CHAPTER XITHE BRECON COACHTHEGreen Dragon stood in High Street within sound of the Cathedral bells, and was the point of migration to the worldly part of the county, just as the Cathedral was the point of migration to the spiritual. The Hereford and Brecon coach started from its door, and one morning, a few days after the ball, a little crowd had collected as usual to see it off. It was nine o’clock, and the day had not sent out what little heat it possessed; the ostlers were shivering as they stood at the horses’ heads, and the guard blew on his fingers whenever he had the courage to take them from his pockets. The coachman, great man, had not as yet left the landlord’s room, in which he was spending his last minutes before starting, talking to the landlady by the fire, and occasionally casting an eye through the glass door which opened upon the main entrance where the passengers were assembling.“Guard, guard,” cried an old lady, standing near a page who led a Blenheim spaniel, “will you kindly look among the boxes and see whether a small dog’s water-tin is there? It is marked ‘Fido,’ and has ‘Miss Crouch, Belle Vue Villas, Laurel Grove, Gloucester,’ printed upon the bottom.”“It’s all right, ’m,” replied the guard immovably, “I saw to it myself.” The luggage had been put upon the coach a couple of hours earlier before the horses were harnessed, and he and the ostlers exchanged winks.The page-boy sidled up to his mistress. “I’ve got it ’ere, mum—under my arm, mum,” he said, holding out the article.The passengers smiled with meaning, and Isoline Ridgeway, who was among them, giggled audibly.“If your memory for the mail-bags is not better than your memory for the luggage,” remarked Fido’s owner, “there are many who will have to wait for their letters, my man.”The passengers smiled again, but this time not at the old lady.Miss Ridgeway the elder had left the comfort of her snug Georgian house at this unusually early hour to see her niece off by the Brecon coach, which was to put her down at the toll-gate lately demolished by Rebecca, near the foot of Crishowell Lane, at which place her uncle was to meet her.Isoline wore a fur-trimmed pelisse, and her head was enveloped in a thick veil, which her aunt had insisted upon her wearing, both as a protection against the east wind and any undesirable notice which her face might attract. The two ladies stood in the shelter of the Green Dragon doorway while the coachman, who had torn himself from the fire, was gathering up the reins, and the passengers were taking their seats. Miss Crouch, with Fido on her lap, was installed inside, and the guard was holding the steps for Isoline to mount, when Harry Fenton came rushing up wrapped in a long travelling-coat.“Just in time!” he called out to the guard; “my luggage is on, I hope?”He turned to Isoline’s aunt, hat in hand.“As I am going down to Waterchurch to-day,” he said, “I hope you will allow me to look after Miss Ridgeway’s comfort and be of any use I can to her on the way.”“Thank you, Mr. Fenton,” she replied, “I am pleased to think my niece has the escort of some gentleman whom I know. It will relieve my mind greatly.”Isoline said nothing, but she smiled brilliantly behind her veil; then kissing her aunt, she got into her place, followed by Harry; the coachman raised his chin at the ostlers, who whipped the rugs from the horses, and they were off.Is there anything in this steam-driven world, except perhaps trotting to covert on a fresh February morning, which gives a more expectant fillip to the spirits and a finer sense of exhilaration than starting on a journey behind four good horses? The height at which one sits, the rush of the air on one’s face, the ring of the sixteen hoofs in front, the rocking-horse canter of the off-leader ere he makes up his lordly mind to put his heart into the job and settle to a steady trot, the purr of the wheels on the road, the smell of the moist country as the houses are left behind, and the brisk pace now that the first half-mile has been done and the team is working well together—surely the man whose blood does not rise at all these, must have the heart of a mollusc and the imagination of a barn-door fowl.Harry had travelled so often behind the blue roan and three bays that he knew their paces, history, and temper nearly as well as the man who drove them, and for some time his interest in them was so great as to make him almost unconscious of Isoline’s presence. As they bowled along she sighed softly, drawing up her rug round her. If it had not been for the society in which she found