'After my message, Mr. Falkirk will not do that,' said Rollo, looking at his watch. 'It is half-past twelve o'clock.'
Hazel leaned her chin in her hand and looked off into the moonshine. She did not feel like being 'taken care of,' a bit, to-night.
'I am afraid circumstances are affecting Mr. Falkirk's mind,' she said at last, with a tone just a trifle provoked; for half-past twelve was a stubborn fact to deal with. 'Well, Mr. Rollo—if I can by no means save you the trouble, at what hour will it please you to take it?'
'As there are evidently plots against you, suppose you come to the other side-door, and let us go off without speaking to anybody?'
And so it came to pass that in a few minutes more they were comfortably driving homewards, without supervision, the silent groom behind them not counting one.
They were in a light phaeton, with a new horse in it which could go; the old moon was just rising over the trees; the road free, the pace good. The gentleman's tone when he spoke was rather indicative of enjoyment.
'Who is plotting against you?'
'Plotting!—'
'And now disappointed?'
'O, it is just some of Gotham's stupidity,' said Wych Hazel, with a voice not yet at rest: she had been oddly conscious of wishing that no one should hear her whispered good-night to Mrs. Seaton and follow to see with whom she went home. 'He and I are always at cross purposes.'
'A lady in a white dress brought him the message, he says. But to change the subject—What is your favourite pleasure?'
'Riding the wind.'
'Do you remember once—a great while ago—promising to give me an afternoon some time?'
'Did I? it must have been a great while,' said Wych Hazel. 'O yes, I do remember. Well?'
'Will you put to-morrow afternoon at my disposal?'
'If the thing to be done is within walking distance. Mr.Falkirk will not let me ride.'
'I have brought home, I think, a nice little saddle horse, which I should like to have you try,' Rollo went on, not heeding this.
'Oh!' she said, with unmistakeable longing. 'But he has made me refuse at least five-and-forty just such horses this summer.'
'He will be amenable to reason to-morrow,' said Rollo comfortably. 'Shall I tell you what I want to do with you after I have got you on horseback?'
'Let me run—I hope,' said Wych Hazel.
'I am going to take you where you have never been yet; through Morton Hollow and the mills, to see my old nurse, who lives a little way beyond them.'
'I am not going through Morton Hollow,' said Hazel, decidedly.
'Why not?'
'You never heard of sevenwomenwho could "render a reason," did you?' said the girl, with a laugh in her voice.
'My old nurse is a character,' Rollo went on. 'She is a Norse woman. My mother, I must tell you, was also a Norse woman. My father's business at one time kept him much in Denmark and at St. Petersburg; and at Copenhagen he met my mother, who had been sent there to school. And when my mother forsook her country, the old nurse, not old then, left all to go with her. She was my nurse in my earliest years, and remained our most faithful friend while we were a family. She made afterwards a not very happy marriage; and when her husband died just before I went to Europe, she was left alone and poor. I arranged a small house for her in the neighbourhood of the Hollow; and there she lives—a kind of mysterious oracle to the people about. And her greatest earthly pleasure, I suppose, is to have me come and see her. Gyda Boërresen is her name.'
'I like to see people enjoy their greatest earthly happiness,' said Hazel thoughtfully. 'I never did many times. Or at least not many people.'
'I want you to know Gyda. I am not superstitious, like some of the ignorant people who visit her; but yet'—he paused. 'If ever you were in need of womanly counsel—if ever you wanted sympathizing and wise help—to find your way out of perplexities—I should say, go to Gyda. If any one could give that sort of help, she would. And it is almost like going to a pythoness', added Rollo thoughtfully; 'she is so cut off from the world and its people.'
They were almost at Mr. Falkirk's cottage. Rollo was silent a moment, then said, 'May I ask Mrs. Bywank to shew me hospitality again to-night? I don't want to go home.'
'Mrs. Bywank will be only too glad,' said Wych Hazel. 'The little tower room always goes by your name, Mr. Rollo.'
'She did not put me there the last time,' said he, laughing, 'I was lodged in state and splendour! Well, good night. I wish you were coming to breakfast.'
She stood silent a minute, looking down. Could she? Might she? Would it do? Run away from Mr. Falkirk for a private frolic on the hill? It was a great temptation!
And only doing the honours of her own house, when all was said. Would it be strange? Would he think it strange? That is, not Mr. Falkirk, but Mr. Rollo. Was he a man of sense, she wondered, who always disapproved of everything? And with that a child's look of search and exploration sought his face. There was a grave sparkle in the eyes she met looking down at her.
'I see a question in your face,' said he. 'And I answer,—yes!'
'Very unsafe to answer anything in my face,' said the girl, hastily withdrawing her eyes. 'There weretwoquestions in my mind. Good night, Mr. Rollo, and thank you.'
'Think better of it!'—said Rollo, as he got into the carriage again.
Mrs. Bywank, inspecting her breakfast table from time to time, certainly had Mr. Rollo's wish in her heart, even though it got no further. And setting on orange marmalade for him, she pleased herself with also setting on honey forher;even though the portrait of a little child was all the sign of her young lady the room could boast. But long habit had made it second nature to watch that face, no matter what else she was about. Mrs. Bywank looked and smiled and sighed, and bent down to see if the honey was perfect. It was late in the morning now: Mr. Rollo's slumbers had been allowed to extend themselves somewhat indefinitely in the direction which most men approve; and still breakfast waited, down stairs; and Mrs. Bywank at the tower window gazed down the slope and over the trees towards Wych Hazel's present abiding place. Not expecting to see her, but watching over her in her heart. So standing, she was hailed by a cheery 'good morning' behind her.
'I suppose people who turn day into night have no right to expect the day will keep its promises to them; but you are better than my deserts, Mrs. Bywank. I see a breakfast table!'
'Always ready for you, Mr. Rollo! And you must be very ready too, by this time,' she said, sounding her whistle down the stairs. 'Was Miss Wych at Oak Hill last night, sir?'
'I had the pleasure of bringing her home.'
'O, did you, sir?' said Mrs. Bywank, with a quick look. 'She told me she meant to go,—but her mind comes about wonderfully sudden sometimes. Here is breakfast, Mr. Rollo. Will you take your old seat?'
'I think it will always come about in the right place at last,' said Rollo, as he complied with the invitation. The old housekeeper drew a sigh, looking up at the little picture.
'My pretty one!' she said. Then applied herself to filling Mr. Rollo's cup. 'Yes, sir, you're right,' she went on after a pause. 'And she never would stop in a wrong one, not a minute, but for just a few things.'
'Mrs. Bywank,' said the young man, 'those few things are all around her.'
'You'd think so if you could hear the serenades I hear,' said the housekeeper, 'and see the flowers—and hear the compliments. She tells them to me sometimes, making fun. But the trouble is with Miss Wych, she never will see the world with any eyes but her own,—and who's to make her?'
