Wych Hazel Part 23

'Very intelligible. My question looked to the beginning of your expedition.'

'Well, sir--I would rather--but it does not signify. There came a small Bohemian here in the morning to get help for her sick mother; and I went. That is all.'

'Who is the mother, Miss Hazel? Where does she live?'

'I don't know her name. And her habitation only when I see it.

All places are alike to me here yet, you know.'

'My dear,' said Mr. Falkirk gravely, 'you must see that, being so ignorant of people and things in this region, you had better not make sudden expeditions without taking me into your confidence. Dingee said you rode the little black mare?'

'True, sir.'

'You did not like her well enough to ride her home?'

'Quite well enough, sir.'

'You did not do it?'

'No,' said Wych Hazel--'that Norwegian pirate took her for his own use, and I walked.'

'Wouldn't let you ride her, eh?' and a curious gleam came into Mr. Falkirk's eyes.

' "Wanted to try her first"--and was "bound to be afraid, though I was not"--and "couldn't answer it to you"--and so forth and so forth. A man can generally find words enough.'

'Depend upon it, my dear, he generally borrows them of a woman.' Mr. Falkirk's face relaxed slightly, and he took a turn across the room; then stood still. 'Why didn't you ride the cob home?--he is there still, isn't he?'

'I did not choose, sir. I should, if I had been asked properly.'

'Were you not asked?'

'No, except by having my saddle put on that horse and then not taking it off.'

'You made the demand?'

'Of course. That is, I told the groom to do it.'

Mr. Falkirk smiled and then laughed, or came as near to laughing as he often did.

'So you wouldn't ask him into the house? But did you see anybody else in your yesterday's expedition, my dear?'

She glanced up at him, evidently growing restive under this cross-questioning.

'I saw Mr. Nightingale.'

'Nightingale!' echoed Mr. Falkirk. 'Where did you see Mr.

Nightingale, Miss Kennedy?'

'In the woods.'

'And what the----. My dear, what were you doing in the woods?'

'Won't you finish your first sentence first, sir? I like to take things in order.'

Mr. Falkirk's brows drew together; he looked down and then looked up, awaiting his answer.

'I was doing nothing in the woods, sir, but finding my way home.'

'How came _he_ to be there? Did he speak to you?'

'Yes, sir, he spoke to me.'

'What did he say?' said Mr. Falkirk, looking very gravely intent.

'Before we go any further, Mr. Falkirk,' said the girl, steadily, though she coloured a good deal, 'is it to be your pleasure in future to know every word that may be said to me?

Because in that case, it will be needful to engage a reporter.

You must see, sir, that I should never be equal to it.'

'My dear,' said Mr. Falkirk slowly, 'we are embarked on a search after fortune;--which always embraced on my part an earnest purpose to avoid misfortune.'

'You sit there,' she went on, scarce heeding him, 'and ask me "where I was" and "where I was going" and "what I said"--as if I would forget myself among strange people in this strange place!--And then you take for granted that I would be rude to one person whom I do know, just because he had vexed me! I _did_ ask him in, and he wouldn't come. I am unpractised--wild, maybe--but am I so unwomanly, Mr. Falkirk? Do you think I am?'

It was almost pitiful, the way the young eyes scanned his face. If Mr. Falkirk had not been a guardian! But he was steel.

Yet even steel will give forth flashes, and one of those flashes came from under Mr. Falkirk's brows now. His answer was very quiet.

'My dear, I think you no more unwomanly than I think a rose unlovely--but the rose has thorns which sometimes p.r.i.c.k the hands that would train it out of harm's way. And it might occur even to your inexperience that when a gentleman who does not know you presumes to address you, he can have nothing to say which it would not be on several accounts proper for me to hear.'

Again the colour bloomed up.

'You would know, if you were a woman, Mr. Falkirk, how it feels to have a man sit and question you with such an air.

Ah,' she said, das.h.i.+ng off the tears which had gathered in her eyes, 'if you really think I can take no better care of myself than that, you should not have said I might go with those people to-morrow!--A rose's thorns are for _protection_, sir!'-- And away she went, out of the room and up the stairs; and Mr.

Falkirk heard no more till Dingee entered with fruit and biscuits.

'Missee Hazel hope you'll enjoy yours, sar,--she take her's upstairs.'

Mr. Falkirk put on his hat and walked down to his house.

It was a slight fiction on the part of Dingee, to say that Miss Hazel was taking her fruit upstairs; indeed the whole message was freely translated from her--

'Dingee, attend to Mr. Falkirk's lunch, I don't want any.'

Presently now came Dingee to her with another message.

'Ma.s.sa Morton--he 'most dyin' to see Miss Hazel--but he wait till she done had her lunch.'

And she flashed down upon Mr. Morton's eyes, like a prism- caught-sunbeam. By this time there were two pairs of eyes to be dazzled. Mr. Dell had made his appearance on the stage.

Mr. Dell was a clergyman, of a different denomination, who like Mr. Maryland had a church to take care of at Crocus. Mr.

Dell's was a little church at the opposite corner of the village and society. He himself was a good-hearted, plain man, with no savour of elegance about him, though with more than the usual modic.u.m of sense and shrewdness. Appearance conformable to character. Mr. Morton was not very far from Mr.