Part 13 (1/2)
”I'll wager anything that's a blooded Kentucky,” she said, craning her neck for a fuller view. ”My, but isn't she a beauty? I'll have a good look at her if his highness gets down. Wouldn't I like to call out, 'Light, and come in, stranger!'” she added under her breath. ”Stella, who is he? He must be some admirer of yours.”
”Never saw him before,” said Stella, who was eying him with as much curiosity as Kate. ”I'll tell you what, he must be a connoisseur in art and has heard of my Breton Peasant. Ha! With that horse and that riding costume I shall charge him a hundred and fifty.”
By this time the young man had reached the hitching post and jumped down from the saddle. He patted his horse's neck when he had adjusted the hitching rein, flicked the dust from his riding boots with his gold-handled whip, and proceeded toward the door.
”You go, Kate,” whispered Stella, who was drawing Greenaway figures with pen and ink on a set of table doilies, and Kate was not loath.
”Is Deacon Saxon at home?” inquired the young man in a pleasant voice.
”I think so. Will you come in?” responded Kate.
”It isn't the Breton Peasant after all,” murmured Stella to Esther. ”I wonder if it can be an ancestor.” She arranged the doilies with a quick artistic touch, and rose as the young man entered the room.
He had presented Kate with a small engraved card, and though it was a new discovery for her that gentlemen ever carried such things, she used it as if to the manner born.
”Mr. Philip Hadley, Miss Saxon and Miss Northmore,” she announced easily, and Stella added, with a pretty bow, ”And, Mr. Hadley, Miss Kate Northmore.”
The young man looked bewildered. In search of a country deacon of advanced years, at an old-fas.h.i.+oned farmhouse, to be ushered into one of the most attractive of parlors, with three charming young ladies in possession, was enough to bewilder. But he rose to the surprise gracefully in another moment.
”I must apologize for intruding myself in this way,” he said, ”but I have heard that Deacon Saxon is quite an authority on Esterly antiquities, and I wanted to see him on a little matter of inquiry.”
”He will be delighted to talk with you. You may be sure of it,” said Stella.
It was only a minute before the old gentleman appeared, walking in his nimblest manner from his own room, whither Kate had gone in search of him. She had put him in possession of his caller's name, and he extended his hand with an air of welcome and curiosity combined.
”Hadley? Did you say your name was Hadley? Well, I'm pleased to see you.”
”I'm very pleased to see you, sir,” said the young man, bowing with a deference of manner which was peculiarly pleasing. ”I'm taking a liberty in calling on you, I'm well aware of it, but it's the penalty one pays for having a reputation like yours. People say you know everything that ever happened in Esterly, and as I'm looking up our family history a little, I thought perhaps you could help me. I confess though,” he added with a smile, ”I expected to see a much older person.”
”Older than eighty-eight?” quoth Ruel Saxon. ”I was born in the year seventeen hundred and ninety-one, and if I live till the twenty-first day of next June I shall be eighty-nine.”
He was too much pleased with the young man's errand, and himself as the person appealed to, to pause for a compliment at this point, and added briskly, ”I shall be glad to tell you anything I know. 'Tisn't many young men that go to the old men to inquire about things that are past.
They did in Bible times. In fact, they were commanded to: 'Ask thy father and he will show thee, thy elders and they will tell thee.'
That's what it says; but they don't do it much nowadays.”
”They have more books to go to now, you know, grandfather,” said Stella, glancing from the figure she was drawing, a charming little maid in a sunbonnet, and incidentally holding it up as she spoke.
”Yes, too many of 'em,” said her grandfather, rather grimly. ”They'd go to the old folks more if they couldn't get the printed stuff so easy.”
”But, grandfather,” exclaimed Esther, ”the young people can't all go to the old people who know the stories. Kate and I didn't have you, for instance, till a few weeks ago.”
Her grandfather's face relaxed, and Mr. Philip Hadley looked amused.
”But Deacon Saxon is right,” he said, turning to the young ladies. ”It's a much more delightful thing to hear a story from one who has been a part of it, or remembers those who were, than to get it from the printed page. I fancy the spirit of a thing is much better preserved by oral tradition than by cold print. You remember Sir Walter attributed a good deal of his enthusiasm for Scottish history to the tales of his grandmother. I see you have a charming sketch of Abbotsford,” he added, glancing at a picture on the wall opposite, and from there with a questioning look to Stella.
She gave a pleased nod. ”We were sketching in Scotland, a party of us, last summer,” she said.
”Were you?” exclaimed the young man. ”I was tramping on the Border myself.”
Perhaps he would have liked to defer his consultation with the old gentleman long enough for a chat with the young lady, but the former was impatient for it now. He had been scrutinizing his caller's face for the last few moments with sharp attention.