A problem which Rollo considered in silence, and probably swallowed instead of his coffee.
'Does she speak freely to you of her impressions, and of what she is doing or going to do?'
'Free as a child, Mr. Rollo! Always tells me what dress she'll wear—and then afterwards how people liked it. And what she does, and what they want her to do. And why her head is not turned,' said Mrs. Bywank, in conclusion, 'puzzlesmyhead, I'm sure. Mere handling so many hearts might do it.'
Mr. Rollo pursued his breakfast rather thoughtfully and nonchalantly for a time.
'Mrs. Bywank, Mrs. Coles is returned.'
'Surely!' said Mrs. Bywank, with a slight start. 'Then she'll make mischief,—or it'll be the first chance she ever missed.'
'And—the world around her is not so simple as your young lady believes.'
'No, no!' said Mrs. Bywank, earnestly. 'Well I know that! But just there comes in another trouble I spoke of,—you can't make her believe it, sir,—and so I'm not sure it's always wise to try.' She paused, in a sort of hesitating way; glancing from her teaspoon to her guest.
'It's not wise to try at all,' said he, smiling—a sort of warm genial smile, which went over the table to his old friend. 'At the same time,'—and his face grew sternly grave,—'it may be desirable to have some other wisdom come in to her help. I wish,—if you are in any doubt or perplexity about anything you hear, and it may be only a little thing that may give you the impression,—I wish you would call me in.'
'Well sir,—that just touches my thought,' said Mrs. Bywank. 'Or my thought that. For I couldn't do it, Mr. Rollo, unless,'—and an unmistakeable look of anxious inquiry came across the table. 'Unless, you know, sir,' she went on, looking away again,—'unless—excuse my freedom—the conditions of the will are to be carried out.' And the old housekeeper called for hot waffles, and otherwise apologized for touching the subject, by quitting it at once. As soon as all this bustle was disposed of, her guest met her eye again with a frank, bright smile.
'The conditions of the will are to be carried out, my friend.'
Mrs. Bywank brought her hands together with a sense of relief and gladness that somehow went to her eyes too, and she was silent a little.
'I did hope it, sir!—And I would far rather apply to you than to Mr. Falkirk.Hefrets me sometimes,' added the old housekeeper: 'I may say that to you, sir. Now, she's been wild to ride all summer,—and a dozen wild to have her; and Mr. Falkirk has never let her go once. And so long as hedoeslet her go and dance with the same people, I don't for my part see why.'
'Perhaps he does,' said Rollo, rather dryly. 'But I have made the requisite declarations in presence of Mr. Falkirk and Dr. Maryland, and am legally qualified to act, Mrs. Bywank.Shedoes not know anything of this; and it is not best she should— for the present.'
'No sir—by no means,' said Mrs. Bywank, earnestly. 'For if there is anything miss Wych does hate, it is to have a gentleman speak to her about her doings. When that happens she thinks she's supposed to have done something dreadful; and it hurts her more than you would guess, sir. Little child as she was then, she would cry her eyes out over a word from Mr. Kennedy, but her mother might say anything. And it has always been just so with Mr. Falkirk. Only Miss Wych never cries forhim. At least nobody ever sees her.'
Now, instead of Mr. Rollo's being alarmed at this, as another man might, it was answered by a certain humourous play of face; a slight significance of lip and air, quite difficult to characterize. It was not arrogant, nor arbitrary; I do not know how to call it masterful; and yet certainly it expressed no dismay and no apprehension. Perhaps it expressed that he intended to be in a different category from other men. Perhaps he thought Mrs. Bywank meant to read him a cautionary lesson.
'She is in rather a hard position,' he said, gravely. 'I am glad she has got a good friend in you, Mrs. Bywank. And I am gladIhave, too.'
'Yes, it is hard,' said the old housekeeper, with a glance at him; 'though it is not to be expected, sir, that you should quite understand it. But Miss Wych is the lovingest little creature that ever lived, I believe, and as true as the sky. Why, she could cheat Mr. Falkirk day in and day out if she chose!—but if ever those young menshouldget her to ride, against his orders, she would go and tell him of it, the first minute after she got home.'
Rollo did not ask whether they could do this, or had done it.He went on quietly with his breakfast, only glancing up atMrs. Bywank to let her see that he was attending to her.
'So that's a great safeguard,' she began again, with a sigh. 'But I wish Mrs. Coles was back in Chicago! Miss Fisher was bad enough. And what the two will do between them—'
'What does Miss Fisher do?'
'It is plain to me,' said Mrs. Bywank, 'that she wants to pull my young lady down to her way of dress and behaviour; though Miss Wych don't guess it a bit.Thatshe can never do, of course. But it is just like Miss Fisher to push where she can't pull. Do you understand me, sir?'
'Quite.'
'So that makes me anxious, sir. And there are hands enough to help.'
Leaning somewhat towards her young guest, breakfast rather forgotten on both sides, so they sat; when the door opened softly and Wych Hazel came in. But if the first minute inside the door could have been instantly exchanged for the last one outside, it is probable that the young lady of Chickaree would have disturbed no cabinet council over her that day. For with the first sight of the very people she expected to find, there rushed over her a horrible fear that Mr. Rollo would think she had come to seehim!—and that Mrs. Bywank would think so—and (worst of all) that she thought so herself! But there was no retreating now. So passing swiftly to the old housekeeper's chair, and laying both hands on her shoulders to keep her in it, Hazel stooped down to kiss her; and then straightening herself up like a young arrow, she gave from behind Mrs. Bywank a demure good-morning to Mr. Rollo.
That gentleman had not been so much engrossed with the conversation as to have at all the air of being 'surprised,' or he was too good a man of the world to shew it. He had sprung up instantly as Wych Hazel came in, and now he came round to where she stood to shake hands, looking very bright, but as if her appearance was the simplest thing in the world.
'You have not had breakfast?' he said.
'I have had the opportunity. But you look altogether too comfortable here, you and Mrs. Bywank!—As for me, I have been breakfasting with two bears, and had nearly forgotten how civilization acts.'
'My dear!' said Mrs. Bywank.—'Not "breakfasting"—when you were coming here, Miss Wych?'
'Not much, Byo, to say the truth. I gave Mr. Falkirkhiscoffee—hot and hot.'
'He didn't give you waffles,' said Rollo, making room for her plate and cup upon the table. 'Mrs. Bywank, we must take care of her. I shall never grumble at sending answers to invitations after this.'
He was rendering little services and making himself variously useful, with the air of a person more at home than she was: drawing down a blind to keep the sun from her face, and opening another window to let in the air and the view.
