warm peninsula itself, stretching like a finger pointing southward from the continent's broad palm into the tropic sea.
But now Miss Thorne laid her white umbrella upon the heap of fallen blocks beside her, and rose; she did this as though it were something of a trouble, but a trouble that was necessary. She walked forward several steps, and turned first towards the new-comer, then towards the younger gentleman. "Let me present to you, Doctor, Mr. Evert Winthrop, of New York," she said, formally. "Mr. Winthrop, this is our valued friend, Mr. Reginald Kirby, surgeon, of Gracias-á-Dios." She then returned to her seat with the air of one who had performed an important task.
Dr. Kirby now advanced and offered his hand to Winthrop. He was a little man, but a little man with plenty of presence; he bore – if one had an eye for such things – a general resemblance to a canary-bird. He had a firm, plump little person, upon which his round, partly bald head (visible as he stood with hat doffed) was set, with scarcely any intervention of neck; and this plump person was attired in nankeen-colored clothes. His face showed a small but prominent aquiline nose, a healthily yellow complexion, and round, bright black eyes. When he talked he moved his head briskly to and fro upon his shoulders, and he had a habit of looking at the person he was addressing with one eye only, his face almost in profile, which was most bird-like of all. In addition, his legs were short in proportion to his body, and he stood on his small, well-shaped feet much as a canary balances himself on his little claws.
"I am delighted to meet you, sir," he said to Winthrop. "I esteem it a fortunate occurrence, most fortunate, which brought me to East Angels this evening to pay my respects to Mistress Thorne, thus obtaining for myself, in addition, the pleasure of your acquaintance. Mistress Thorne having mentioned to me that you were making a little tour of the place with Miss Garda, I offered to bear you company during a portion, at least, of your progress, for Miss Garda, though possessing an intelligence delicately keen, may not (being feminine) remember to present you with the statistics, the – as I may say – historical items, which would naturally be interesting to a northerner of discrimination." The Doctor had a fine voice; his words were borne along on it like stately ships on the current of a broad river.
"Do not praise me too highly," said the possessor of the delicate intelligence, from her block. "I could never live up to it, you know."
"Miss Thorne has said many interesting things," answered Winthrop, "but she has not as yet, I think, favored me with anything historical; her attention has perhaps been turned rather more to the agricultural side."
"Agricultural?" said Kirby, bringing to bear upon Winthrop a bright left eye.
"He is making sport of me," explained Garda, laughing.
"Pooh! pooh!" said the Doctor, raising himself a little, first on his toes, then on his heels, thus giving to his plump person a slightly balancing motion to and fro. "A little more seriousness, Garda, my child; a little more seriousness." Then, with his hands behind him, he turned to Winthrop to present, in his full tones, one of the historical items of which he had spoken. "These walls, Mr. Winthrop, whose shattered ruins now rise before you, once formed part of a large sugar-mill, which was destroyed by the Indians during the Seminole war. This province, sir, has had a vast deal of trouble with her Indians – a vast deal. The nature of the country has afforded them every protection, and clogged pursuit with monstrous difficulties, which, I may add, have never been in the least appreciated by those unfamiliar with the ground. The records of our army – I speak, sir, of the old army," said the Doctor, after a moment's pause, making his little explanation with a courteous wave of the hand, which dismissed, as between himself and the guest of Mistress Thorne, all question as to the army which was newer – "these records, sir, are full of stories of the most harassing campaigns, made up and down this peninsula by our soldiers, in pursuit – vain pursuit – of a slippery, creeping, red-skinned, damnable foe. Canebrake, swamp, hammock; hammock, swamp, canebrake; ague, sunstroke, everglade; fever, scalping, ambuscade; and massacre – massacre – massacre! – such, sir, are the terms that succeed each other endlessly on those old pages; words that represent, I venture to say, more bravery, more heroic and unrequited endurance, than formed part of many a campaign that shines out to-day brilliantly on history's lying scroll. Yet who knows anything of them? I ask you, who?" The Doctor's fine voice was finer still in indignation.
"As it happens, by a chance, I do," answered Winthrop. "A cousin of my father's was in some of those campaigns. I well remember the profound impression which the Indian names in his letters used to make upon me when a boy – the Withlacoochee, the Caloosahatchee, the Suwannee, the Ocklawaha; they seemed to me to represent all that was tropical and wild and far, far away."
"They represented days of wading up to one's waist in stiff marsh-grass and water, sir. They represented rattlesnakes, moccasins, and adders, sir. They represented every plague of creation, from the mosquito down to the alligator, that great pig of the Florida waters. They represented long, fruitless tramps over the burning barrens, with the strong probability of being shot down at the last by a cowardly foe, skulking behind a tree," declaimed the Doctor, still indignant. "But this cousin of yours – would you do me the favor of his name?"
"Carey – Richard Carey."
"Ah! Major Carey, without doubt," said the little gentleman, softening at once into interest. "Allow me – was he sometimes called Dizzy Dick?"
"I am sorry to say that I have heard that name applied to him," answered Winthrop, smiling.
"Sir, you need not be," responded the other man, with warmth; "Dizzy Dick was one of the finest and bravest gentlemen of the old army. My elder brother Singleton – Captain Singleton Kirby – was of his regiment, and knew and loved him well. I am proud to take a relative of his by the hand – proud!" So saying, the Doctor offered his own again, and the two men went gravely through the ceremony of friendship a second time, under the walls of the old mill.
"Returning to our former subject," began the Doctor again – "for I hope to have many further opportunities for conversation with you concerning your distinguished relative – I should add, while we are still beside this memento, that the early Spanish settlers of this coast – "
"As a last wish," interrupted Garda, in a drowsy voice, "wait for the resurrection."
"As a last wish?" said the Doctor, turning his profile towards her with his head on one side, in his canary-bird way.
"Yes. I see that you have begun upon the history of the Spaniards in Florida, and as I shall certainly fall asleep, I think I ought to protect, as far as possible beforehand, my own especial ancestors," she answered, still somnolent; "they always have that effect upon me – the Spaniards in Florida." And as she slowly pronounced these last words the long lashes drooped over her eyes, she let her head fall back against the block behind her, and was apparently lost in dreams.
In this seeming slumber she made a lovely picture. But its chief charm to Evert Winthrop lay in the fact that it had in it so much more of the sportiveness of the child than of the consciousness of the woman. "I am interested in the old Spaniards, I confess," he said, "but not to the extent of allowing them to put you to sleep in this fashion. We will leave them where they are for the present (of course Elysium), and ask you to take us to the crane; his powers of entertainment are evidently greater than our own." And he offered his hand as if to assist her to rise.
"I am not quite gone yet," replied Garda, laughing, as she rose without accepting it. "But we must take things in their regular order, the magnolias come next; the crane, as our greatest attraction, is kept for the last." And she led the way along a path which brought them to a grove of sweet-gum-trees; the delicately cut leaves did not make a thick foliage, but adorned the boughs with lightness, each one visible on its slender stalk; the branches were tenanted by a multitude of little birds, whose continuous carols kept the air filled with a shower of fine small notes.
"How they sing!"
