The Ancient City

She has gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,
Where all night long, by a fire-fly lamp,
She paddles her white canoe.’

Be sure and pronounce ‘swamp’ to rhyme exactly with ‘damp’ and ‘lamp,’ ” continued Iris; “the effect is more tragic.”

“Certainly,” said Mokes, “far more.”

Passing the morass on planks, we walked down a path bordered with Spanish-bayonets, crossed the creek on a small boat lying there, and entered the enchanted domain. It seemed to be a large plantation run to waste; symmetrical fields surrounded by high hedges of the sour orange, loaded with its fruit; old furrows still visible in the never-freezing ground; every where traces of careful labor and cultivation, which had made the sandy island blossom as the rose. In the centre of a broad lawn were the ruins of a mansion, the white chimney alone standing, like a monument to the past. Beyond, a path led down to a circle of trees with even, dense foliage; there, in the centre, shut out from the glare of the sunshine, alone in the greenery, stood a solitary tomb, massive and dark, without date or inscription save what the little fingers of the lichen had written. We stood around in silence, and presently another pleasure party came down the path and joined us – gay young girls with sprays of orange blossoms in their hats, young men carrying trailing wreaths of the yellow jasmine. Together we filled the green tree circle; and one of the strangers, a fair young girl, moved by a sudden impulse, stepped forward and laid a spray of jasmine on the lonely tomb.

“ ‘Et in Arcadia ego,’ ” said John, who stood behind me. “Do you remember that picture of the gay flower-decked Arcadians coming through a forest with song and laughter, and finding there a solitary tomb with that inscription? This is Arcadia, and we too have found the tomb.”

Strolling on down the island, we came to a long arched walk of orange-trees trained into a continuous arbor.

“What a lovely wild old place!” said Iris. “What is its history? Does any body know?”

“It has not been occupied for nearly a century, I am told,” said Aunt Diana.

“Who would have expected traces of such careful cultivation down on this remote island?” I said, as a new vista of symmetrical fields opened out on one side.

“There you make the common mistake of all Northerners, Miss Martha,” said John Hoffman. “Because the country is desolate and thinly settled, you suppose it to be also wild and new, like the Western States and Territories. You forget how long this far peninsula has been known to the white man. These shores were settled more than a century before Plymouth or Jamestown, and you can scarcely go out in any direction around St. Augustine without coming upon old groves of orange and fig trees, a ruined stone wall, or fallen chimney. Poor Florida! she is full of deserted plantations.”

“But does any one know the story of the place?” repeated Iris, who preferred any diversion to Mokes’s solo.

“Why insist upon digging it up?” said Sara. “Let it rest in the purple haze of the past. The place has not been occupied for a hundred years. We see this beautiful orange walk; yonder is a solitary tomb. Can we not fill out these shadowy borders without the aid of prosaic detail?”

The Professor, who had been digging up vicious-looking roots, now joined us. “When I was here some years ago,” he began, in his loud, distinct tones, “I made a point of investigating – ”

“Let us make a point of leaving,” murmured Sara, taking me off down the walk. John Hoffman followed, so did Iris, and consequently Mokes, likewise Aunt Di. Miss Sharp longed to stay, but did not quite dare; so she compromised by walking on, as far as her feet were concerned, all the rest of her, however, looking back with rapt attention. “Yes? How interesting! Pray go on.”

The Professor went on; we heard his voice in the rear. “It was called El Verjel (the garden), and its orange grove was the glory of St. Augustine – ”

“Hurry!” whispered Sara, “or we shall hear the whole.”

We hastened out into the sunny meadows, catching “killed by lightning” – “1790” – “he sent his oranges to London;” then the voice died away in the distance. John Hoffman kept with us, and we wandered on, looking off over the Matanzas, sweeping on to the south, dotted with sails, and the black dug-outs of the Minorcan fishermen anchored along shore. The tide was out, and the coast-line bare and desolate.