herself, she would willingly have changed places with Miss Crouch inside. The country conveyed nothing to her eye; it was cold, Harry’s want of appreciation was anything but flattering—and she was accustomed to think a good deal about what was flattering and what was not; it was rather a favourite word of hers. She had never looked at the horses, because it had not occurred to her to do so; in her mind they were merely four animals whose efforts were necessary to the coach’s progress. How could one wonder at her want of interest in ideas and things of which she had no knowledge? To her town-bred soul, outdoor life was a dull panorama seen at intervals through a plate-glass window. Nevertheless, had it been otherwise, she would not have changed her point of view much, being one of those women whose spirits rise at no exercise, whose blood is stirred by no encounter; you might have run the Derby under hernose without taking her mind from her next neighbour’s bonnet.Presently Harry looked round and saw her arranging the rug that had fallen again.“I beg your pardon,” he cried, “what an oaf you must think me, Miss Ridgeway! I promised to take care of you, and I don’t even see that you are comfortable.”“It does not matter at all,” she said pleasantly, but with a little shudder in case he should take her words too literally.“But you are cold, I am sure you are,” exclaimed he, beginning to pull off his heavy coat. “You must have this, it will go right over your dress—cloak—I don’t know what it is called.”“No, no,” she protested. “Please, pray, Mr. Fenton, do not be so absurd. Look, I am all right. The rug only slipped off my knees.”He tucked it elaborately round her and sat down, resolving to devote himself to her and to nothing else; and, as it was with a view to this purpose that he had timed his journey home, no doubt he was right.“Where do you expect to meet Mr. Lewis?” he inquired. “I suppose at Llangarth?”“I am to leave the coach at some toll-gate, I do not quite know where, but the guard understands, I believe, and my uncle will be there. I think it is only just being put up, for the Rebecca-ites destroyed it.”“I have some reason to know that place,” observed Harry, with a sigh; “I would give a thousand pounds—if I had it—to catch the man who was at the bottom of that night’s work. I tried hard, but I failed.”“How interesting; do tell me all about it,” said she. “You were there with the military, were you not?”“The yeomanry, yes. But we did little good.”“Were you in your regimentals? How I should like to have been there to see the yeomanry!”“You would not have liked to see poor Vaughan, the toll-man,killed, though he was a fine sight standing up against the rioters.”“But why did he come out if there were so many against him? Surely he would not have been killed if he had stayed inside until help came?”“He was responsible for the gate,” said Harry.“And he would have been blamed, I suppose,” said Isoline. “How unjust!”“No, he wouldn’t have been blamed,” said Fenton. He was too young to reflect that people might belong to the same nation and yet speak different languages.“Poor old man, how very sad,” said the girl. “Which of those dreadful rioters killed him?”“A man called Walters—Rhys Walters—a very large farmer.”“Good gracious!” exclaimed Isoline; “then will he be hanged?”“He will have to stand his trial for manslaughter—that is, when they catch him, if they ever do, for he is a wonderful fellow. I thought at one time I might have taken him myself, but he slipped through my fingers, I can’t imagine how to this day.”“And were you near when he killed the toll-keeper?”“I was, but I did not actually see it done. One of our men and two constables swore at the inquest that they saw Walter’s arm fly up and the man go down. It was so dark and everything was so mixed up that one could hardly tell what was happening, but an inn-keeper named Evans was close by, and he saw the blow struck. He was one of the men caught, and he confessed everything.”She was really interested, and was listening with her lips parted.“When I saw Walters making off I followed hard. I made up my mind I would get hold of him if I could, but he was on a good mare, and he took me over the worst places he could find; I very nearly came to grief among the boulders at abrook, the light was bad and they were so slippery, but I got through somehow, and I heard him in Crishowell Lane not far ahead. When he got to the top of it, he made for the Black Mountain as hard as he could, and I kept within sound of his hoofs till we were about a quarter of a mile from his own farm; then I heard him pull up into a walk. When I rode up I saw that the horse was riderless, so I suppose he must have slipped off somewhere along the foot of the mountain and left me to follow it. That was the second time he had made a fool of me.”