Bluebell Part 14

"Can you not believe yourself 'Une seule,' Cecil, even in these days?"

returned he, meaningly and tenderly.

"That would depend on my knight," said she, blus.h.i.+ng, and uncertain how to take it. "I should not care to live in a Fool's Paradise."

"If it were Paradise, why a.n.a.lyze the wisdom of it?" said Bertie, gazing with surprised admiration at her radiant face, that kindled as with some hidden fire.

"I could do without him," answered she, "but if he were worth caring for I wouldn't share him with any one."

"I hope Fane isn't 'Un seul,' Cecil. For a young lady with such severe ideas of constancy, you were pretty thick at the sleighing-party."

There was something in this speech that annoyed Cecil, who turned it off with a short answer. It might have been that she did not like him so composedly contemplating such a possibility.

Du Meresq said no more, perhaps because they were approaching the toboggin hill, or perhaps, like Dr. Johnson, he had nothing ready.

Cecil was sorry they were so near. She felt more interested in the conversation than in the party, and gazed wistfully down a by road that would have led them in an opposite direction.

"I wish I dare turn sharp off," thought she. "But, no! we are conventional beings. This idiotic performance is the goal and object of our expedition. I am driving, and must do nothing so indecently eccentric."

So she gave "Wings" a flick with her whip, that sent him up to his bit with his knees in his mouth, and they drew rein on the edge of the snow mountain.

Miss Tremaine's bright face was just on a level with the top, drawing up her own toboggin.

"Here's this dear little Lily," said Bertie.

"Your diminutives are curiously applied," said Cecil. "That is a very substantial _pet.i.te_."

"How late you are," cried Miss Tremaine, rus.h.i.+ng up to them. 'Wings,' who couldn't bear waiting, began to rear. "Gracious, Cecil, does he feed on yeast-powder to make him 'rise' so? How do you do, Captain Du Meresq?

Come along; there's some capital jumps. Here's my little brother will hang on to the horse's head till we find some one else, if you are sure 'Wings' will not soar away with him, like an eagle with a lamb."

"I'd better billet him on that farm," said Du Meresq, driving off.

"And I must go and speak to Mrs. Armstrong," said Cecil.

CHAPTER XI.

EFFECTS OF TOBOGGINING.

With a slow and noiseless footstep

Takes the vacant chair beside me, Lays her gentle hand in mine.

--Longfellow.

A little further on, by a blazing fire, was seated the hostess and about a dozen other people on benches and rugs; a table spread with refreshments and hot liquids attracted as many more. The grey sky and white ground threw out the figures solidly, the only patches of colour being the bright petticoats of the ladies as they flashed down or toiled up the snow mountain.

"Have a 'c.o.c.k-tail,' Miss Rolleston?" said Captain Wilmot, of the Fusiliers. "I have just made a capital one; and then may I steer you down on my toboggin?"

Cecil accepted both propositions. "But do take mine, for I have never tried it yet."

"What a beauty," said Lilla, enviously. "It doesn't look over strong, though; I shouldn't wonder if it broke in two. You'll have to mind the hole at the bottom; there have been a lot in already."

For the information of the uninitiated, I may as well describe how this hilarious amus.e.m.e.nt is conducted. Having first selected the highest hill the neighbourhood affords, well covered with slippery frozen snow, two individuals who purpose forming the freight of the toboggin pose themselves, the foremost holding the reins, which, however, are more for effect than use, sitting between the feet of the hindmost traveller, who steers with his hands.

As a finger on the snow alters the course of the toboggin, and a nervous push makes it slue round, scattering the inmates, it is needless to say the tyro in front is admonished to preserve the most absolute immobility.

Then the vehicle receives a shove off the top of the hill, and shoots down the smooth precipice, and the novice, with shut eyes to escape the blinding snow that flies like hailstones about him, listens to the wind whistling behind, and with bated breath--the first time at any rate--wishes it were over.

"Captain Du Meresq," cried Lilla, "come along; I am going to take you down the big jump."

"Off Niagara, if you like."

"It _is_ a tidy drop, the first shelf, so please I'd rather steer.

I never trust my neck to any one but myself."

Bertie craned over. "Let me go down first, and see what it is like; it will give you an awful shake."

"Bos.h.!.+ I have been down before; sit tight," said Lilla, adjusting herself.

It was a series of snow terraces, half natural, half artificial. The ridge they started from was very steep, and jutting out a little way down, yawned over a perpendicular drop to the next ledge, which sloped off again to ever recurring but lesser falls.

Receiving the necessary impetus from above, Bertie and Lilla slithered down at a terrific pace, and shot over the jutting ridge--a good twenty feet drop. As they touched the ground, the toboggin ploughed up the snow, recovered without upsetting, and tore on, jumping down the lesser falls the same way, and continuing a considerable distance along the level at the bottom before its impetus was exhausted.

Bertie, blind, breathless, and half-choked with snow, heard a voice behind, jerking in quick grasps--

"Did you e-ver feel such a de-light-ful--sensation in your life before?"

"Never," said he with a profound air of conviction, shaking off the snow like a Newfoundland dog. "I wonder if I could have steered as well!"

"If you are going to try, you may take some young woman who is tired of her life," said Lilla.

"I'll take myself down, anyhow," said Du Meresq, rather nettled; and, having dragged her toboggin up the hill, ran off to get another; but, in pa.s.sing Cecil, found a moment to say--

"Don't let that young lunatic delude you down the jump. It is unfit for any girl but such a glutton as Lilla."

"I haven't the slightest wish to try," said she, laughing. "Lilla's a witch. Just look at her now."

Miss Tremaine, standing poised on her toboggin, was in the act of gliding down the hill. A light pole held in one hand served as a rudder, the other retained the cord reins.

"It is like a fairy in a pantomime let down from above," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Du Meresq. "That is uncommonly tall toboggining!"

A slight commotion was now apparent in the valley below. A brook ran through it, frozen except is one place, where was a large hole. Mr.

Tremaine and Captain Delamere, slithering down together, ran into a runaway toboggin that had upset its occupant. This knocked them out of their course, and upset them into the rotten ice of the brook.

Mr. Tremaine was precipitated head foremost into the hole, with his heels in the air, and Lilla at the same moment coming to a halt in her acrobatic descent, beheld the apparition of a pair of legs, feet upwards, and a coa.r.s.e pair of knickerbocker stockings dragged over the boots.

"Who has m.u.f.fed in now? Gracious goodness, _I_ knit those stockings; it is the Governor! Pull him out--quick, quick, Captain Delamere; he'll have a fit!"