The Star-Gazers Part 64

"Ay, we'll talk about that by-and-by. I want to talk about you. My rheumatics is better a'ready--that's done me a mint o' good, young man, and I shouldn't mind seeing you married, for it would be a deal better for you, and I daresay I should call you in a bit more oftener. What, are you going?"

"Yes; I have the pony waiting, and I must get back."

"Humph! I didn't know as you could afford to keep a pony, young man.

Why don't you walk?--keep you better and stronger--and save your money.

Ah, well! you may go then; and mind what I said to you. You may as well have the bit of land and Miss Lucy, but you won't get it yet, so don't think it. My father was a hundred and two when he died, and I'm only just past ninety, so don't expect too much."

"I will not," said Oldroyd, smiling at the helpless old creature, and thinking how contentedly she bore her fate of living quite alone by the roadside, and with the nearest cottage far away.

"You'll come and see me to-morrow?" said the old lady, as the doctor stood at the door. "You're not so busy that you can't spare time, so don't you try to tell me that."

"No, I shall not be too busy," replied Oldroyd; "I'll come."

"And mind you recollect about her. She would just suit you; she nusses so nicely, and--"

Philip Oldroyd did not hear the end of the speech, for he closed the door, frowning with annoyance; and, mounting his pony, rode slowly back towards home.

"I shall not meet them again, I suppose," he said to himself, as he neared the spot where he had seen Rolph and Judith on his way to the cottage; and, quite satisfied upon this point, he was riding softly on along the turf by the side of the road when, as he turned a corner, he came suddenly upon two men--the one ruddy and sun-browned, the other pale, close shaven, and sunken of eye.

"Hayle and Captain Rolph," said the doctor between his teeth, "what does that mean?"

He rode on to pa.s.s close by the pair, both of whom looked up, the one to give him a haughty nod of the head, the other to touch his hat and say,--"How do, doctor?"

"The parson is said to know most about the affairs of people in a parish," thought Oldroyd; "but that will not do. It's a mistake. We are the knowing ones. Why, I could give quite a history of what is going on around us--if I liked. Your parson kens, as the north-country folk say, a' aboot their morals, but we doctors are well up in the mental and bodily state too. Now then, who next? Bound to say, if I take the short cut through the firs and along the gra.s.s drives, I shall meet the old major toadstool hunting, and possibly Miss Day with him."

Oldroyd's ideas ran upon someone else; but he put the thoughts aside, and went on very moodily for a few minutes before his thoughts reverted to their former channel.

"Safe to meet them," he muttered, with a bitter laugh. "Well, the captain is otherwise engaged to-day. The young lady with the gentleman as I came, and papa and the gentleman as I return. Well--go on Peter--I have enough to do with my own professional affairs, and giving advice gratis on moral matters is not in my department. No mention of them in the pharmacopoeia."

Peter responded to his rider's adjuration to go on in his customary way--to wit, he raised his head and whisked his tail, and went on, but without the slightest increase of speed. Oldroyd turned him out of the lane, through one of the game preserves, and he rode thoughtfully on for a couple of miles, with the peculiar smell of the bracken pervading the air as Peter crushed the stems beneath his hoofs. At times, as he rode through some opening where the sun beat down heavily, there was the pungent, lemony, resinous odour of the pines wafted to his nostrils, and once it was so strong that the doctor pulled up to inhale it.

"What a lunatic I was," he thought, "to come and settle down in a place like this. Nature wants no doctors here; she does all the work herself--except the accidents," he added laughingly. "Poor old Hayle yonder; I don't think she would have made so good a job of him."

He rode on again through the hot afternoon suns.h.i.+ne, going more and more out of his way; but he did not see the major with his creel, neither did the lady attendant upon some of his walks make his sore heart begin beating.

He had just come to the conclusion that he had ridden all this way round for nothing, when, as he wound round a mossy carpeted drive, he saw in the distance, framed in with green against a background of sky, a couple of figures, of which one, a lady, was holding out something to the other, a gipsy-looking fellow, which he took and thrust into his pocket, becoming conscious at the same moment of the doctor's approach.

"Looks like my young poaching friend, Caleb Kent," thought Oldroyd, as the man touched his cap obsequiously and plunged at once in through the thick undergrowth and was gone, while the lady drew herself up and came toward him.