“Did you know him before?”“I met him not far from that very place, as I was coming down to Waterchurch from London the day after Christmas. I rode from Hereford on, and lost my way in the fog by the mountain. He was groping about too, and he pretended to go out of his road to show me mine—devil that he is—but I know why he did it now.”“Why?”“He rode with me so as to talk about the riot, for every one knew that there would be one; so he put me on the wrong scent; he seemed to have some secret information about it, and it tallied with other rumours we had heard, so the police and the yeomanry were kept night after night at the gate by the river at Llangarth. If it had not been for a boy who saw the rioters making for the toll by Crishowell Lane, and who ran all the way to the town with the information, they would have got off scot-free. What would I not give to catch that man!”“I am afraid you are very vindictive, Mr. Fenton.”“They are scouring the country steadily,” continued he, unheeding, “but they can find no trace of him. It is extraordinary.”But Isoline had grown tired of the subject now that the sensational part of it was over, and she directed her companion’s attention to some passing object.The sun had come out, and she was beginning to enjoyherself; it was pleasant to be seen abroad too with such a smart-looking young fellow in attendance.They chatted and laughed as the hedges flew by, and when the first stage was done and they pulled up before the creaking signboard of a village inn to change horses, both regretted that a part of their journey was over. Harry was too much engrossed to get down and watch the new team being put in—a matter which the coachman, who knew him well, did not fail to notice, and he and the guard exchanged comments.“Hi, there!” cried a voice from the road, “have you got a place left for one?” A sturdy young man in leather leggings was coming round a corner, waving his stick.Harry started up.“Gad, Llewellyn, is that you?” he cried, looking down on the crown of his brother’s head.“It is,” replied Llewellyn, putting his foot on the axle and swinging himself up. “Is there a vacant place anywhere, Harry?”“Yes, a man has just left the one behind me. Miss Ridgeway, this is my brother, Mr. Llewellyn Fenton. Miss Ridgeway is travelling to Crishowell, and I am—I mean, I have—I was asked by her aunt to look after her.”“Mornin’, sir,” said the guard, coming out of the inn and touching his hat. “Any luggage? Two vacant places, sir.”“No, nothing; only myself.”“I didn’t expect to see you, Loo. What have you been doing here?” asked Harry.“Looking after pigs,” said Llewellyn, as he sat down.Isoline opened her eyes; she thought that only people who wheeled barrows with pitchforks stuck in them did that.“He is my father’s agent,” explained Harry.Llewellyn was rather amused. Harry had not told him that he was going down to Waterchurch that day, so the meeting of the brothers was purely accidental. It did not escape him thattwo was company and three was none, for he marked Isoline’s little air of complacency at her entire absorption of her cavalier, and his having broken in upon her raised a faint but pleasant malice in him. It could not exactly be said that he disliked her, for he did not know her in the least, though he had observed her a good deal at the ball, and, considering that he had seen very little of the world, he was a youth wonderfully free from prejudice. But, had he put his feelings into thoughts, he would have known that he was irritated. Isoline glanced at him once or twice, and made up her mind that she hated him.“Were you buying pigs then?” asked Harry, as they were trotting along the high-road again.“Father wants a few young Berkshires, and I came to see some belonging to a man out here. It sounds low, does it not, Miss Ridgeway?” said his brother, looking at Isoline, and knowing by instinct that the subject was uncongenial.