Part 23 (2/2)
”Oh, 'tis not Tim!” said she, burying her face.
Fitzpiers, however, disregarded her resistance by reason of its mildness, stooped and imprinted the purposed kiss, then sunk down on the next hay-c.o.c.k, panting with his race.
”Whom do you mean by Tim?” he asked, presently.
”My young man, Tim Tangs,” said she.
”Now, honor bright, did you really think it was he?”
”I did at first.”
”But you didn't at last?”
”I didn't at last.”
”Do you much mind that it was not?”
”No,” she answered, slyly.
Fitzpiers did not pursue his questioning. In the moonlight Suke looked very beautiful, the scratches and blemishes incidental to her out-door occupation being invisible under these pale rays. While they remain silent the coa.r.s.e whir of the eternal night-jar burst sarcastically from the top of a tree at the nearest corner of the wood. Besides this not a sound of any kind reached their ears, the time of nightingales being now past, and Hintock lying at a distance of two miles at least.
In the opposite direction the hay-field stretched away into remoteness till it was lost to the eye in a soft mist.
CHAPTER XXI.
When the general stampede occurred Winterborne had also been looking on, and encountering one of the girls, had asked her what caused them all to fly.
She said with solemn breathlessness that they had seen something very different from what they had hoped to see, and that she for one would never attempt such unholy ceremonies again. ”We saw Satan pursuing us with his hour-gla.s.s. It was terrible!”
This account being a little incoherent, Giles went forward towards the spot from which the girls had retreated. After listening there a few minutes he heard slow footsteps rustling over the leaves, and looking through a tangled screen of honeysuckle which hung from a bough, he saw in the open s.p.a.ce beyond a short stout man in evening-dress, carrying on one arm a light overcoat and also his hat, so awkwardly arranged as possibly to have suggested the ”hour-gla.s.s” to his timid observers--if this were the person whom the girls had seen. With the other hand he silently gesticulated and the moonlight falling upon his bare brow showed him to have dark hair and a high forehead of the shape seen oftener in old prints and paintings than in real life. His curious and altogether alien aspect, his strange gestures, like those of one who is rehearsing a scene to himself, and the unusual place and hour, were sufficient to account for any trepidation among the Hintock daughters at encountering him.
He paused, and looked round, as if he had forgotten where he was; not observing Giles, who was of the color of his environment. The latter advanced into the light. The gentleman held up his hand and came towards Giles, the two meeting half-way.
”I have lost my way,” said the stranger. ”Perhaps you can put me in the path again.” He wiped his forehead with the air of one suffering under an agitation more than that of simple fatigue.
”The turnpike-road is over there,” said Giles
”I don't want the turnpike-road,” said the gentleman, impatiently. ”I came from that. I want Hintock House. Is there not a path to it across here?”
”Well, yes, a sort of path. But it is hard to find from this point.
I'll show you the way, sir, with great pleasure.”
”Thanks, my good friend. The truth is that I decided to walk across the country after dinner from the hotel at Sherton, where I am staying for a day or two. But I did not know it was so far.”
”It is about a mile to the house from here.”
They walked on together. As there was no path, Giles occasionally stepped in front and bent aside the underboughs of the trees to give his companion a pa.s.sage, saying every now and then when the twigs, on being released, flew back like whips, ”Mind your eyes, sir.” To which the stranger replied, ”Yes, yes,” in a preoccupied tone.
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