ROMANCE ON THE RIVER.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 97, 30 May 1914, Page 11

ROMANCE ON THE RIVER.

[Written for THE SUN by E. G. K.] The boat swooped under the last of the city's bridges, and Billy, resting on his oars, broke the silence. " Ever been any further up, Jocelyn!" he asked, jerking his head over his shoulder. The girl in the river hat took both Topes of the tiller in one hand, and dabbled the other in the water. "Only a few yards," she answered; "but I've heard there are little rapids and tiny islands, and further still, the mill dam." "Don't you want to see it?" asked the man in the grey flannels, searching her face with a quiet eagerness, as though he sought there for a sign. Jocelyn, dragging her hand through streamers of river-weed, glanced up lazily. She was minded t# stay just there for the next few minutes. It was all very dreamy and beautiful. Long shafts of sunlight pricked through the trees, patterning the changing ripples. Close by on the bank, a bed of daffodils perfumed the wandering breeze: a bevy of swans circled near them.' Now one advanced severely graceful, another wheeled-precise and , leisurely; beneath all their movements , ,tlfat hint of strangled passion. They themselves, Jocelyn felt, were in accord...- Her "eye • approved the man's . strong lines, the deep tan of his cheeks, and the glint of his,clear eyes. She wondered what lay back of that massive . calm. ,She had. met this man as she had met so many others in her little social world. They had danced together—a little at first, and then more frequently. They, had walked, and they, had talked; each mind sending out groping, sensitive fingers seeking always for the answering chord, sometimes striking it "full and round, at others shrinking timorously back. Of late the growth of their intimacy had been rapid., All suddenly, the thousand contributing agencies .in their case closed in around them. It was as though a stout line of natural tendencies pressed on them, edging ' them gently and inexorably

nearer to that open gate. A,nd beyond

the gate lay—what? Jocelyn glimpsed: f ■'. a garden—she Knew it was walled. That gardens may be prisons also, was the/ear that knocked at her heart. So to-day, as- she sat in the seat, facing, I and so closely facing, this man creature, Bhe feared and hoped, by turns. That she could lo\e him she knew. That she should love him. she knew not at all. Bhf withheld the sanction of her mind from her emotions. Was he weak or strong? ' Did the lines that spoke ..of. purpose speak also of ruthlessness ? Her spirit beat against the bars of his reserve. She, too, was looking for a sign. - It came* to her in the intensity of his v "'gaze as he now searched her face. ' ' "Jocelyn," his eyes were crying, "answer me. Tell me that you too have heard the distance voices, have dreamed a dream, and snuffed the morn- •"'■''. ing breeze in magie lands." Which is ' to. say, that all that was needed to pro- • .pel Billy Sanders clear through the gate ~ and/up against the spiked walls, was a more or less hypothetical demonstration of her ability to be to him an understanding comrade. "■ And since, in the deep-down places of his mind, being carefully snowed under from any human eye,, was. the restless yearning of the explorer, she was required to prove that she could} on demand, forsake the gas stove for the camp-fire, bath-rooms for bsown, still, pools, and bed of down for blacken branches.

But since neither Billy nor Jocelyn knew this, the test proceeded along lines of its own; for Fate, while open-

ing a road to them, dropped more than one squib along the wayside.

" We used to come here when I was a kid," said Billy. "Three of us. There was Brett - Judson and Peter —Peter Dynes. Brett's uncle had a boat,- It was tied up about here —that's the very tiee. In summer, after school, w« came, and on holidays we lived here. We brought apples, and a very large sort of pear, I remember they were juicy, and as we bit into them, the .juice would run down our arms in syruppy trickles. We. wiped them on our trouser legs, cr across the front ©f. '-our linen blouses, and felt a sinful freedom in the act.

:'. "We dug for -buried treasure on those islands. There* was scarcely room to Hand sail :at onaee, I remember, and when we had uncovered chests of Spanish gold, doubloon's and ; pistoles, jewels and ingots, we marooned each other. I have lived here for days on nothing more sustaining than ;a tin of cocoa and sugar, mixed* in 'equal ;parts. Peter's mother brewed -a *ort of drink, which he brought in big bottles. He called it * : <3inger Tickle,' but when we played at Pirates it was a particularly potent sort of rum. My offering was always three jam turn-overs. I remember how mother used to look when she packed them into my sugar-sack (it was always a sugar-sack) and said 'Good-bye,' sort of glad and a little bit wistful; and as if for two pins she'd have come along herself." "I should have felt like that, too, I think,", said Jocelyn. "I've always wanted to play boy's games, and all my life I 've had just to peep over the palings. I never had a brother. I suppose I shan't ever do it now!" "I. don't know," said Billy quizzically. "A girl's got to be some stuff if she's going to run with her men : folk. I guess you were a jolly kid, though, and lately whenever I've thought of you—of us—l've wanted to bring you here, to tell you all of this, in some way to put you into it." "I'd love to be in it," answered .Jocelyn simply. "I wish you'd put me there"; and without a word Billy slid the oars into the rowlocks and rowed up-stream, and Jocelyn, faintly smiling a little, breathless at this revelation of the eternal boy in him, found herself threading a way through tiny islands and .pebbly shallows. "I've always believed," said Billy, &3 the boat floated below the litt&.dam, "that I could get her over there. I've