“Oh, no, not at all, I assure you,” replied she, quite uncertain how she ought to take his remark. That pigs were vulgar was well known, nevertheless she could not help a vague suspicion that she was being laughed at. But Llewellyn’s face was inscrutable, and she could only move uneasily on her seat and wish him miles away.For the rest of the journey the two young men looked after her carefully, Llewellyn vying with his brother in his attention to her every wish; but a snake had entered into her Eden, a snake who was so simple that she could not understand him, but who was apparently not simple enough to misunderstand her.Sometime later they clattered through Llangarth, stopping at the Bull Inn, where Harry had been kept for so many hours on the night of the riot, and went along the Brecon road parallel with the river. The toll-gate by Crishowell had not yet been re-erected, and the bare posts stuck dismally up at the wayside by the little slate-roofed house. As it came insight they observed a vehicle drawn up beside the hedge, and evidently awaiting the advent of the coach.“That must be my uncle’s carriage,” said Isoline, beginning to collect her wraps.They stopped at the toll, and the guard prepared to disentangle Miss Ridgeway’s possessions from the other luggage. Harry and Llewellyn jumped down, and the former went towards the strange-looking conveyance which was moored up under the lee of the hedge. He peered into the weather-beaten hood which crowned it, expecting to find the Vicar of Crishowell inside, but its only occupant was a huddled-up figure fast asleep. He shook it smartly.Howlie Seaborne opened his eyes without changing his position.“Wake up, boy!” cried Fenton, leaning over the wheel and plastering himself with a layer of mud by the act; “do you belong to Mr. Lewis?”“Naw,” said Howlie.“Then has no one come to meet Miss Ridgeway?”“Here oi be, but oi belong to moiself an’ to no one else. Be her come?”“Your uncle is not here, but he has sent for you,” said Harry, going up to the coach from which Llewellyn was helping Isoline to descend.Howlie gave the old white mare in front of him a slap with the whip, and arrived in the middle of the road with a great creaking and swaying.“Oi can’t take them boxes along,” he remarked, pointing to Miss Ridgeway’s luggage which stood in the road.“Never mind, you can send for them after,” said Harry. “Guard, put them in the toll-house if any one is there.”While this was being done, Isoline climbed up beside Howlie, and the young men wished her good-bye.“You will ask your uncle?” said Harry, looking earnestly into the hood.“Yes, yes,” she said, waving her hand. “Good-bye, good-bye, Mr. Fenton, and thank you for taking such care of me!”Then the vehicle lumbered into Crishowell Lane with one wheel almost up on the bank.“Can you drive, boy?” she asked nervously.“Yaas,” replied Howlie; “can you?”
THEGreen Dragon stood in High Street within sound of the Cathedral bells, and was the point of migration to the worldly part of the county, just as the Cathedral was the point of migration to the spiritual. The Hereford and Brecon coach started from its door, and one morning, a few days after the ball, a little crowd had collected as usual to see it off. It was nine o’clock, and the day had not sent out what little heat it possessed; the ostlers were shivering as they stood at the horses’ heads, and the guard blew on his fingers whenever he had the courage to take them from his pockets. The coachman, great man, had not as yet left the landlord’s room, in which he was spending his last minutes before starting, talking to the landlady by the fire, and occasionally casting an eye through the glass door which opened upon the main entrance where the passengers were assembling.
“Guard, guard,” cried an old lady, standing near a page who led a Blenheim spaniel, “will you kindly look among the boxes and see whether a small dog’s water-tin is there? It is marked ‘Fido,’ and has ‘Miss Crouch, Belle Vue Villas, Laurel Grove, Gloucester,’ printed upon the bottom.”
“It’s all right, ’m,” replied the guard immovably, “I saw to it myself.” The luggage had been put upon the coach a couple of hours earlier before the horses were harnessed, and he and the ostlers exchanged winks.
The page-boy sidled up to his mistress. “I’ve got it ’ere, mum—under my arm, mum,” he said, holding out the article.
The passengers smiled with meaning, and Isoline Ridgeway, who was among them, giggled audibly.
“If your memory for the mail-bags is not better than your memory for the luggage,” remarked Fido’s owner, “there are many who will have to wait for their letters, my man.”
The passengers smiled again, but this time not at the old lady.
Miss Ridgeway the elder had left the comfort of her snug Georgian house at this unusually early hour to see her niece off by the Brecon coach, which was to put her down at the toll-gate lately demolished by Rebecca, near the foot of Crishowell Lane, at which place her uncle was to meet her.