'Take care of me!' said Wych Hazel, with a look at the table instead of at him, and then beginning to touch and mend things generally to suit her fancy. 'It is very plain whatIhave to do! There is the jar of marmalade quite pushed out of reach. And if you do not empty it, Mr. Rollo, Mrs. Bywank will think you have not fulfilled the sweet promise of your earlier years.'
'My dear!' remonstrated Mrs. Bywank, uneasily.
'I have satisfied her,' said Rollo, dryly. 'But there is a little left for you. There wouldn't have been if the two bears had known where it was.'
'Mr. Falkirk was fearfully growly this morning,' said Wych Hazel. 'And every time he growled Gotham grumbled. So I had a fusillade. Where is your fruit, Byo?'
'There was none brought in yesterday, Miss Wych, I'm sorry to say.'
'None at all in the house?'
'There's a basket in your room, my dear; but of course'—
'Not "of course" at all,' said the girl, jumping up to go for it. 'You know that is a sort of fruit I never eat.'
Which might have left it doubtful what sort shedideat,—the basket contained so many, in such splendid variety. Hazel sat down in her place and began to pile up the beauties in a majolica dish.
'Aren't you going to give me some?' said Rollo, looking on.
The answer tarried while Hazel's little fingers dived down after peaches and plums of extra size with which to crown her dish; but so doing, they suddenly brought up a white note, suspiciously sealed with red wax. The girl dropped it, as if it had been a wasp; and hastily setting the basket down on the floor, pushed the unfinished dish to a position before Mr. Rollo.
'There!' she said, 'will that do?'
'Do you mean that you give me all these?'
'Every bit.'
'Mrs. Bywank, might I make interest with you for a finger- glass?'
Which being supplied, the gentleman proceeded to a leisurely ablution of his fingers, and then looked at the dish of fruit before him with grave consideration.
'Which is the best?' said he.
'They all look about alike, to me,' said Wych Hazel, raising her eyebrows. 'I shall be happy to hear, when you have found out.'
Exercising a great deal of deliberation, Rollo finally chose out a bunch of Frontignac grapes and two Moorpark apricots, and set them before Wych Hazel.
'Will you accept these from me?' he said, coolly. 'They are my own property, and are offered to you. Taste and see if they are as good as they ought to be.'
She looked up, and down, laughing.
'That is the way you come round people! Will you take the responsibility? Suppose I am asked, some day, whether they— were—what they ought to be?'
'You can puzzle him just as well after knowing the fact, as before,' Rollo said, with perfect gravity.
'Well,' said Hazel, pulling a grape from the bunch. 'Perhaps my misleading powers may be equal to that. This one is quite good—and not at all sour,' she added, with a flash of her eyes—which, however, went to Mrs. Bywank. 'What do you want, Dingee?'
Dingee advanced and laid a card on the table.
'Say I am at breakfast. I cannot be expected to keep awake all night and all day too.'
'Permit me to inquire,' said Rollo, as he also attacked the grapes, but not looking at them, 'whether you did your share of growling this morning? I am sure no one had more cause.'
'No,' said the girl, laughing. 'I feel that I have a great reserve in store for somebody. Well, Dingee?'
A card with a written message this time. Hazel looked at it, drew her brows together, and, seizing a pencil, wrote a vigorous 'No,' across the lines.
'For somebody,' Rollo repeated. 'I am not sure that we got hold of the right delinquent. After all, peaches are the best thing after waffles and coffee. Try that.' And he placed a fine one alongside of Wych Hazel's plate.
'The thing is,' said Hazel, 'that unless you can growl with authority, nobody marks you.'
'General Merrick and Major Seaton, Missee Hazel, ma'am,' said her dark retainer, coming back.
'I thought I told you I was at breakfast?' said Hazel, in a tone of displeasure.
'Yes'm—but the Major he bound to know 'bout sumfin Missee Hazel left onsartin last night. 'Spect he'd like a keep-sake, too,' said Dingee, laying down another card. 'Mas' May puthisaway mighty safe.'
If ever his little mistress was near being furious, I think it was then. Eyes and cheeks were in a flame.
'I left nothing uncertain last night!' she said, turning upon him. 'Major Seaton knows that, if he will take the trouble to remember. And Dingee, if you bring me another message—of any sort—before I whistle for you, I will put you out of service for a month. Now go!'
'Is that the way you punish unlucky servitors?' said Rollo, looking much amused.
She had come back to her grapes, giving them the closest attention, feeling shy and nervous and disturbed to any point; but now fun got the upper hand. So first she bit her lips, and then—the laugh must come! Clear and ringing and mirthsome, as if there was never a growl in all the world.
'That is one way,' she said.
'Sounds peaceable,' said Rollo demurely, though smiling; 'but I don't know! I am afraid it might prove very severe. What is the appeal from one of your sentences?'
'There is none. I am a Mede and a Persian combined. Byo, why don't you give Mr. Rollo some cream with his peaches, and postpone me till another time?'
'She'll have to postpone me, too,' said Rollo. 'I must go. Shall I come for you at four o'clock? It will be too hot, I am afraid, before; and we have a good way to go.'
It wanted some time of four o'clock yet, when Miss Kennedy came quietly into Mr. Falkirk's study and sat down by the window.
'Are you at leisure, sir?' she said, intertwining her fingers in a careless sort of way among the vines that hung there.
'My dear, I have been at leisure so long that I wish I could say I was busy. But I am not busy. What is it, Miss Hazel?'
'Only a few business questions, sir,' she said, attending to the vines. 'Will you let me ride with Major Seaton on Thursday?'
'Would you like to go with him?'
'I always like to ride, sir.'
'You have not a horse yet, my dear; that is a difficulty. I do not know this Major Seaton's horses—nor himself.'
'Quite reliable, sir—according to him. Will you let me ride with Mr. Rollo this afternoon?'
'I suppose there is no good reason to be assigned against that,' said Mr. Falkirk, rather growingly, and after a pause. It sounded a little as if he would have liked it if the fact had been otherwise.
'You consider Wednesday a more safe day than Thursday, sir?'
'I am not superstitious, Miss Hazel. The only thing I ever was in fear of is enchantment!'
'Well sir,—you have doubtless studied the case enough to know which is the more "enchanting" of the two,' said Miss Hazel, daringly. 'Shall I give Mr. May a ride on Friday?'
'Will you have a horse on Friday?'
'My horse seems to be a slow one, by the time it takes him to come,' said Wych Hazel. 'Will he be here this afternoon, Mr. Falkirk?'
'I suppose Rollo will see to that,' said Mr. Falkirk, beginning to turn about some papers that were on the table.
'Yes, sir,' said his ward, with her small fingers stillplaying among the vines; 'I suppose he will. It is rather Mr.Rollo's style. But that makes it slightly awkward for me, Mr.Falkirk.'
'In what respect, Miss Hazel?'