Oldroyd's acquaintances.h.i.+p was of the most distant kind, and he merely raised his hat as he pa.s.sed, noting that the face, which looked haughtily in his, was flushed and hot as his bow was returned.

"Why, that young scoundrel has been begging. Met her alone out here in this wood," thought Oldroyd, when he had ridden on for a few yards; and, on the impulse of the moment, he dragged the unwilling pony's head round, and, to the little animal's astonishment, struck his heels into its ribs and forced it to canter after the lady they had pa.s.sed.

She did not hear the approach for a few minutes, but was walking on hurriedly with her head bent down, till, the soft beat of the pony's hoofs close behind rousing her, she turned suddenly a wild and startled face.

"I beg your pardon--Miss Emlin of The Warren, I believe?" said Oldroyd, raising his hat again.

There was a distant bow.

"You will excuse my interference," he continued; "but these woods are lonely, and I could not help seeing that man had accosted you."

Marjorie's face was like wax now in its pallor.

"I thought so," said Oldroyd to himself. Then aloud,--"He was begging, and frightened you?"

"The man asked me for money, and I gave him some. No; he did not frighten me."

A flush now came in the girl's face, and she said eagerly,--

"Did you pa.s.s a gentleman--my cousin, Captain Rolph--in the woods?"

"Yes; about a couple of miles away. I beg pardon for my interference,"

there was an exchange of bows; and each pa.s.sed on.

"What a fool I am!" muttered Oldroyd. "Like a man. Jumps at the chance of playing the knight-errant. Only begged a copper or two of her; a loafing scoundrel. Phew!" he whistled, "my cousin! I'm afraid that my cousin is going to be pulled up sharp; and quite right too. Looks like a piece of jealousy there. And the fellow's engaged. Well, it's not my business. Go on, Peter, old man."

Peter wagged his tail, but still there was no increase of speed; for, if ponies can think, Peter was cogitating on the fact that if he made haste home there would be time for him to go with Sinkins, the carpenter, to fetch a piece of oak from the wood; and he felt that he had done enough for one day.

Volume 3, Chapter V.

PERTURBATIONS.

Had Oldroyd been a little sooner, he would have formed a different opinion about Caleb Kent and his appealing to Marjorie for alms.

For that day, Marjorie had come down dressed for a walk--a saunter, to find a few botanical specimens, she told Mrs Rolph, who smiled and was quite content, so long as her niece settled down and made no trouble of the loss of her lover.

Marjorie did saunter as long as she was in sight, and then went off through the fir woods rapidly, her eyes losing their soft, spaniel-like, far-away look which she so often turned upon Rolph, and growing fierce and determined as she stepped out, full of the object she had in view.

For she had good reason to believe that Rolph had gone in the direction she was taking, and the desire was strong within her to come upon him suddenly, and at a time when she felt she would succeed in getting the whip-hand of him, and holding him at her mercy.

She had been walking nearly an hour fairly fast; but now, as if guided by instinct, she turned into a green, mossy path, one of the many cut among the stubbs for the sportsmen's benefit, whether hunting or shooting their purpose was the same, and advancing now more cautiously she was looking sharply from side to side when the hazels were suddenly parted, and, with his white teeth glistening in the suns.h.i.+ne, and his dark eyes flas.h.i.+ng, there stood Caleb Kent not two yards away; then not one, as he caught her wrist in his hot, brown hands, and, with a laugh, placed his face close to hers.

"You've been a long time coming," he said, "but you promised, and I've come."

For a few moments Marjorie stood gazing wildly at the man before her, with her brain reeling, and a strange sickening sensation attacking her, which rendered her speechless. Her lips moved, but no sound came, while the words which had pa.s.sed between them thundered in her ears like the echoes of all that had been said.

Then a re-action took place, and, drawing herself up, she said quietly,--

"Well, what do you want--money?"

"No; I can get money for myself," he said, with a laugh. "I've come back to you."

She shrank from him now with a look of disgust, and s.h.i.+vered as she thought of the past, but recovering herself she turned upon him.

"How dare you!" she cried, with a look intended to keep him at bay.

Caleb laughed.