Isoline wore a fur-trimmed pelisse, and her head was enveloped in a thick veil, which her aunt had insisted upon her wearing, both as a protection against the east wind and any undesirable notice which her face might attract. The two ladies stood in the shelter of the Green Dragon doorway while the coachman, who had torn himself from the fire, was gathering up the reins, and the passengers were taking their seats. Miss Crouch, with Fido on her lap, was installed inside, and the guard was holding the steps for Isoline to mount, when Harry Fenton came rushing up wrapped in a long travelling-coat.
“Just in time!” he called out to the guard; “my luggage is on, I hope?”
He turned to Isoline’s aunt, hat in hand.
“As I am going down to Waterchurch to-day,” he said, “I hope you will allow me to look after Miss Ridgeway’s comfort and be of any use I can to her on the way.”
“Thank you, Mr. Fenton,” she replied, “I am pleased to think my niece has the escort of some gentleman whom I know. It will relieve my mind greatly.”
Isoline said nothing, but she smiled brilliantly behind her veil; then kissing her aunt, she got into her place, followed by Harry; the coachman raised his chin at the ostlers, who whipped the rugs from the horses, and they were off.
Is there anything in this steam-driven world, except perhaps trotting to covert on a fresh February morning, which gives a more expectant fillip to the spirits and a finer sense of exhilaration than starting on a journey behind four good horses? The height at which one sits, the rush of the air on one’s face, the ring of the sixteen hoofs in front, the rocking-horse canter of the off-leader ere he makes up his lordly mind to put his heart into the job and settle to a steady trot, the purr of the wheels on the road, the smell of the moist country as the houses are left behind, and the brisk pace now that the first half-mile has been done and the team is working well together—surely the man whose blood does not rise at all these, must have the heart of a mollusc and the imagination of a barn-door fowl.
Harry had travelled so often behind the blue roan and three bays that he knew their paces, history, and temper nearly as well as the man who drove them, and for some time his interest in them was so great as to make him almost unconscious of Isoline’s presence. As they bowled along she sighed softly, drawing up her rug round her. If it had not been for the society in which she found herself, she would willingly have changed places with Miss Crouch inside. The country conveyed nothing to her eye; it was cold, Harry’s want of appreciation was anything but flattering—and she was accustomed to think a good deal about what was flattering and what was not; it was rather a favourite word of hers. She had never looked at the horses, because it had not occurred to her to do so; in her mind they were merely four animals whose efforts were necessary to the coach’s progress. How could one wonder at her want of interest in ideas and things of which she had no knowledge? To her town-bred soul, outdoor life was a dull panorama seen at intervals through a plate-glass window. Nevertheless, had it been otherwise, she would not have changed her point of view much, being one of those women whose spirits rise at no exercise, whose blood is stirred by no encounter; you might have run the Derby under hernose without taking her mind from her next neighbour’s bonnet.
Presently Harry looked round and saw her arranging the rug that had fallen again.
“I beg your pardon,” he cried, “what an oaf you must think me, Miss Ridgeway! I promised to take care of you, and I don’t even see that you are comfortable.”
“It does not matter at all,” she said pleasantly, but with a little shudder in case he should take her words too literally.
“But you are cold, I am sure you are,” exclaimed he, beginning to pull off his heavy coat. “You must have this, it will go right over your dress—cloak—I don’t know what it is called.”
“No, no,” she protested. “Please, pray, Mr. Fenton, do not be so absurd. Look, I am all right. The rug only slipped off my knees.”
He tucked it elaborately round her and sat down, resolving to devote himself to her and to nothing else; and, as it was with a view to this purpose that he had timed his journey home, no doubt he was right.
“Where do you expect to meet Mr. Lewis?” he inquired. “I suppose at Llangarth?”
“I am to leave the coach at some toll-gate, I do not quite know where, but the guard understands, I believe, and my uncle will be there. I think it is only just being put up, for the Rebecca-ites destroyed it.”
“I have some reason to know that place,” observed Harry, with a sigh; “I would give a thousand pounds—if I had it—to catch the man who was at the bottom of that night’s work. I tried hard, but I failed.”
“How interesting; do tell me all about it,” said she. “You were there with the military, were you not?”
“The yeomanry, yes. But we did little good.”
