The Amateur Gentleman

and Further Narrates How Barnabas Tore a Wonderful Bottle-Green Coat Now in a while Barnabas came to where was a stile with a path

beyond--a narrow path that led up over a hill until it lost itself

in a wood that crowned the ascent; a wood where were shady dells

full of a quivering green twilight; where broad glades led away

beneath leafy arches, and where a stream ran gurgling in the shade of

osiers and willows; a wood that Barnabas had known from boyhood.

Therefore, setting his hand upon the stile, he vaulted lightly over,

minded to go through the wood and join the high road further on.

This he did by purest chance, and all unthinking followed the winding

path.

Now had Barnabas gone on by the road how different this history

might have been, and how vastly different his career! But, as it

happened, moved by Chance, or Fate, or Destiny, or what you will,

Barnabas vaulted over the stile and strode on up the winding path,

whistling as he went, and, whistling, plunged into the green twilight

of the wood, and, whistling still, swung suddenly into a broad and

grassy glade splashed green and gold with sunlight, and then stopped

all at once and stood there silent, dumb, the very breath in check

between his lips.

She lay upon her side--full length upon the sward, and her tumbled

hair made a glory in the grass, a golden mane. Beneath this silken

curtain he saw dark brows that frowned a little--a vivid mouth, and

lashes thick and dark like her eyebrows, that curled upon the pallor

of her cheek.

Motionless stood Barnabas, with eyes that wandered from the small

polished riding-boot, with its delicately spurred heel, to follow

the gracious line that swelled voluptuously from knee to rounded hip,

that sank in sweetly to a slender waist, yet rose again to the

rounded beauty of her bosom.

So Barnabas stood and looked and looked, and looking sighed, and

stole a step near and stopped again, for behold the leafy screen was

parted suddenly, and Barnabas beheld two boots--large boots they

were but of exquisite shape--boots that strode strongly and planted

themselves masterfully; Hessian boots, elegant, glossy and

betasselled. Glancing higher, he observed a coat of a bottle-green,

high-collared, close-fitting and silver-buttoned; a coat that served

but to make more apparent the broad chest, powerful shoulders, and

lithe waist of its wearer. Indeed a truly marvellous coat (at least,

so thought Barnabas), and in that moment, he, for the first time,

became aware how clumsy and ill-contrived were his own garments; he

understood now what Natty Bell had meant when he had said they were

not polite enough; and as for his boots--blunt of toe, thick-soled

and ponderous--he positively blushed for them. Here, it occurred to

him that the wearer of the coat possessed a face, and he looked at

it accordingly. It was a handsome face he saw, dark of eye,

square-chinned and full-lipped. Just now the eyes were lowered, for

their possessor stood apparently lost in leisurely contemplation of

her who lay outstretched between them; and as his gaze wandered to

and fro over her defenceless beauty, a glow dawned in the eyes, and

the full lips parted in a slow smile, whereat Barnabas frowned darkly,

and his cheeks grew hot because of her too betraying habit.