Into what a world of delight the two plunged when they set forth! The
more it rains in the Westmorland country, the more heavenly are the days
when the clouds forget to rain! There were white flocks of them in the
June sky as the new-married pair crossed the wooden bridge beyond the
garden, leading to the further side of the lake, but they were sailing
serene and sunlit in the blue, as though their whole business were to
dapple the hills with blue and violet shadows, or sometimes to throw a
dazzling reflection down into the quiet water. There had been rain,
torrential rain, just before the Sarratts arrived, so that the river was
full and noisy, and all the little becks clattering down the fell, in
their haste to reach the lake, were boasting to the summer air, as
though in forty-eight hours of rainlessness they would not be as dry and
dumb as ever again. The air was fresh, in spite of the Midsummer sun,
and youth and health danced in the veins of the lovers. And yet not
without a touch of something feverish, something abnormal, because of
that day--that shrouded day--standing sentinel at the end of the week.
They never spoke of it, but they never forgot it. It entered into each
clinging grasp he gave her hand as he helped her up or down some steep
or rugged bit of path--into the lingering look of her brown eyes, which
thanked him, smiling--into the moments of silence, when they rested amid
the springing bracken, and the whole scene of mountain, cloud and water
spoke with that sudden tragic note of all supreme beauty, in a world of
'brittleness.' But they were not often silent. There was so much to
say. They were still exploring each other, after the hurry of their
marriage, and short engagement. For a time she chattered to him about
her own early life--their old red-brick house in a Manchester suburb,
with its good-sized rooms, its mahogany doors, its garden, in which her
father used to work--his only pleasure, after his wife's death, besides
'the concerts'--'You know we've awfully good music in Manchester!' As