“Were you in your regimentals? How I should like to have been there to see the yeomanry!”
“You would not have liked to see poor Vaughan, the toll-man,killed, though he was a fine sight standing up against the rioters.”
“But why did he come out if there were so many against him? Surely he would not have been killed if he had stayed inside until help came?”
“He was responsible for the gate,” said Harry.
“And he would have been blamed, I suppose,” said Isoline. “How unjust!”
“No, he wouldn’t have been blamed,” said Fenton. He was too young to reflect that people might belong to the same nation and yet speak different languages.
“Poor old man, how very sad,” said the girl. “Which of those dreadful rioters killed him?”
“A man called Walters—Rhys Walters—a very large farmer.”
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Isoline; “then will he be hanged?”
“He will have to stand his trial for manslaughter—that is, when they catch him, if they ever do, for he is a wonderful fellow. I thought at one time I might have taken him myself, but he slipped through my fingers, I can’t imagine how to this day.”
“And were you near when he killed the toll-keeper?”
“I was, but I did not actually see it done. One of our men and two constables swore at the inquest that they saw Walter’s arm fly up and the man go down. It was so dark and everything was so mixed up that one could hardly tell what was happening, but an inn-keeper named Evans was close by, and he saw the blow struck. He was one of the men caught, and he confessed everything.”
She was really interested, and was listening with her lips parted.
“When I saw Walters making off I followed hard. I made up my mind I would get hold of him if I could, but he was on a good mare, and he took me over the worst places he could find; I very nearly came to grief among the boulders at abrook, the light was bad and they were so slippery, but I got through somehow, and I heard him in Crishowell Lane not far ahead. When he got to the top of it, he made for the Black Mountain as hard as he could, and I kept within sound of his hoofs till we were about a quarter of a mile from his own farm; then I heard him pull up into a walk. When I rode up I saw that the horse was riderless, so I suppose he must have slipped off somewhere along the foot of the mountain and left me to follow it. That was the second time he had made a fool of me.”
“Did you know him before?”
“I met him not far from that very place, as I was coming down to Waterchurch from London the day after Christmas. I rode from Hereford on, and lost my way in the fog by the mountain. He was groping about too, and he pretended to go out of his road to show me mine—devil that he is—but I know why he did it now.”
“Why?”
“He rode with me so as to talk about the riot, for every one knew that there would be one; so he put me on the wrong scent; he seemed to have some secret information about it, and it tallied with other rumours we had heard, so the police and the yeomanry were kept night after night at the gate by the river at Llangarth. If it had not been for a boy who saw the rioters making for the toll by Crishowell Lane, and who ran all the way to the town with the information, they would have got off scot-free. What would I not give to catch that man!”
“I am afraid you are very vindictive, Mr. Fenton.”
“They are scouring the country steadily,” continued he, unheeding, “but they can find no trace of him. It is extraordinary.”
But Isoline had grown tired of the subject now that the sensational part of it was over, and she directed her companion’s attention to some passing object.
The sun had come out, and she was beginning to enjoyherself; it was pleasant to be seen abroad too with such a smart-looking young fellow in attendance.
They chatted and laughed as the hedges flew by, and when the first stage was done and they pulled up before the creaking signboard of a village inn to change horses, both regretted that a part of their journey was over. Harry was too much engrossed to get down and watch the new team being put in—a matter which the coachman, who knew him well, did not fail to notice, and he and the guard exchanged comments.
“Hi, there!” cried a voice from the road, “have you got a place left for one?” A sturdy young man in leather leggings was coming round a corner, waving his stick.
Harry started up.
“Gad, Llewellyn, is that you?” he cried, looking down on the crown of his brother’s head.
“It is,” replied Llewellyn, putting his foot on the axle and swinging himself up. “Is there a vacant place anywhere, Harry?”
“Yes, a man has just left the one behind me. Miss Ridgeway, this is my brother, Mr. Llewellyn Fenton. Miss Ridgeway is travelling to Crishowell, and I am—I mean, I have—I was asked by her aunt to look after her.”