always meant to do it. I want to get over here, to row to the foot of the big mill-dam, and then I want to get over that, and after that I want to go right to the end of it all, till the river is only a creek, and the creek at last is a ditch. It would be easy to get a friend's boat up there from one of the river gardens, to row and to look about. It isn't that. I want to go over the dams and to do it from here, just as I always dreamed of doing it." Then Jocetyn, bending eagerly forward, her eyes a-beam and her lips a little parted, whispered, "Billy; let's," and a minute later she was landing on a bed of violets. She who shuddered back in disgust when caught in .the bustle for a car seat; she who in the country walked miles rather than commit a possible trespass, was trampling the long spears of the daffodil, was tugging uselessly at a trailing rope, and carelessly forsaking strange gardens for stranger waters.

For Billy had got over the dam, and now, untimely, exulted over his oars in the quiet pool above; and then and there exploded the first of Fate's crackers blindly strewn.

In front of a pretty bungalow their boat rah aground on a shingly bed, and not all the jabs and shoves from Billy's oars would set them afloat again. No one really likes being spitted in mid-stream, and at the beginning of a high adventure it is .-peculiarly annoying-

"How will she take it?" was the imp that danced in Billy's brain, and Jocelyn's mental ejaculation was, '' Now, we shall see.'' So, with .their spiritual'eyes glued on each other, they proceeded. ■- ■■■■■•■■•— . . ..

On the lawn in the garden, belonging to the pretty bungalow stood a wicker table, and grouped about it were three sprawling chairs. In one of them, under a newspaper, an elderly gentleman reclined. "You don't mind if I smoke?" said Billy, snipping the end from a cigar.. "I think it migh.t help me to an idea.". And Jocelyn did not mind. . And next, turning up the ends of his trousers, he stepped equably over the low gunwale into five inches of water.

"Sit tight,", he commanded, "and excuse my .violence"; but, though he bumped and shoved -with great vigour, the result was that their; craft was more firmly grounded than ever. This was principally due to the fact that Billy's ideas projected forward instead of backward, and while the water beyond the ridge of shingle was full of allurement, he simply. did not contemplate the perfectly trustworthy water at the stern.

"No go,'' he announced, after these fruitless < efforts'; and" behind masked faces their two brains worked to their two conclusions: "I'll have to carry her,'' Billy was prattling busily. '' I 'll have to carry her* *' And Jocelyn 's mind fluttered: "I'll have to take my shoes and stockings off. I 'll have to lift up my petticoat. I'll have to wade ashore\", "Or else," checked another cell near by, "or else he'll have to carry me." At this ,minute precisely, a, maid with a tea tray came out from the house. The elderly gentleman awoke with a start, and gave a call. A severely haughty woman emerged the bungalow, and a" slim girl came from the garden, stripping the garden gldves from her hands as she walked.

"Oh, I can't," Jocelyn's mind was churning out; "I can't—l'' really can't!';> -- ••■',...

But while the dwellers poured and creamed and sugared, Billy stood his ground. Over the tops of his boots the water flowed and cleft itself into miniature waves. The little eddies swept about, and floated the er's tag out taut and legible. Not a muscle of his face quivered, no sign either of mirth or vexation stirred his brow. He talked, and while he talked, beneath the brim of his straw boater, he watched the people on the lawn. "Oh, if it's just to wait," Jocelyn was giving- him back silently. '' This cigar,'' he was "telling her between puffs, "I don't usually smoke 'em, you know. I'm for a pipe. But that woman gets me every time. My tobacconist—you know the little shop I always dive for—keeps the toppergist brand of baccy. I point out my favourite, plank down the money, and while he sorts out the change his female accomplice gets me. She knows I'm poor, knows I'm saving up to be married. D'ye think she cares? Sometimes it's a swagger pouch, sometimes a .tricky match-box—always a new bait, and every time I fall for it. To-day it was these cigars.'' And all the time she laughed Jocelyn watched the tea party, through the tail of her eye, and wondered if Billy could keep, it up—up-—yeay even unto the end of their libations. ■

"Silly fool," muttered the elderly gentleman , irritably. I ?/What/s he standing there for? ij , a&d his wife swept" them with - a raking stare that saw all and said everything.- The slim girl giggled softly, and, surveying her gloves idly, left the lawn and the table. Behind a lilac,bush, seeing but unseen, she waited developments. Presently, her parents, too, got up, and pacing slowly round the garden paths, turned oblivious backs upon the river. "Luck," cried Jocelyn. "Take me, Billy," and held out -yearning arms to the bank. - Billy heroically set her on the farther side, not having delayed for more 'than a- dozen • throbbing heart beats.'

