Barbara Ladd Part 17

"Oh," exclaimed Barbara, much nettled. "Doctor Jim talks a lot of nonsense just to tease me; but he doesn't mean it,--at least, not all of it. Besides, he is always interesting. But you, with your pedantic stuff about loyalty and kings and treason, I don't find you interesting at all! Please go and talk to Aunt Hitty and Mrs. Sawyer, and let me read. Perhaps I'll be able to forget what you said at dinner!"

"It is my pleasure to obey your lightest wish, fair mistress!" said Robert, inwardly indignant, but outwardly amused at her ill-humour. He went at once to the other side of the room, and exerted himself to such good purpose that soon Mistress Mehitable's rare and silvery laughter grew frequent, against an almost ceaseless gurgle of content from Mrs.

Sawyer. Robert was completely absorbed, while Barbara's interest in her book was vexatiously divided. After half an hour she got up and left the room, but he never noticed her going. Fifteen minutes later she came back, with the gray and white "Mr. Grim" on her shoulder; and he never noticed her coming, so intent he was, and so successful, in his task of amusing Aunt Hitty and Mrs. Sawyer. This was carrying obedience a little too far, and it fretted Barbara. Then the men came in from the dining-room, smoky, and a little more fluent than ordinary, and Robert was ousted from his post by Glenowen and Doctor John. But instead of returning now to Barbara, he attached himself with an engrossed air to Doctor Jim; and Barbara found herself established in her nook with the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer. To be sure, his Reverence made himself most agreeable, flattering her by the attention he would have paid to a grown woman whom he considered intelligent. He appreciated her brains, and acknowledged the lengthening of her petticoats; and his att.i.tude was a gratifying proof to her that she really had grown to be a personage, rather than a child, within the past few days. But she found herself unable to concentrate her wits on what he was saying, and pa.s.sed a rather grievous hour trying to look the attention which her brain was not giving. When, at last, Doctor Sawyer arose to go, she felt that he must think her the most stupid girl in the world. Doctor Sawyer, on the contrary, enchanted by the rapt silence and appreciation with which apparently she had hung upon his words, went away with the conviction that she was a young woman of astonishing intellect, whom they had, indeed, wronged greatly in striving to force her into the narrow Second Westings mould. From that hour, when she had watched him with glowing eyes, but hearing scarce a word of all his wit, the Reverend Jonathan Sawyer was one of Barbara's staunchest champions.

When she turned from saying good-bye to Mrs. Sawyer, Barbara found Robert standing close beside her in the hall door, apparently absorbed in contemplation of Mrs. Sawyer's billowy, retreating figure. Barbara touched him on the arm, and he turned to her with a quick apologetic courtesy, as if his thoughts had been far off.

"What were you thinking of, so far, far away?" she asked, feeling somewhat left out and forlorn.

"Why--why--I was thinking--" he stammered, as if unwilling to say, yet unready with an evasion.

"Oh, you needn't tell me, if it is so embarra.s.sing as all that!" said Barbara, tossing her head. "I was going to say, that after all the talk and the excitement, I think the loveliest thing would be some fresh, sweet air, and the smell of the woods!"

"It would be, indeed--with you!" said Robert.

"Then we will ride till supper-time. No,--there is a moon. We will ride after supper. You may escort me if you want to! Do you?"

Robert drew a long breath before he answered--and to Barbara the answer was sufficient.

"Yes, I want to!" he said, simply. "I was afraid I was to go away without really seeing you at all!"

"Go away!" exclaimed Barbara, lifting her brows in sharp displeasure.

"What do you mean, Robert?"

"I must go back to Gault House to-morrow morning, without fail, for I start for New York the day following, to be gone all winter."

"Oh!" said Barbara; and turned and led the way back into the drawing-room, leaving Robert completely mystified as to the meaning of that noncommittal interjection.

CHAPTER XXI.

After supper, when Barbara came down dressed for riding and calmly told Robert she was ready, Mistress Mehitable gasped, and looked at Glenowen, expecting that he would meet the emergency by making a third.

As he seemed unconscious of the need of action, she shot an appealing glance at Doctor Jim and Doctor John in turn. But they only grinned inscrutably. Then she lifted her hands slightly and let them drop into her lap, as if to say, "Bear witness, Heaven, that I am helpless!" and thus she stifled the voice of protest in her bosom. She had given Barbara freedom, and the responsibility that goes with freedom; and she would not take back the gift. But it was one of the notable victories of Mistress Mehitable's career, when she forced herself to sit in smiling acquiescence while Barbara flew full in the face of all convention. Amos, meanwhile, had brought the horses to the door; and when the two young riders were gone, the hoof-beats sounding in slow cadence down the drive, Glenowen said to her, with an understanding smile, "You did right, sweet lady. 'Tis a filly, that, to be ridden without the curb. Give her her head, and you'll have no great trouble!"

