment
was seated a pale young man about whom
there seemed to float a certain
atmosphere, an atmosphere of
Cheapside accountantry, the most
artificial—therefore the most
clinging. He was nervous and could not
rest; the smart
literature he had brought in such baleful abundance to
lessen
the tedium of the journey wearied and even disgusted him.
Something kept prompting him to throw aside his rugs and
papers, and to
open both windows to the friendly air without:
but he resisted. Through the
first hour he sat unmindful of
the potent influence at work on the world
and within him.
He smoked doggedly at cigarettes for which he had
little
relish, and glanced over paragraphs of deformed and mirthless
humour, while through his rp.ind there passed, by way of commentary
thereon, choice phrases from the unwritten handbook
of wit and epigram,
which all aspiring Londoners must master,
if they would live in the
estimation of their fellows. Gradually
he thought more and more frequently
of the object of his travel,
and his mind was filled with reflections that
kept him grave
and still. All at once a bit of landscape awakened a
dear
memory in his heart, and he opened the window and leaned out.
Spring caught him in the act, and metamorphosed him. As
they passed through
a copse of young trees a fresh green twig
just managed to caress his cheek.
He thrilled as from a kiss.
Larger branches overhead sprinkled him with
dew. He felt it
as a baptism. The City behind him now began to appear
to
be something happily far away—a black blot on a pleasant
country. It was only a year since it had absorbed him, but
that year
stretched in his memory as broad asten. He felt as
if he had never heard a
bird or smelt a flower all that time;
never seen the sky!
All his apathy was gone. He was impatient to walk upon the
grass, and
passed restlessly from window to window, trampling
heedlessly upon his
books and papers; which by and by he
kicked under the seat. A strange
timidity, which increased as
began a
feverish search which resulted in the discovery of two
photographs. One
pictured a young woman, beautiful but
loveless, and a little bold; the
other a maiden, fresh-looking as
the dawn, with frank true eyes, and hair
like sunshine. The
first he looked at a long time curiously, then tore and
flung out
of window, muttering to himself, 'Thank God!' On the
second
was written, 'From your own sweetheart Agnes,' and
he kissed the writing:
which is a thing, mark you, that very
intelligent young men will do: and
his eyes grew soft. His
mind went back to the days of his early
homesickness in the
great City. He remembered the fretful letter which had
won
from Agnes her portrait with its frank superscription, and he
divined with what hesitating fondness it had been written, as
something
rather forward and unmaidenly. He considered his
cruel silences that had
steadily lengthened, and the expression
of self-contempt on his face told
what he thought of it all now
—the weakness and the folly. Soon
afterwards he alighted,
and, as he walked along the fragrant country road,
some colour
from pink blossoms began to steal upon his pale cheeks,
some
of the glorious yellow sunlight sparkled in his eyes, and his
soul re-echoed the music of thrush and merle. He was hastening
to meet
Agnes who, with glowing cheeks and hair that
would not be confined, seemed
trying to outstrip the early
swallows. A robin who had been flitting
playfully before her,
as robins will, was kept continually on the wing, and
abandoned
the pastime as too fatiguing. She walked three steps, ran
ten,
and sometimes stood still as if to think; then started off again.
He, on his part, though almost as spasmodic in the order of
his thoughts,
commanded a less tell-tale demeanour. He
walked slowly, full of gratitude
that Nature should make
friends again so warmly. But sometimes he broke
into a
quicker pace, so that the glittering highway went past him
like
a dream, and he felt that he was participating with all the
world in his
first hour of unselfish revelry. Sometimes, indeed,
but he held forward
steadily, through doubt and confidence.
They met at the entrance to a wooded dell. Their greeting was
shy, even
awkward, but happiness was moist in their eyes.
From the bright sunlit
places astir with busy life-the whirr of
wings, the bleat of lambs, the low
of kine, the continuous hum
of insect traffickers, which brought a curious
lightning vision
of Fleet Street to the young man's mind—the leafy
entrance to
the wood looked like the archway of some sylvan chapel.
By
a natural impulse they joined hands and silently turned
thither.
Sweet-scented hawthorn, charm against witches,
waved them a welcome.
Everywhere the bright yellow florets
of the whin sparkled like tapers. Pale
primrose and modest
violet were scattered richly over the soft green carpet
of the
moss. The wood anemones lay like stars among the shadowy
grass,
above which the hyacinth lifted its clusters of azure
bells, and the daisy
gleamed at the foot of the giant oaks.
'Philip,' said Agnes presently, laying her head against his
shoulder, 'last
year was long and dreary, but it is lost out of
my life,-gone and forgotten
now.'
And so there was no more to be said. Instead of trying to
excuse his cruel
silence during the delirium of his first contagion
with crowds and folly,
Philip led her gently to the old
stone beside the spring among the
ferns.
'Agnes,' he said, 'something to-day has happened to me. I
seem to have
awakened and found myself ....Do you remember
last Spring?' He knelt at her
feet. ' It was here... and
I—'
'Hush!' whispered Agnes, passing her hand gently through
his hair, 'I
remember, I know, I understand. Why should we
talk about unhappy things?
The future is all ours.'
The tender sunshine shone upon the lovers, and youth was all
around. Young
trees showered sweet petals on their heads,
flowers smiled to them, birds
sang to them, and the Spirit of
And when, with
radiant faces, they reluctantly left their bower,
they both by one impulse
turned to look back. A starling
alighted with a blithe cry upon the stone
seat they had just
quitted. 'Now I wonder,' exclaimed Philip, 'if that is
the
same little chap who spoke to us exactly a year ago!'
'Yes,' answered the happy girl. 'It is the same dear friend
who called his
good wishes after us—yesterday.'