Loa

“ He was so absorbed in his researches into the antiquity of the hyphen, he only growled and said, what if you did get lost? The streets are as safe as our own home! But I didn't get a wink of sleep—not one wink!—until I read the news in the Screamer. Now, of course, I understand why you didn't come back!"
No defeated general, suddenly realizing that his most carefully laid strategy has failed, could have had a more bitter sinking sensation than overcame me at that moment. Evidently Loa and her father had not even guessed that I had run away! ”

“ Nevertheless, here was Lao, with a merry company, at the entrance of the lonely heath,—Lao, the celebrated piper, come expressly from the mountains to lead the dance at the fair of Armor. His face was as red as a March moon, his black locks floated as they would upon the wind, and he held under his arm the pipe whose magic sounds had even set in motion a number of old women in their sabots. When they came to the cross-road of the Warning, where there rises the granite cross all overgrown with moss, the women stopped, and said,
“Let us take the pathway leading towards the sea.” ”

“ THE PRINCESS LOLÓMA. As I rambled about the mountain solitudes, the sound of the lali, or native drum, beaten in celebration of some heathen rite, and faint echoes from the shrill blast of the conch-shell, blown in honour of some chiefly observance, not infrequently floated up from an extensive valley lying in the centre of the hill country. Occasionally I had seen men moving in the distance, but I was always careful to keep out of view. ”

“ A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love, the lady that's known as Lou.
When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and the glare,
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty and loaded for bear.
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave, and scarcely the strength of a louse,
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house.
There was none could place the stranger's face, though we searched ourselves for a clue; ”

“ So good-by, gnà Lola,—Let's pretend it's rained and cleared off, and our friendship is ended." [1]
Gnà Lola married the carter, and on Sundays used to go out on the balcony with her hands crossed on her stomach, to show off all the heavy gold rings that her husband gave to her. Turiddu kept up his habit of going back and forth through the street with his pipe in his mouth, his hands in his pockets, and an air of unconcern, and
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“ On the centre of the lake, cooled by the piercing current of the Rhône, lay the true centre of the Western World. Upon it floated swans like boats and boats like swans, both lost in the nothingness of the heartless beauty. ”

“ In their drawing-room home they roll themselves up and sleep as dormice do in cold weather, but with warmth and sunlight they expand their petal-like tentacles, and as flies in summer air, now float on the surface of the water, now gem the fronds of the sea-blooms, hang like blossoms from a spray, or deck the brown rock with life and beauty. ”

“ She saw how love and beauty and freedom lay floating vaguely and aimlessly in a million minds till the poet came and crystallized them into clear-cut, prismatic words, tinged for each with the color of his own fancy, and wrought into a perfect mosaic, not for an age, but for all time. Led by a strong hand, she trod with reverent awe down the dim aisles of the Past, and saw how the soul of man, bound in its prison-house, had ever struggled to voice itself in words. ”

“ George wondered how Lola could bear it.
She was sitting reading, with her long, slender feet stretched out on a foot-stool. She was tall, almost too tall for her weight; her eyes were soft and brown; her dark hair was saved from being commonplace by a uniform tinge in it of purplish red. She was supposed to resemble her dead mother, who had been a beauty. Lola, if there had been some suggestion of force in her movements, a tinge of color in her cheeks, a trace of animation in her expression, would have been a strikingly handsome woman. ”

“ LOLA VAIL.
Lola Vail,—
Her father, a rich planter, owned a vast
Estate upon the banks of that great stream
Which gathers up the waters of the land
And sweeps them onward to the gulf. Half way
To that strange southern land whence Cedric came
Was Lola born—a schoolmate, friend and guest
Of Dora Lee, and much like her; or as she
Would appear with three more years of summers’
Sun to paint with ruddier glow the bloom of{20}
Health upon her cheek, and tint with deeper
Gold her ample braids; in purity of
Thought and loyalty, they also were alike. ”

“ It was Feo—Feo with her eyes wide and round and full of the most astonishing mischief and amusement—Feo with her mouth half open as though she were on the point of bursting into a huge laugh. Lola, that discreet little Lola, that little London mouse, niece of the stiff old Breezy, daughter of those little people in Queen’s Road, Bayswater, with a brigadier general, if you please, the famous Sir Peter Chalfont with a comic cork arm to catch whom every match-making mother had spread her net for years! ”

“ What happened to the general who said you were free? We fought him and drove him away. There is only one thing you can do and MUST do—go to work as before, and woe be to those who make trouble. That's all."
"No," cried Miss Lou, "that surely cannot be all."
"Miss Baron! What can you mean?"
"I mean that these poor creatures are looking to me, trusting in me, and I have promised to intercede in their behalf. Tell them at least this, you or uncle, that if they obey and work quietly and faithfully they shall not be treated harshly, nor subjected to the brutal spite of that overseer, Perkins." ”

“ With the ready egotism of the young he was inclined to believe that fate had brought about the events which had revealed to him the woman he should marry. A bombshell bursting among them all would not have created a greater sensation than the knowledge that the girl's thoughts were following a Yankee, one whom she herself, by daring stratagem, had released from captivity.
A twinge of pain awakened the colonel and he looked up, dazed and uncomprehending. Miss Lou bent over him and said gently, "Go to sleep again. It's all right."
"Oh, I remember now. You are Miss Baron." ”

“ Sounds of renewed life came from all directions; the troopers rolled up their blankets, and went to look after their horses; Mrs. Baron bustled about, giving directions for breakfast; Chunk and Zany worked under her eye as if they were what she wished them to be, the automatic performers of her will; Aun' Suke fumed and sputtered like the bacon in her frying-pan, but accomplished her work with the promptness of one who knew that no excuses would be taken from either master or mistress; Miss Lou dusted the parlor, and listened stolidly to the gallantries of her cousin. ”

