CHAPTER 5

THE HOME COMING

Dr. David Blythe had sent his horse and buggy to meet them, and the urchin¹ who had brought it slipped away with a sympathetic grin, leaving them to the delight of driving alone to their new home through the radiant evening.

Anne never forgot the loveliness of the view that broke upon them when they had driven over the hill behind the village. Her new home could not yet be seen; but before her lay Four Winds Harbor like a great, shining mirror of rose and silver. Far down, she saw its entrance between the bar of sand dunes² on one side and a steep, high, grim, red sandstone cliff on the other. Beyond the bar the sea, calm and austere³, dreamed in the afterlight. The little fishing village, nestled in the cove⁴ where the sand-dunes met the harbor shore, looked like a great opal in the haze⁵. The sky over them was like a jewelled cup from which the dusk was pouring; the air was crisp with the compelling tang of the sea, and the whole landscape was infused with the subtleties⁶ of a sea evening. A few dim sails drifted along the darkening, fir-clad harbor shores. A bell was ringing from the tower of a little white church on the far side; mellowly⁷ and dreamily sweet, the chime floated across the water blent with the moan of the sea. The great revolving⁸ light on the cliff at the channel flashed warm and golden against the clear northern sky, a trembling, quivering star of good hope. Far out along the horizon was the crinkled gray ribbon of a passing steamer’s smoke.

“Oh, beautiful, beautiful,” murmured Anne. “I shall love Four Winds, Gilbert. Where is our house?”

“We can’t see it yet—the belt of birch running up from that little cove hides it. It’s about two miles from Glen St. Mary, and there’s another mile between it and the light-house. We won’t have many neighbors, Anne. There’s only one house near us and I don’t know who lives in it. Shall you be lonely when I’m away?”

“Not with that light and that loveliness for company. Who lives in that house, Gilbert?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t look—exactly—as if the occupants would be kindred spirits, Anne, does it?”

The house was a large, substantial affair, painted such a vivid green that the landscape seemed quite faded by contrast. There was an orchard⁹ behind it, and a nicely kept lawn before it, but, somehow, there was a certain bareness about it. Perhaps its neatness was responsible for this; the whole establishment, house, barns, orchard, garden, lawn and lane, was so starkly¹⁰ neat.

“It doesn’t seem probable that anyone with that taste in paint could be VERY kindred,” acknowledged Anne, “unless it were an accident—like our blue hall. I feel certain there are no children there, at least. It’s even neater than the old Copp place on the Tory road, and I never expected to see anything neater than that.”

They had not met anybody on the moist, red road that wound along the harbor shore. But just before they came to the belt of birch which hid their home, Anne saw a girl who was driving a flock of snow-white geese along the crest¹¹ of a velvety¹² green hill on the right. Great, scattered¹³ firs grew along it. Between their trunks one saw glimpses of yellow harvest fields, gleams of golden sand-hills, and bits of blue sea. The girl was tall and wore a dress of pale blue print. She walked with a certain springiness of step and erectness¹⁴ of bearing. She and her geese came out of the gate at the foot of the hill as Anne and Gilbert passed. She stood with her hand on the fastening of the gate, and looked steadily¹⁵ at them, with an expression that hardly attained¹⁶ to interest, but did not descend¹⁷ to curiosity. It seemed to Anne, for a fleeting¹⁸ moment, that there was even a veiled hint¹⁹ of hostility²⁰ in it. But it was the girl’s beauty which made Anne give a little gasp—a beauty so marked that it must have attracted attention anywhere. She was hatless, but heavy braids of burnished²¹ hair, the hue²² of ripe wheat, were twisted about her head like a coronet; her eyes were blue and star-like; her figure, in its plain print gown, was magnificent; and her lips were as crimson²³ as the bunch of blood-red poppies she wore at her belt.

“Gilbert, who is the girl we have just passed?” asked Anne, in a low voice.

“I didn’t notice any girl,” said Gilbert, who had eyes only for his bride.

“She was standing²⁴ by that gate—no, don’t look back. She is still watching us. I never saw such a beautiful face.”

“I don’t remember seeing any very handsome girls while I was here. There are some pretty girls up at the Glen, but I hardly think they could be called beautiful.”

“This girl is. You can’t have seen her, or you would remember her. Nobody could forget her. I never saw such a face except in pictures. And her hair! It made me think of Browning’s 'cord of gold’ and 'gorgeous snake’!”

“Probably she’s some visitor in Four Winds—likely some one from that big summer hotel over the harbor.”

“She wore a white apron²⁵ and she was driving geese.”

“She might do that for amusement. Look, Anne—there’s our house.”

Anne looked and forgot for a time the girl with the splendid, resentful eyes. The first glimpse of her new home was a delight to eye and spirit—it looked so like a big, creamy seashell stranded²⁶ on the harbor shore. The rows of tall Lombardy poplars down its lane stood out in stately, purple silhouette²⁷ against the sky. Behind it, sheltering its garden from the too keen breath of sea winds, was a cloudy fir wood, in which the winds might make all kinds of weird²⁸ and haunting music. Like all woods, it seemed to be holding and enfolding secrets in its recesses,—secrets whose charm is only to be won by entering in and patiently seeking. Outwardly, dark green arms keep them inviolate²⁹ from curious or indifferent eyes.

The night winds were beginning their wild dances beyond the bar and the fishing hamlet across the harbor was gemmed³⁰ with lights as Anne and Gilbert drove up the poplar lane. The door of the little house opened, and a warm glow of firelight flickered³¹ out into the dusk. Gilbert lifted Anne from the buggy and led her into the garden, through the little gate between the ruddy-tipped firs, up the trim, red path to the sandstone step.

“Welcome home,” he whispered, and hand in hand they stepped over the threshold of their house of dreams.