'Most of these other gentlemen think themselves qualified to "see to" so small a consignment as myself; and not being posted as to your scale of enchantment and danger, may feel it the reverse of a compliment to meet me riding with Mr. Rollo, on his horse.'
'Well, my dear, what do you wish me to do in the matter? You are not obliged to go with Rollo, that I know of. Do you wish to compliment these other small fry?'
'I want to ride, Mr. Falkirk, I believe I should go with Mr. Simms—if he were the only chance; and that is saying a good deal. However, I can throw all the responsibility on you, sir; that is one comfort.'
'It won't break me,' said Mr. Falkirk; 'that is another. Why do they all come for you so, this hot weather!'
But she laughed at that, and went off out of the room.
When she came down to the side entrance of Chickaree some hour or two later, she found her side-saddle going on an Arab- looking brown mare, and Rollo playing hostler. His own horse standing by was clearly also a new comer; a light bay, nervous and fidgety, for he did not keep still one minute; ears, hoofs, eyes and head were constantly and restlessly shifting. The brown mare stood still, only lifting her pretty head and looking as Wych Hazel came out. She ran down the steps.
'I got leave!' she said, gleefully,—'did you?'—then stopped, surveying operations. 'But was there nobody about the place to do that but Mr. Rollo?
The quiet negative which answered this covered more ground than the question. Rollo finished his work carefully, with one or two looking on; mounted the little lady, and went to his own horse. Before mounting, here, he seemed to hold some conversation with the creature; caressed him; stood in front and spoke to him, patting and stroking his head; then in another moment was on his back.
There is a great difference in people's riding, as there is in people's walking; and once in a while, among plenty of good average walkers and riders, there is one whom it is a pleasure to see. This man was such a one. He was a perfectly well-made man, and had the ease and grace in all his movements which such a build goes far to ensure; when on horseback it seemed as if he had communicated these qualities to his horse, and the two moved as one embodiment of ease and grace, with power superadded. Stuart Nightingale on horseback was a fine gentleman, perfectly got up, and riding well, but yet a fine gentleman in the saddle. Major Seaton rode ruggedly, if I may say so. Mr. May was more at home in his phaeton; others were more or less stiff and uncertain. But the attitude and action of Rollo were utter unconscious ease, whatever form of action his horse might take. So it was now. For a few minutes his restless animal moved in all sorts of eccentric ways; but where most men would have been a little awkward and many very miserable, his rider was simply unconcerned and seemed to be taking his pleasure. To see such a rider is to be filled with a great sense of harmony.
What a ride they had then, when the hill was descended and the gates of Chickaree left behind! The road for some miles was known to Wych Hazel; then they branched off into another where all was new. The qualities of the brown mare had been coming to her rider's knowledge by degrees; a beautiful mouth, excellent paces, thorough training; knowing her business and doing it. As they entered upon a long smooth stretch of road without anybody in sight, Rollo proposed a run; and they had it; and it was upon drawing bridle after this that he asked a question.
'How do you like her?'
Now Miss Kennedy, in defiance of all-known laws, had never been so smitten with the regulation beaver upon a man's head, as to place it on her own. So instead of its stiff proportions she wore a little round straw hat; utterly comfortable, utterly graceful, and drooping down over her eyes à la Marie Stuart, so as to keep those wayward things in deep seclusion when she chose. Just now, however, she turned them full on her companion, answering:
'Overymuch!—I suspect she has only one fault.'
'What in the world is that? Have you discovered already what I have sought for in vain?
'It is the reverse of my speciality,' said Wych Hazel—'so perhaps that makes me sharpsighted. I am afraid she always behaves well.'
'She knows her business,' said Rollo. 'I think what you want her to do, she will do. Pardon me; do you wish her—it is rather paradoxical—tothwartyou wishes!'
'No,' said the girl, laughing a little,—'I put it somewhat differently: perhaps I might like, just occasionally, to thwart hers!'
'She'll be an extraordinary animal if she does not some time or other give you a chance. Now do you know what you are coming to?'
The scenery was changing, had changed. The level, open road they had been clearing on the gallop, had gradually drawn within high banks, which as they went on grew higher and broken, till the country assumed the character of a glen or deep valley. Opening a little here and there, this valley shewed ahead of them now a succession of high, long, dingy buildings; and a large, rapid stream of water was seen to run under the opposite bank. It had not been visible until now; so it probably turned off near this point into an easier channel than the course of their road would have afforded. The scene was extremely picturesque; sunshine and shadow mingling on the sides of the dell and on the roofs and gables of the buildings in the bottom. These were both large and small; it was quite a settlement; cottages, small and mean and dingy, standing all along on the higher banks, as well as lower down near the stream. Gradually the dell spread into a smooth, narrow valley.
'The mills, I suppose? I have not been this way before. It makes me half wild to get out again! So if I do any wild things——How lovely the dell is!'
'This is Morton Hollow,' said Rollo, looking at her. 'Can I help you do any wild things?'
'The houses are like him,' said Hazel, turning away, and her colour deepening under the look. 'Such a place!'
She might say 'such a place.' As they went on the character of it became visible more and more. There were dark, high, close factories, whence the hum of machinery issued; poor, mean dwellings, small and large, clustered here and there in the intermediate spaces, from which if any sounds came, they were less pleasant than the buzz of machines. Scarce any humanity was abroad; what there was deepened the impression of the dreariness of the place.
'Mr. Rollo,' said Hazel, at last. 'I hope your friend does not live down here?'
'I don't think I have any friend here,' he answered, rather thoughtfully. He had been riding slowly for the last few minutes, looking intently at what he was passing. Now, at a sudden turn of the road, where the valley made a sharp angle, they came upon an open carriage standing still. Two ladies were in it. Rollo lifted his hat, but the lady nearest them leaned out and cried 'Stop, stop!'
A gentleman must obey such a behest. Rollo wheeled and stood still.
'Where are you going?' said the lady. Probably Rollo did not hear, for he looked at her calmly without answering.
'Is that the little lady?' said the speaker, stretching her head out a little further to catch better sight of Wych Hazel. 'Aren't you going to introduce me, Dane? I must know her, you know.'
It is quite impossible to describe on paper the flourish with which Rollo's horse responded. Like a voluntary before the piece begins, like the elegant and marvellous sweep of lines with which a scribe surrounds his signature, the bay curvetted and wheeled and danced before the proposed introduction. Very elegant in its way, and to any one not in the secret impossible to divine whether it was the beast or his rider at play. Finally brought up on the other side of Wych Hazel, when Rollo spoke.
'Miss Kennedy, I have the honour to present Mrs. Coles, who wishes to be known to you.'
As Miss Kennedy bent her head, she had one glimpse of a long pale face, surrounded with bandeaux of fair hair, which looked towards her eagerly. Before she had well lifted her head again her horse was moving, and the next instant dashing along at full speed; the bay close alongside. The mills were almost passed; a very few minutes brought them quite away from the settlement, and they began to mount to higher ground by a steep hilly path.