"We did that neatly," said Jocelyn, with pardonable glee,' as Billy, with soggy boots, hoisted the boat up beside her, "but it looks rather as if the game is up,' dosen't it?"

"Not yet," sang Billy hopefully. "We may have to skirmish round a bit, but we're going to do it all right. I've dreamed of this for years, and now you're in it, it's going through on wheels."

So Jocelyn. found, herself presently pushing through a gap in a fence, and making a cut across country to the mill dam round the bend. lib was undeniably private property. They strode over;, the notices marked it out- forbidden land, yet 'Jocelyn walked upright. *

"Whew!" said Billy, leaning over the rail; "must be twelve foot, that fellow. We've no hope of bucking that," and Jocelyn, assenting, felt a certain relief that he should be seeing it like that. fe

"Nothing for it but to drag the boat across here," he said briskly, as they Avalked back, 'and Jocelyn in that moment realised that the dream was going to "be," and that for better or worse she was "in it." And in truth during the next few minutes she was very much in it. Was there ever such a stream known, such a moiling and a toiling, a heaving and a groaning? Out of it they came, and damp. It was Jocelyn who thought of a stud, and Billy who sought and found a stout, round pole, and thereafter she manipulated it, running behind as Billy achieved each successive plunge, and in true squaw fashion she eschewed all credit for the device. Two women and some boys sa ; t fishing opposite tihem, and aboye the dam.. "One more pull," exacted Bully., eyeing the last hummock., "-"I ttlhami:

I'll take my coat off to it," and he did. The strain had told on him visibly. Jocelyn was forced to view the suppuration of his shirt. It hung in flat festoons over each hip. Endowed with her proper share of refinement, -Jocelyn yet gurgled as she said, "Billy, mind, your costume's coming all to bits!"

"It's a good thing," said Billy, tucking back the garment neatly. "It's a very good thing I'd a girl With me who had sense enough to mention it." The women on the bank laughed shrilly, and as they slid "the boat into the fair water above the dam, shrieked an abortive prohibition. The silencing roar of the waters was their moral support. Then for an hour they loitered through fairy land, past terraced lawns gay with muslin and garden hats, past multiplication of lounge chairs, flowering cushions of amber, crimson, and the dullest of lovely blues. They saw graceful children rifling forsaken tea-tables, scuttling away with a flourish of slender legs ; as the maids bore off their bitrdens of lace and silver. They passed cushioned punts, the poles dropped carelessly. They lagged by formal gardens, with balustrades and steps of stone, by dusky inlets and slender bridges. There water-lilies bloomed. By turns they drew the breath of Italy and glimpsed Fontainebleau.

Then, leaving behind the region of the comfortably "If," they came inevitably to the fulfilment of the creek. Here small boys bottled tadpoles and jerked to bent pin..,, At the initiation of the ditch they turned; even Billy was satisfied." ■-...-■ ..-.-■

There Avas a dreamy drifting back through the evening shadows, a scrair. hied landing at. the forciagc, and some' tough work on the way ..back.. Once the skid janibedy and with the breaking of the rope Billy was brought forcibly to earth.

Thereafter he showed* some hesitation, and at the gap in the hedge would have had Jocelyn lead through; but she was firm to stay behind and give their barge the final push. So Billy bent, revealing to her appalled gaze a gaping flannel wound. ■

She stifled the 7 sudden mirth in her heart, and clutched her coat from the boat as it slid through the gap. '' My Burbury," she said simply, holding it out to him as they stood on the bank below, the dam, and "Oh, thanks," he said, and for all the serenity of his voice and face his fevered clutch betrayed him.

"Then it did happen? I wasn't sure,", he said, simply, slipping within its sheltering skirts.

So the third and last of Fate's crackers fuzzled harmlessly behind them. Not soggy boots, nor rent, nor straying garments had power to shake Billy's immense and cheerful dignity. Yet as they floated back under the grey arched bridges and beside the city streets, Jocelyn caught the quiver of the lines around his mouth, and saw his shoulders shake. And as their eyes met, and they saw again the pictures of the afternoon, they laughed long and merrily, without constraint.

For them, after that day, there could be no artificialities. There was no longer any seeking after unknown things. Suddenly, everything had grown simple for them. Jocelyn knew that Some time and somewhere she should in very truth be wife, as well as comrade, to this man, arid he, as surely, knew it too. , . . > So later, when he brought her to her home and, bending to her, whispered tenderly, neither of them was conscious of any incongruity. That Jocelyn's first and last proposal £ame from a man in burst breeches, hwden under her own rain-coat, detracted from its beauty not at all.

And when he murmured pleadingly, "Before you go from me, dear comrade of my dreams, I want to hear your words of promise. I„want to hear you tell me that you love me, that you are going to be my sweetheart—wife." Jocelyn raised candid eyes to him and fearless lips. Thus, on the bosom of her own Burbury, she gave him answer, and "Kisses are, promises, Billy Boy,'' was what she softly said.