“Mornin’, sir,” said the guard, coming out of the inn and touching his hat. “Any luggage? Two vacant places, sir.”
“No, nothing; only myself.”
“I didn’t expect to see you, Loo. What have you been doing here?” asked Harry.
“Looking after pigs,” said Llewellyn, as he sat down.
Isoline opened her eyes; she thought that only people who wheeled barrows with pitchforks stuck in them did that.
“He is my father’s agent,” explained Harry.
Llewellyn was rather amused. Harry had not told him that he was going down to Waterchurch that day, so the meeting of the brothers was purely accidental. It did not escape him thattwo was company and three was none, for he marked Isoline’s little air of complacency at her entire absorption of her cavalier, and his having broken in upon her raised a faint but pleasant malice in him. It could not exactly be said that he disliked her, for he did not know her in the least, though he had observed her a good deal at the ball, and, considering that he had seen very little of the world, he was a youth wonderfully free from prejudice. But, had he put his feelings into thoughts, he would have known that he was irritated. Isoline glanced at him once or twice, and made up her mind that she hated him.
“Were you buying pigs then?” asked Harry, as they were trotting along the high-road again.
“Father wants a few young Berkshires, and I came to see some belonging to a man out here. It sounds low, does it not, Miss Ridgeway?” said his brother, looking at Isoline, and knowing by instinct that the subject was uncongenial.
“Oh, no, not at all, I assure you,” replied she, quite uncertain how she ought to take his remark. That pigs were vulgar was well known, nevertheless she could not help a vague suspicion that she was being laughed at. But Llewellyn’s face was inscrutable, and she could only move uneasily on her seat and wish him miles away.
For the rest of the journey the two young men looked after her carefully, Llewellyn vying with his brother in his attention to her every wish; but a snake had entered into her Eden, a snake who was so simple that she could not understand him, but who was apparently not simple enough to misunderstand her.
Sometime later they clattered through Llangarth, stopping at the Bull Inn, where Harry had been kept for so many hours on the night of the riot, and went along the Brecon road parallel with the river. The toll-gate by Crishowell had not yet been re-erected, and the bare posts stuck dismally up at the wayside by the little slate-roofed house. As it came insight they observed a vehicle drawn up beside the hedge, and evidently awaiting the advent of the coach.
“That must be my uncle’s carriage,” said Isoline, beginning to collect her wraps.
They stopped at the toll, and the guard prepared to disentangle Miss Ridgeway’s possessions from the other luggage. Harry and Llewellyn jumped down, and the former went towards the strange-looking conveyance which was moored up under the lee of the hedge. He peered into the weather-beaten hood which crowned it, expecting to find the Vicar of Crishowell inside, but its only occupant was a huddled-up figure fast asleep. He shook it smartly.
Howlie Seaborne opened his eyes without changing his position.
“Wake up, boy!” cried Fenton, leaning over the wheel and plastering himself with a layer of mud by the act; “do you belong to Mr. Lewis?”
“Naw,” said Howlie.
“Then has no one come to meet Miss Ridgeway?”
“Here oi be, but oi belong to moiself an’ to no one else. Be her come?”
“Your uncle is not here, but he has sent for you,” said Harry, going up to the coach from which Llewellyn was helping Isoline to descend.
Howlie gave the old white mare in front of him a slap with the whip, and arrived in the middle of the road with a great creaking and swaying.
“Oi can’t take them boxes along,” he remarked, pointing to Miss Ridgeway’s luggage which stood in the road.
“Never mind, you can send for them after,” said Harry. “Guard, put them in the toll-house if any one is there.”
While this was being done, Isoline climbed up beside Howlie, and the young men wished her good-bye.
“You will ask your uncle?” said Harry, looking earnestly into the hood.
“Yes, yes,” she said, waving her hand. “Good-bye, good-bye, Mr. Fenton, and thank you for taking such care of me!”
Then the vehicle lumbered into Crishowell Lane with one wheel almost up on the bank.
“Can you drive, boy?” she asked nervously.
“Yaas,” replied Howlie; “can you?”