'Well!'—said Hazel, looking at her companion.
'Well?' said Rollo, innocently.
She laughed.
'As if I did not know better than that!'
'I wish I did,' said Rollo. 'Now, do you know what you are coming to?'
'No, not a bit. I said I wouldn't come through that place—but when you are in a strange land—and in charge of a—strange!— cavalier—'
'You are coming to the house of my old nurse in the hills a quarter of a mile further on. I did not understand you to mean that you would not go throughthatplace.'
'Does the man keep another Hollow for himself?' said Wych Hazel. 'I am glad we are going to the hills, if only to help me forget the valley. How can people live so! And oh! how can people let them!'
'This is a concomitant of great civilization. I saw no such place when I was in Norway,' Dane observed.
'And was—what is her name?—living there when you came home?'
'Gyda? Down in the Hollow! O no. I had established her up here in comfort before I left her.'
More and more lovely, wild and lonely, the scenery grew; the road getting deeper among the hills and winding higher and higher with the head of the valley. Then they came to the cottage, the only one in sight; a low house of grey stone, set with its back against the woods which covered the hill. A little cleared and cultivated ground close to it, and in front the road. Rollo dismounted, fastened his horse, and took Wych Hazel down.
'Do you like to come to such places?' he asked as he was tying the brown mare to the fence.
'I know very little about them,' she said. 'Thislooks like a place to come to.'
'It is unique,' said Rollo, as he led the way in.
He opened the door softly. An utterance of joy Wych Hazel heard, before she could see the person from whom it came. Rollo turned and presented Miss Kennedy then. It was that. He did not present old Gyda toher. And then Wych Hazel was established in the best chair, and could look at her leisure, for at first she was not the one attended to.
She saw a little person, with a brown face, much shrivelled; which yet possessed two sparkling keen black eyes. There was not a pretty feature in the old woman's face, for the eyes were not beautiful now, in any sensuous meaning of beauty. And yet, as Wych Hazel looked, presently the word 'lovely' was the word that came up to her. That was of course due only to the pervading expression; which was pure, loving and refined far beyond what the young lady had often seen. She was dressed in a short jacket of dark cloth, braided with bright braid, and fastened at the throat with a large silver brooch. Her petticoat was of the same cloth, drawn up plain over the bosom in an ungraceful manner; her head was covered with a coloured handkerchief, tied so that the ends hung down the back.
After seeing Wych Hazel seated, she for the moment paid her no further attention. Rollo had sat down too; and the old woman came close in front of him and stood looking silently, her head reaching then only a little above his shoulders. She was old, undeniably; however, it was an entirely vigorous and hearty age. Her hand presently came to Rollo's face, pushing back the thick and somewhat curly locks from his temples, and then taking his head in both hands she kissed first one cheek and then the other.
'Don't be partial, Gyda!' said he, smiling at her. And if there was beauty of only one kind in the little black eyes that looked at him, there was much of both kinds in the young man's face. Gyda left him and went over to her other visitor.
And as far as minuteness of examination went, certainly she was not 'partial.' It would have been a bit trying from anybody else—the still, intent, searching look of the old woman upon the young face. But the look was one of such utter sweetness, so thoroughly loving and simple and kind, if it was also keen, that there was after all in it more to soothe nerves than to excite them. Her hand presently came to Wych Hazel's face too, drawing down over the soft cheek and handling the wavy ringlets, and tracing the delicate chin's outline. Slowly and considerately.
'Is she good?' was the first word that Gyda spoke in this connection, as naïvely as possible. It was rather directed to Rollo. The girl's colour had stirred and mounted under the scrutiny, until interest nearly put shyness out of sight; and the winsome brown eyes now looked at Gyda more wistful than afraid. They followed her question with a swift glance, but then Miss Kennedy hastily took the matter into her own hands.
'Not generally!' she answered, the lips parting and curling in sweet mirthful lines that at least did not speak of very deep wrong-doing. Most gentlemen probably would have uttered a protest, but Rollo was absolutely silent. Gyda looked from one to the other.
'Why are ye no good?' she asked, with her hand on Wych Hazel's shoulder. The expression of the words is very difficult to describe. It was an inquiry, put with the simplest accent of wondering and regretful desire. Hazel looked at her, studying the question rather in the face than in the words.
'I suppose,' she said slowly, 'because I do not like it.'
'You must know, Gyda,' said Rollo, smiling, 'that Miss Hazel's notion of goodness is, giving up her own will to somebody else's.'
'And that's just what it is, Dane Olaf,' said the old woman, looking round at him. 'Ye could not have expressed it better. But that is not hard, nor uncomfortable, when ye love somebody?' she added, her sweet eyes going back to Wych Hazel. The girl shook her head.
'I never loved anybody, then. Unless mamma,' she answered.
'Lady, do ye know those words in your Bible—"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty?" Giving up yourself to God will put ye just there! And then—"He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust." '
It is one thing to hear these words sonorously read in church, or to run one's eye over them in a perfunctory manner. To see Gyda speak them, with the accent and air of one undeniably proving the truth of them, that was another thing.
'There may be yet a difficulty, Gyda,' said Rollo.
'What is't?'
'One may not know just how to get there, even after you have shewed the way.'
Rollo was not speaking lightly; but Gyda as she went back to her seat only answered,
'Ye can always ask.'
'Whom would you bid me ask, Gyda? I would about as lieve come to you as anybody, if I wanted counsel.'
'Give yourself to God, lad, and ye'll know there's but One to ask of. And there's but One before that, if ye want real help.'
There was a minute's pause; and then Rollo asked what Gyda had for him to do. 'Not yet,' she answered; and with that left the room. Rollo brought his chair to Wych Hazel's side.
'She is going to get you some supper,' he said, with a smile.
'No, it will be all for you,—and you will give me part of it.I should think you would come here very often, Mr. Rollo.'
'Do you?' said he, looking pleased. 'That shews I did right to bring you here. Now you'll have a Norse supper—the first you ever had. Gyda is Norse herself, I told you; she is a Tellemarken woman. If we were in Norway now, there would be in the further end of this room two huge cribs, which would be the sleeping place for the whole family. Overhead would be fishing nets hanging from the rafters, and a rack with a dozen or more rifles and fowling-pieces. On the walls you would see collars for reindeer, powder-horns and daggers. Gyda's spinning-wheelishere, you see; and her stove, besides the fireplace for cooking. Her dairy is a separate building, after Norway fashion, and so is her summer kitchen, where I know she is this minute, making porridge. Can you eat porridge?'
'Truly I cannot say, Mr. Rollo. But I do not often "thwart" myself—as you may have observed. Does the absence of Norse blood make the fact doubtful?'