“ Baron, as the girl appeared in the parlor door, "it would be far more decorous if you would remain here with your uncle and myself."
Miss Lou took a seat in the darkest corner that she might be less open to observation while she calmed the tumult of her feelings. So much had happened that she must catch her breath and think what it all meant. Mr. Baron began gloomily, "Well, the dreaded hour which I hoped and prayed never to see has come. We are helpless and in the hands of our enemies. ”

“ Some day your heart may be cold and sad, and the memory of what you have just seen may warm and cheer it Miss Lou, you brave, noble little child-woman, didn't you see that my love was your servant—that it merely gives you power over me? Even as my wife you would be as free as I would be. Now good-by. We part here and not before others. Chunk is yonder with my horse. Be just as happy as you can whether we ever meet again or not. ”

“ Baron went forward with him and said in a low tone:
"You are virtually in command here and all know it. A few words from you will have more effect than anything I can say."
"Very well, then," responded the resolute surgeon, and he strode toward the negroes, not noticing that Miss Lou kept almost at his side.
"Look here, you people," he began harshly, "do you think I will permit such disturbances? They may be the death of brave men. Quit your nonsense at once. You are simply what you've always been. Yankee words don't make you free any more than they make us throw down our arms. ”

“ And when Lola returned, having carried out her orders and still tingling with the triumph of having proved her courage and her wit, she found Lady Feo lying in the middle of the room, on her back, doing exercises. “All the dullards have left the Winchfields’,” she said. “There’s to be a pucca man there this afternoon, one I’ve had my eye on for weeks. Quick’s the word, Lola. Get me dressed and into the car. This is Sunday and I’m in London. It’s perfectly absurd. ”

“ The youngest, Siva, was like Lola, intelligent, passionate, easily aroused, but she was only eleven and merely profited by her sister’s bad example. Lola was quarrelsome, insubordinate, impertinent. She contended every point, objected to every request, shirked her work, fought with her sisters, mocked her mother, went about the village with a chip upon her shoulder. When she was fourteen, she became so unmanageable at home that her uncle sent her to live in the pastor’s household. ”

“ Baron, "neither will my wife. If the country has come to such a pass that we must die on our hearths we will die right here."
"Then with my whole authority, mother, I demand that you and my cousin go at once while opportunity still remains. The forces on both sides are concentrating here, and this house may soon be in the midst of a battle. Lou will be exposed to every chance of war. By Heaven! the girl to be my wife shall not trifle with me longer. ”

“ It was Lola, as scared as a child in the middle of traffic, a rabbit among a pack of hounds, asking herself, cold and hot by turns, what she had done—oh, what—by coming to that place with no one to look after her, wishing and wishing that the floor would open up and let her into a tunnel which would lead her out to the back room of the nerve-wrung dressmaker. Every passing man who looked her up and down and every woman who turned her head over her shoulder added stone after stone to the pile of her folly, so childish, so laughable, so stupendous. ”

“ The fame of Lola spread through the borough, and now she can walk feared, honoured, unmolested by night or by day through the streets of horror and crime, which neither I nor any other man—no matter how courageous—dare enter at certain hours without the magical protection of a policeman.
Sunshine has come at last, both into this little backwater of the world by the sea and into my own life, and it is time I should end this futile record. ”

“ Big Ben struck the quarter and Lola returned to earth. “Simpky,” she said, “cab, quick.” And he called one and gave the address. And then she began again to hear what the valet was saying. He had used up Miss Nell o’ New Orleans and had come to Miss Lola of Queen’s Road, Bayswater. “Look ’ere, can’t we do this often, you and me? We can always sneak off when there’s a dinner on or Lady Feo’s out in the push. It don’t cost much and I’ve got plenty of money.” ”

“ Baron took it from her pocket without a word, and Miss Lou went to her room.
True to her nature, Mrs. Whately began to pour oil on the lacerated feelings of her brother and sister-in-law. "Louise is right," she said. "Things are so much better than we expected—than they might have been—that we should raise our hearts in thankfulness. Just think! If this Northern officer is what you fear, why would he have spared my son, whom he might have killed in fair battle? ”

“ But, in an abstract sense, Lao’s, as originally defined by himself, was the purer and more elevated; for it aimed at securing the immortality of man through the contemplation of God, the subjugation of the passions, and the absolute tranquillity of the soul. He taught that Silence and the Void generated the Taou, the “Logos” or reason by which movement was [Pg 131] produced; and that all beings containing in themselves the duality of male and female sprang from them. ”

“ I advise you to go to your room and thank Heaven for your escape."
"Uncle, are the people of the North savages?"
"Its soldiers are worse than savages. Have you not heard me express my opinion of them over and over again? Go to your room, and when you appear again, I trust it will be with the meekness and submission becoming in a young woman."
When the girl left Aun' Jinkey's cabin the young soldier looked after her with an expression of deep interest. "Who is she?" he asked.
"Dat's Miss Lou," said the old negress, forcing into his mouth another spoonful of her fiery decoction. ”

“ Yesterday as we lay on the sands, watching the waves idly lap the shore, Lola brought herself nearer to me with a rhythmic movement as no other creature form of woman is capable of, and looked into my eyes. And she whispered something to me which led to an infinite murmuring of foolish things. I put my arms round her and kissed her on the lips and on her cheek—whether the beautiful or the maimed I knew not—and she sank into a long, long silence. At last she said:
“What are you thinking of?”
I said, “I'm thinking that not a single human being on the face of the earth has a sense of humour.” ”