“Nothing that H. H. ever wrote excels her ‘When the tide comes in,’ ” I said. “Do you remember it?

‘When the tide goes out,
The shore looks dark and sad with doubt’ —

and that final question,

‘Ah, darling, shall we ever learn
Love’s tidal hours and days?’ ”

“You believe, then, that love has its high and low tides?” said John, lighting a fresh cigar.

“Low tide,” said Sara, half to herself – “low tide always.” She was looking at the bare shore with a sadness that had real roots down somewhere.

“Very low, I suppose,” commented John; “every thing is always very high or very low with you ladies. You are like the man who had a steamer to sell. ‘But is it a low-pressure engine?’ asked a purchaser. ‘Oh yes, very low,’ replied the owner, earnestly.”

Sara flushed, and turned away.

“Do you do it on purpose, I wonder?” I thought, with some indignation, as I glanced at John’s imperturbable face. I was very tender always with Sara’s sudden little sadnesses. I think there is no one who comprehends a girl passing through the shadow-land of doubt and vague questioning that lies beyond youth so well as the old maid who has made the journey herself, and knows of a surety that there is sunshine beyond. Obeying a sudden impulse, I asked the question aloud. Sara was in front of us, out of hearing.

“Do I do what on purpose, Miss Martha? Tell anecdotes?”

“You know what I mean very well, Mr. Hoffman. Her sadness was real for the moment; why wound her?”

“Wound her! Is a woman wounded by a trifling joke?”

“But her nature is peculiarly sensitive.”

“You mistake her, I think, Miss Martha. Sara St. John is coated over with pride like an armor; she is invulnerable.”

I could not quite deny this, so I veered a little. “She is so lonely, Mr. Hoffman!” I said, coming round on another tack.

“Because she so chooses.”

“It may not be ‘choose.’ Mr. Hoffman, why should you not try to – ” Here I looked up and caught the satirical smile on my companion’s face, and, vexed with myself, I stopped abruptly.

“You are a good friend, Miss Martha.”

“She has need of friends, poor girl!”

“Why poor?”

“In the first place she is poor, literally.”

“Poverty is comparative. Who so poor as Mokes with his millions?”

“Then she is poor in the loss of her youth; she is no longer young, like Iris.”

“ ‘Oh, saw ye not fair Iris going down into the west’ – a minute ago,” said John, glancing after a vanishing blue ribbon. A suspicion, and not for the first time either, crossed my mind. “So it is little Iris, after all,” I thought. “Oh, man, man, how can you be so foolish!” Then aloud, “I must go forward and join the others,” I said, with a tinge of annoyance I could not conceal. John looked at me a moment, and then strode forward. I watched him; he joined Sara. I followed slowly. “There is a second tomb farther down the island,” he was saying as I came up; “it is even more venerable than the first; a square inclosure of coquina, out of which grows an ancient cedar-tree which was probably planted, a mere slip, after the grave was closed. Will you walk that way with me, Miss St. John?” And with bared head he stood waiting for her answer.

“Thank you,” said Sara, “I do not care to walk farther.”

He bowed and left her.

Half an hour later, as Sara and I were strolling near the far point of the island, we caught through the trees a glimpse of Iris seated in the low, crooked bough of a live-oak, and at her feet John Hoffman, reclining on the white tufted moss that covered the ground. “Absurd!” I said, angrily.

“Why absurd? Is she not good and fair? To me there is something very bewitching about Iris Carew. She is the most graceful little creature; look at her attitude now, swinging in that bough! and when she walks there is a willowy suppleness about her that makes the rest of us look like grenadiers. Then what arch dark eyes she has, what a lovely brunette skin, the real brune! Pretty, graceful little Iris, she is always picturesque, whatever she does.”

“But she is a child, Sara, while he – ”

“Is John Hoffman,” replied Sara, with a little curl of her lip. “Come, Martha, I want to show you some Arcadians.”

“Arcadians?”