'Norse habit, say rather,' said Rollo, shaking his head; 'Norse habit, induced by Norse necessity. In many a Norwegian homestead you would get little besides porridge, often. But Gyda likes it, and so do I. At any rate, it is invariable for a Norse meal, in this house. It is one of the things which can be transplanted. Gyda would have enjoyed a row of reindeer's horns bristling along the eaves of her cottage; but I told her the boys of the Hollow would not leave them long if I set them there.'
'But you are half Danish,' said Wych Hazel. 'And was it for love of Denmark that you got your name?'
'Which name? If you please?'
'You know,' said Wych Hazel, with a shy blush, as if it were a sort of freedom for her to know and speak it, 'they call you, "Dane Rollo." '
'That's not my name, though,' said he, smiling. 'I am no further a Dane than being born in Copenhagen makes me so. I am half Norse, and a quarter German; Denmark has given me a nickname,—that's all.'
'Then, if we were in Norway and this a considerable farmhouse, we should have passed through an ante-room filled with all sorts of things. Meal chests, and tools, and thongs of leather, skins of animals and wild birds, snow shoes and casks and little sledges. Do you know,' he went on, 'if this were not the land of my father, I could find it in my heart to go and live in the land of my mother. It is a noble land, and it is a fine people. Feudal law never obtained footing there; every landholder held under no superior; and so there is a manly, genial independence in all the country-side, not found everywhere else.'
He went on for some little time to give Wych Hazel pictures of the scenery, unlike all she had ever known. He knew and loved it well, and his sketches were given graphically. In the midst of this Gyda came in again; and Rollo broke off, and asked her, laughingly, if she had any 'fladbrod.'
'Fresh,' she said. 'Olaf, can't you get her some peaches?'
Rollo went off; and the old woman began to set her table with bowls and plates and spoons; an oddly carved little tub of butter, and a pile of thin brown cakes. Having done this, and Rollo not returning, on the contrary seeming to have found more than peach trees to detain him, for the sound of hammer was heard at intervals, the old woman came and stood by Wych Hazel again. The straw hat was off; and she eyed in a tender kind of way, wistful too, the fair young face.
'Dear,' she said, in that same wistful way, laying her hand on the girl's shoulder, 'does he love you?'
Hazel started in extreme surprise; looking up with wide-open eyes; and more pale than red in her first astonishment.
'He? me?—No!' she said, as the blood came surging back. But then recollections came too, and possibilities—and eyes and head both drooped. And with the inevitable instinct of truth the girl added, under her breath—
'Perhaps—how do I know? I cannot tell!'
By that time head and hands too were on the back of her chair, and she had turned from Gyda, and her face was out of sight. With a tender little smile, which she could not see, the old Norse woman stood beside her, and with tender fingers which she did feel, smoothed and stroked the hair on each side of her head. For a few minutes.
'And, dear,' she said presently, in the same soft way, 'do you love him?'
There are questions, confusing enough when merely propounded by ourselves, in the solitude of our hearts; but which when coming first from the lips of another, before they have been fairly recognized as questions, become simply unbearable. Hazel shrank away from the words, gentle as they were, with one of her quick gestures.
'I do not know,' she cried. 'I have never thought! I have no business to know!'
And lifting her head for a moment, with eyes all grave and troubled and almost tearful, she looked into the face of the old Norwegian, mutely beseeching her to be merciful, and not push her advantage any further.
'I know!' said Gyda, softly. 'But it's only me.' And as if recognizing a bond which Wych Hazel did not, she lifted one little white hand in her two brown ones and kissed it.
'Everybody shews me their hearts,' she went on; 'but it's all here,' touching her breast, and meaning probably that it went no further. 'May I love my lad's lady a little bit?'
A strangely humble, wistful, sweet look she bent on Hazel as she spoke, to which the girl herself, too dumbfounded and shaken off her feet to quite know where she was, could find no better answer than a full rush of bright drops to her eyes, coming she knew not whence; and then a deep suffusion of throat and cheeks and brow, but was much better recognized and said it meant to stay. Her head went down again.
'Now, it's only me,' said the old woman, quietly again. But Rollo's voice was heard from somewhere speaking her name, and she hurried out. There was a little interval, and then she came back bearing dishes to set on the table. Back and forth she went several times, and very likely had found more things to take up Rollo's attention; for he came not until she had her board all ready and summoned him. It was a well spread board when all was done. Shallow dishes of porridge, piles of fladbrod, bowls of cream, peaches, and coffee. And when Gyda with due care had made a cup for Wych Hazel and brought it to her hand, the little lady was obliged to confess that it was better than even Chickaree manufacture. And the porridge was no brown farinaceous mass in a rough and crude state, but came to table in thin, gelatinous cakes, sweet and excellent when broken into the cream. But if Wych Hazel had been afterwards put in the witness-box to tell what she had been eating, I think she would have refused to be sworn. The sheer necessity of the case had made her hold up her head—cool her cheeks she could not; but she took what was given her, and talked of it and praised it almost as steadily as if she had known what it was. Only, as extreme timidity is with some people an unnerving thing, there were moments when, do what she would, her lips must be screened behind the cup, and words that she said which were almost hoarse from the extreme difficulty with which they were spoken. As for a laugh, she tried it once.
She was served and tended with, it is hard to say whether most care or most pleasure, by both her companions. Midway of the meal came a help to her shyness.
The door slowly opened and a girl stepped in. She might have been fourteen or fifteen; she was tall enough for that; but the little figure was like a rail. So slight, so thin, so little relieved by any sufficiency of drapery in her poor costume. But the face was above all thin, pale, worn; with eyes that looked large and glassy from want and weariness. She came in, but then stood still, looking at the party where she had expected to find only the old Norwegian woman.
'Who is this?' said Rollo to Gyda.
'It is Trüdchen, of the Hollow. What is wanting, my child?' said Gyda.
'Come seeking medicine for the mind or body?' said Rollo. But after a second glance he rose up, went to the girl and offered a chair. She looked at him without seeming to know his meaning.
'Speak Deutsch, Olaf,' said Gyda; 'and ye'll get better hearing. She can't speak yon.'
A few words in German made a change. The wan face waked up a little and looked astonished at the speaker. Rollo seated her; then poured out himself a cup of Gyda's coffee, creamed and sugared it duly, and offered it to the girl with the observance he would have given to a lady. Then he moved her chair nearer to the table, and supplied porridge and then peaches; talking and talking to her all the while. The answers began to come at last; the girl's colour changed with the coffee, and her eyes brightened with every spoonful of the cream and porridge; and at last came a smile—what was it like?—like the wintriest gleam of a cold sky upon a cold world. Rollo got better than that, however, before he was done.
