Melbourne House Part 45

The sun was s.h.i.+ning bright the next morning, and Daisy sat on one of the seats under the trees, half in suns.h.i.+ne, half in shadow. It was after breakfast, and she had been scarcely seen or heard that morning before. Ransom came up.

"Daisy, do you want to go fis.h.i.+ng?"

"No, I think not."

"You don't! What are you going to do?"

"I am not going to do anything."

"I don't believe it. What ails you? Mother said I was to ask you ? and there you sit like a wet feather. I am glad I am not a girl, however!"

Ransom went off, and a very faint colour rose in Daisy's cheek.

"Are you not well, Daisy?" said Mr. Randolph, who had also drawn near.

"I am well, papa."

"You don't look so. What's the matter, that you don't go a- fis.h.i.+ng, when Ransom has the consideration to ask you?"

Daisy's tranquillity was very nearly overset. But she maintained it, and only answered without the change of a muscle, "I have not the inclination, papa." Indeed her face was _too_ quiet; and Mr. Randolph, putting that with its colourless hue, and the very sweet upward look her eyes had first given him, was not satisfied. He went away to the breakfast room.

"Felicia," said he, in a low tone, bending down by his wife, ?

"did you have any words with Daisy last night?"

"Has she told you about it?" said Mrs. Randolph.

"Told me what? What is there to tell?"

"Nothing, on my part," answered the lady, nonchalantly. "Daisy may tell you what she pleases."

"Felicia," said Mr. Randolph, looking much vexed, "that child has borne too much already. She is ill."

"It is her own fault. I told you, Mr. Randolph, I would as lief not have a child as not have her mind me. She shall do what I bid her, if she dies for it."

"It won't come to that," said Mrs. Gary. Mr. Randolph turned on his heel.

Meantime, another person who had seen with sorrow Daisy's pale face, and had half a guess as to the cause of it, came up to her side and sat down.

"Daisy, what is to be done to-day?"

"I don't know, Captain Drummond."

"You don't feel like storming the heights, this morning?"

Again, to him also, the glance of Daisy's eye was so very sweet, and so very wistful, that the captain was determined in a purpose he had half had in his mind.

"What do you say to a long expedition, Daisy?"

"I don't feel like driving, Captain Drummond."

"No, but suppose I drive, ? and we will leave Loupe at home for to-day. I want to go as far as Schroeder's Hill, to look after trilobites; and I do not want anybody with me but you.

Shall we go?"

"What are those things, Captain Drummond?"

"Trilobites?"

"Yes. What are they?"

"Curious things, Daisy! They are a kind of fish that are found on land."

"Fish on land! But then they can't be fish, Captain Drummond?"

"Suppose we go and see," said the captain; "and then, if we find any, we shall know more about them than we do now."

"But how do you catch them?"

"With my hands, I suppose."

"With your hands, Captain Drummond?"

"Really I don't know any other way, ? unless your hands will help. Come! shall we go and try?"

Daisy slowly rose up, very mystified, but with a little light of interest and curiosity breaking on her face. The Captain moved off on his part to get ready, well satisfied that he was doing a good thing.

It went to the Captain's heart, nevertheless, for he had a kind one, to see all the way how pale and quiet Daisy's face was. She asked him no more about trilobites, she did not talk about anything; the subjects the Captain started were soon let drop. And not because she was too ill to talk, for Daisy's eye was thoughtfully clear and steady, and the Captain had no doubt but she was busy enough in her own mind with things she did not bring out. What sort of things? he was very curious to know. For he had never seen Daisy's face so exceeding sweet in its expression as he saw it now; though the cheeks were pale and worn, there was in her eye whenever it was lifted to his, a light of something hidden that the Captain could not read.

It was true. Daisy had sat stunned and dull all the morning until he came with his proposal for the drive; and with the first stir of excitement in getting ready, a returning tide of love had filled the dry places in Daisy's heart; and it was full now of feelings that only wanted a chance to come out.

Meanwhile she sat as still as a mouse and as grave as a judge.

The hill for which they were bound was some dozen or more miles away. It was a wild rough place. Arrived at the foot of it, they could go no further by the road; the Captain tied his horse to a tree, and he and Daisy scrambled up the long winding ascent, thick with briars and bushes, or strewn with pieces of rock, and shaded with a forest of old trees. This was hard walking for Daisy today; she did not feel like struggling with any difficulties, and her poor little feet almost refused to carry her through the roughnesses of the last part of the way. She was very glad when they reached the ground where the Captain wanted to explore, and she could sit down and be still. It was quite on the other side of the mountain; a strange-looking place. The face of the hill was all bare of trees, and seemed to be nothing but rock; and jagged and broken as if quarriers had been there cutting and blasting. Nothing but a steep surface of broken rock; bare enough; but it was from the sun, and Daisy chose the first smooth fragment to sit down upon. Then what a beautiful place!

For, from that rocky seat, her eye had a range over acres and acres of waving slopes of tree tops; down in the valley at the mountain foot, and up and down so many slopes and ranges of swelling and falling hillsides and dells, that the eye wandered from one to another and another, softer and softer as the distance grew, or brighter and more varied as the view came nearer home. A wilderness all, no roof of a house nor smoke from a chimney even; but those sunny ranges of hills, over which now and then a cloud shadow was softly moving, and which finished in a dim blue horizon.

"Well, are you going to sit here?" said the Captain, "or will you help me to hunt up my fishes?"

"Oh, I'll sit here," said Daisy. She did not believe much in the success of the Captain's hunt.

"Won't you be afraid, while I am going all over creation?"

"Of what?" said Daisy.

The Captain laughed a little and went off; thinking, however, not so much of his trilobites as of the sweet fearless look the little face had given him. Uneasy about the child too, for Daisy's face looked not as he liked to see it look. But where got she that steady calm, and curious fearlessness. "She is a timid child," thought the Captain, as he climbed over the rocks; "or she was, the other night."

But the Captain and Daisy were looking with different eyes; no wonder they did not find the same things. In all that sunlit glow over hill and valley, which warmed every tree-top, Daisy had seen only another light, ? the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. With that love round her, over her, how could she fear anything. She sat a little while, resting and thinking; then, being weary and feeling weak, she slipped down on the ground, and like Jacob taking a stone for her pillow, she went to sleep.

So the Captain found her, every time he came back from his hunt to look after his charge; he let her sleep, and went off again. He had a troublesome hunt. At last he found some traces of what he sought; then he forgot Daisy in his eagerness, and it was after a good long interval the last time that he came to Daisy's side again. She was awake.

"What have you got?" she said, as he came up with his hands full.