He had come back to Wych Hazel and left the girl to finish her supper in peace; when suddenly his attention was attracted by some question addressed by the latter to Gyda. He looked up and himself answered. The girl started from her seat with a degree of animation she had given no symptom of till then, said a few words very eagerly and hurriedly, and darted from the door like a sprite.
'What now?' said Hazel, looking after the girl. 'What has Mr.Rollo done?'
'Cut short somebody's supper, I'm afraid. But she finished her porridge, didn't she? And has taken one peach with her! Do they all look that, Gyda?'
Gyda answered that they were 'very bad;' she meant in their way of life and their thriving on it.
'And how otherwise?'
There seemed to be not much to say 'otherwise.' They were very good to her, Gyda remarked. Wych Hazel listened, but she risked no more questions. The supper lingered a while longer; Gyda and Rollo talking of various things and drawing in Wych Hazel when they could; then Gyda fetched a book and opened it and laid before Rollo. He left the table and came to Wych Hazel's side.
'Gyda always, when she can, has prayers with her visitors,' he said, 'and she makes them read for her. She, and I, would like it if you do the reading to-night. Will you?'
How easily she started to-night!—Hazel answered without looking up—
'She would rather have you.'
'No, she wouldn't. Excuse me! She asked me to ask you.'
The girl had not found her feet yet, nor got clear of her bewilderment. And so, before she more than half knew what she was about she had taken the book and was reading—absolutely reading aloud to those two!—the ninety-first Psalm. Aloud, it was; but only because the voice was so wonderfully clear and sweet-toned could they have heard a word. As it was, neither listener lost one.
They knelt then, and Gyda uttered a prayer sweet enough to follow the Psalm. A little louder than Wych Hazel's low key, but not less quiet in tone. It was not long; she took those two, as it were, in the arms of her love, and presented them as candidates for all the blessing of the Psalm; making her plea for the two, somehow, a compound and homogeneous one.
The sun was down: it was time to get to horse—for the riders. Gyda's farewells were very affectionate in feeling, though also very quiet in manner.
'Will you come to see me again?' she asked of Wych Hazel, while Rollo was gone out to see to the horses.
'Will you let me? I should like to come.'
'Then you'll come,' said Gyda. She had shaken hands with Rollo before. But now when he came in for Wych Hazel he went up to where Gyda was standing, bent down and kissed her.
'Miss Kennedy, have you said "Tak för maden?" '
'I? No. How should I?' said Wych Hazel; 'is it a spell?'
'Come here,' said he, laughing. 'You must shake hands withGyda and say, "Tak för maden;" that is, "Thanks for the meat."That is Norwegian good manners, and you are in a Norwegianhouse. Come and say it.'
She came shyly, trying to laugh too, and again held out her hand; stammering a little over the unaccustomed syllables, but rather because they were prescribed than because they were difficult. Certainly if there was a spell in the air that night Wych Hazel thought it had got hold of her.
'That's proper,' said Rollo, 'and now we'll go. It ought to have been said when we rose from table; but better late than never. That's your first lesson in Norse.'
Rollo had been in a sort of quiet, gay mood all the afternoon. Out of the house and in the saddle this mood seemed to be exchanged for a different one. He was silent, attending to his business with only a word here and there, alert and grave. The words to the ear, however, were free and pleasant as ever. At the bottom of the hill, in the meadow, he came close to Wych Hazel's side.
'Don't canter here,' said he. 'Trot. Not very fast, for the people are out from their work now, many of them. But we'll go as fast as we can.'
'Fast as you like,' she answered. 'I will follow your pace.'
'No,' said he, smiling; 'we might run over somebody.'
The people were out from their work, and many of them stood in groups and parties along the sides of the street. It was an irregular roadway, with here a mill and there a mill, on one side and on the other, and cottages scattered all along between and behind. It had been an empty way when they came; it was populous now. Men and women were there, sometimes in separate groups; and a fringe of children, boys and girls, on both sides of the road. The general mill population seemed to be abroad. They appeared to be doing nothing, all standing gazing at the riders. The light was fading now, and the wretchedness of their looks was not so plainly to be seen in detail; and yet, somehow, the aggregate effect was quite in keeping with that of Trüdchen's appearance alone at the house above.
Through this scattering of humanity the riders went at a gentle, even trot; the horses pacing almost in step, the stirrups as near together as they could be. As they came to the thickest of this crowd of spectators, Rollo courteously raised his hat to them. There was at first no answer, then a murmur, then two or three old hats were waved in the air. Again Rollo saluted them, and in two minutes more the mills were passed. The road lay empty and quiet between the high banks, on which the soft twilight was beginning to settle down.
'I like that,' said Wych Hazel, impulsively, forgetting her shyness—she, too, had bowed as they rode by. 'Mr. Rollo, is it a secret, what you said to that child? It looks to me as if she had brought the people out to look at you.'
'Will you ride?' said he. 'Let us have a canter first.'
It was a pretty swift canter, and the two had flown over a good deal of ground before Rollo drew bridle again on coming out into the main road.
'Now,' he said, 'we can talk. There is no secret about anything. The girl asked, at Gyda's, how soon we were going away? I answered, in half an hour. Whereupon she begged very urgently that we would delay and not get to the mills tillshehad been there; and darted away as you saw.'
'Impressive power of peaches!' said Hazel, with a laugh. 'Commend my penetration. I wish all our waste baskets of fruit could be emptied out in that Hollow, and so be of some use. It would be fun to send Mr. Morton's own grapes'—but there she stopped.
'I am afraid you are mistaken,' said Rollo, gravely. 'The manner and accent of the girl made me apprehend danger of some annoyance—which I think she went to prevent. The road being acul de sac, she knew, and they knew, we must come back that way. Gyda will find out all about it; but she said it meant mischief.'
'Mischief? To us?'
'Yes. They are very degraded, and I suppose embittered, by their way of life; and do not like to see people taking their pleasure as we are doing.'
'Thatwas what they were out for! Mr. Falkirk may well say my eyes are ignorant,' said the girl, thoughtfully. 'But Mr. Rollo—is this the only way to—— What do ordinary people call your friend?'
'Gyda? The name is Boërresen—contracted by vulgar usage toBorsen.'
'Well, is this the only way you can get to her cottage?'
'The only way; except by a scramble over the hills and fields where no way is. I fancy you are mistaken again, however, in your conclusions from what you have seen this evening. I do not think they were out to do us mischief. Their attitude did not strike me as like that. I think Trüdchen had been beforehand with them.'
'And does Mrs. Boërresen like to have you come and go through the Hollow, knowing the people?'
'I never heard of the least annoyance to any one there before. I can only surmise that the sight of a lady, where no lady ever comes, excited the spite of some children perhaps. And they might have expressed their spite by throwing a few stones.ThatI half expected.'
'What would you have done then?' said Wych Hazel, with sudden curiosity.
'Dodge the stones, of course!' Rollo answered quietly.
Hazel gleamed up at him from under her hat, her lips in a curl.
'That is only what you would havetriedto do,' she said. But then Miss Wych subsided and fell back into the closest rapt attention to the beauties of the landscape and the evening sky.
'The only time,' Rollo went on, 'when the least annoyance would be possible, is after work hours, or just at noon when they are out for dinner. At all other times the whole population is shut up in the mills, and the street is empty.'
'Was it your peaches then after all?' said the girl suddenly.'Or did she pray us through?'
Rollo gave her one of the bright, sweet smiles he sometimes gave to his old nurse.
'How do I know?' he said. 'I think—peaches were sweet. And I don't believe Gyda ever prays in vain.'
Of course, such an afternoon, everybody had been out; happily the hour was so late that few were left on the road; but Wych could not escape all encounters.
'Your days are numbered, Dane Rollo!' called out Mr. Kingsland as he went by. 'Coffee and pistols at four to-morrow morning!— And if my shot fails, there are ten more to follow. The strong probability is that Miss Kennedy beholds us both for the last time!' Which melancholy statement was honoured with a soft irrepressible laugh that it was a pity Mr. Kingsland would not wait to hear.
Then before Wych Hazel had brought her face into order, a sharp racking trot came down a cross-road, and Kitty Fisher reined up at her side.
'I vow!' she said,—'you look jolly here! The Viking must have been exerting himself. So! you are the girl that never flirts!'
'What of it?' said Wych Hazel, with cool gravity.
'O nothing,—nothing in the world!' said Miss Fisher. 'I've come to get a lesson, that's all. For real instruction in the art, commend me to your cream-faced people who never do it.'
'Nobody ever saw cream the colour ofmyface,' said Wych Hazel good-humouredly. 'It is yours, Kitty, that always deserves the comparison.'
Here Rollo, who had been sheering about for a minute on his springy bay, suddenly came up between the two girls and kept the brown mare too far to the left to permit another flank movement to out-general him.
'I should like somebody to explain to me,' he said, addressing Kitty, 'what flirting is. I have never been able to come to a clear understanding of what is meant by the term.'
'Very likely,' said Kitty, 'seeing it's a muddled-up thing.Never did it yourself, I suppose?'
'That depends upon what "it" is,' insisted Rollo.
'Does it?' said Kitty. 'Well, if ever you try it with me, you'll burn your fingers and find out.'
Again in spite of everything Wych Hazel laughed,—ever so softly, but undeniably.
'Tell me what it is,—and I will promise never to try it with you.' Kitty's handsome face darkened.
'Can you reason back from particular cases to general principles?' she said.
'You always want a great many cases to form an induction,' said Rollo, 'I thought you would shirk the question.'
'Shirk? not I?' said Miss Fisher. 'I was just going to give you an instance. That girl, who has played coy all summer, and wouldn't ride with a man here because she must have her own horse, forsooth; suddenly waives her scruples in favour of another man, and finds she can ridehishorse, without difficulty.'
Wych Hazel drew up her graceful figure to its full height, but she said not a word. Riding at ease, as usual, Rollo spoke in a voice as clear as it was cold.
'Only a coward, Miss Fisher, strikes a man—or a woman—whose hands are bound. Good evening.'
Lifting his hat with his most curt salutation, Rollo seized the bridle of the brown mare and made her understand what was expected of her, his own bay at the instant springing forward with a bound. Miss Kitty was left in the distance. Neither was she mounted well enough to follow if she had had the inclination. The run this time was in good earnest, till they drew rein again near the gate of Chickaree.
'I knew I could trust you to keep your seat,' said Rollo then lightly to his companion, 'even if I was unceremonious.'
'And I—' That sentence was never finished. This last run had rather shaken the colour out of cheeks than into them. But Hazel had a good deal of real bravery about her; and in a minute more she turned again to her companion.
'Thank you, Mr. Rollo,' she said, gravely. 'I think you are a true knight.'
'You might as well talk reason to Vixen as to Kitty Fisher,' muttered Rollo. But in another minute he changed his tone.
'Are you tired?'
'I hardly know. Which should prove that I am not.'
'I am afraid it don't prove that at all.'
He was silent till they came to the door where they had mounted in the afternoon. Dismounting then, and coming to Wych Hazel's side to do the same service for her, Mr. Rollo lingered a little about the preliminaries; as if he liked them.
'Mrs. Bywank tells me,' he said, 'that you have been eager all summer for the riding you could not have. You must forgive her,—she cannot help talking of you. Will you do me the honour to let Jeannie Deans stand in your stable for the present, and ride her with whomsoever you please to honour in that way.'
There was a little inarticulate cry of joy at that,—then timidly,
'But, Mr. Rollo——'
'Well?' said he, softly.
'You might want her. And—if I rode with other people, they might take me where you would not like her to go. Will you let me ride her sometimes just by myself?' she said, glancing at him and instantly away again.
'That is for your pleasure to say,' he returned lightly, lifting her down. And then, detaining her slightly for just half a second, he added, laughing,
'Please don't take Jeannie anywhere that I would not like her to go!'
That night, and the next morning, Miss Kennedy had a fight with herself, trying hard to regain her footing, which was constantly swept away again by some new incoming tide of thoughts. It looks an easy matter enough, to climb out once more upon the ice through which you have broken; but when piece after piece comes off in your hands, sousing you deeper down than before, the thing begins to look serious. And in this case the young lady began to get impatient.
'Such unmitigated nonsense!' she declared to herself, with her cheeks on fire. But nevertheless said nonsense lifted its head very cleverly from under all the negations she could pile upon it; and indeed looked rather refreshed than otherwise by the operation. How Mr. Falkirk had dimly hinted at such things, long ago,—and how she had laughed at them! Wasthiswhat he had suggested her confiding to him?—Whereupon Miss Kennedy brought herself up short.
'I should like to know what I have to confide!' she said. 'I hope I am not quite a fool.' And with that she beat a retreat, and rushed down-stairs, and gave Mr. Falkirk an extravaganza of extra length and brilliancy for his breakfast; which, however, it may be noted, did not include any particulars of her ride. But when breakfast was over, Miss Kennedy for a moment descended to business.
'By the way, sir, I should tell you, Mr. Rollo proposes to leave one of his horses here, for me to use till my own come,— if that extraordinary day ever arrives. Are you agreeable—or otherwise—Mr. Falkirk?'
'I have never made any professions of being agreeable, MissHazel; and it never was charges to me, that I know.'
'No, sir, certainly,—not when rides are in question. But may I use this horse, which has the misfortune to belong to somebody else?'
'I suppose he wouldn't give it to you if it was not fit for you to use,' said Mr. Falkirk, rather growlingly it must be confessed. 'Does he expect you to ride it with anybody but him, my dear?'