"I feel sure you are right, Mr. Glenowen," said Mistress Mehitable, sweetly. "But you may well believe it was a hard lesson for me, a Ladd of Connecticut, to learn. And I fear I have not more than half learned it yet!"

"You can learn anything you have a mind to, Mehitable," said Doctor Jim, with emphasis, "in the time it would take another woman to learn the A, B, C of it!"

Neither Barbara nor Robert spoke till the horses emerged upon the highway. Then Barbara cried:

"Quick! Quick! I want the wind in my face!"

With two miles of good road before them, they set their faces to the night breeze and their horses to the run, and raced madly down the moonlight, their shadows dancing long and black before them. The saddle-leathers creaked a low, exhilarating music, and the galloping swung like a pulse, and the roadside fence and shrubs fled by, and the world was white in the moonlight. And still there was no speech, save a soft word now and then to the rejoicing horses, whose ears turned back for it sympathetically from time to time.

At length they came to rougher ground, and slowed to a gentle canter.

Then Robert noticed a narrow wood-road turning off to the right, vaulted over with lofty trees, and mystical with moon-shadows.

"Where does that road go, my lady?" he inquired.

"Where we are going!" answered Barbara, turning into it at a walk.

Then, as if she thought the answer too whimsical, she continued, "It will take us back to the village by a longer and more beautiful way!"

"Any longer way would be the more beautiful way!" said Robert.

The reply interested Barbara, and in musing over it she forgot to say anything more.

The wood-road, thick-carpeted with turf and moss, m.u.f.fled the horses'

hoofs, and an enchanted silence sank into the hearts of the young riders. Here and there the woods gave back for a little clearing with a lonely cabin; and the moonlight flooded in; and around the edges of the clearing the thick-leaved branches seemed afloat, bubbles of gla.s.s and silver on a sea of dream. Then, again, the fairy-lit glooms, haunted but unterrifying! And Barbara began to think repentantly of her harshness toward Robert. Soon the road dipped sharply, and crossed a wide, shallow brook, upon whose pebbles the horses' hoofs splashed a light music. Here they let the horses drink a mouthful, because Barbara said the waters of that brook were especially sweet. When they emerged on the other side, Barbara discovered she wanted a drink of it herself, so sovereign were the virtues of that water.

"How shall I bring it to you?" asked Robert, instantly dismounting, and casting a hasty glance about him in quest of a birch-tree, from whose bark to make a cup.

"Make me a cup of your hands, of course!" said Barbara. "Give me your reins. I must have the water, at once!"

Robert removed his leather gloves, rinsed his hands in the sliding sand, and then, with mighty painstaking care, got at least two mouthfuls of the crystal uplifted to Barbara's lips. As she sipped, and light as a moth her lips touched his hands, his heart seemed to turn over in his breast, and he could not find voice for a word.

Silently he remounted, and in silence they ascended the slope from the brook. His apparent unresponsiveness puzzled Barbara; but an awakening intuition suggested to her that it was perhaps not so uncomplimentary as it might seem; and she was not displeased.

For half an hour they walked their horses thus, Robert sometimes laying a light hand on Black Prince's shoulder or satiny flank, but never daring to touch so much as Barbara's skirt. Then they saw the highway opening ahead of them, a ribbon of moonlit road. Barbara reined up.

"I think my saddle is slipping a little," said she. "I don't believe Amos can have girt it tight enough!"

"Why, I--" began Robert, about to remind her that, like a good horseman, he had himself looked well to the girth before letting her mount. But he cut the words short on his tongue, sprang from his saddle, and busied himself intently with Black Prince's straps. When he raised his head, Barbara smiled down upon him, and reached him her left hand, saying sweetly:

"Thank you, Robert. You are really very nice, you know!"

Whereupon Robert bent abruptly, kissed the instep of the little riding-boot which stuck out from under her skirt, and swung into his saddle.

The action thrilled Barbara somewhat, but at the same time piqued her interest; and the interest dominated.

"Why did you do that, Robert?" she asked, curiously, looking at him with wide, frank eyes. "I didn't mind it a bit, you know! But it's funny, to kiss my old shoe!"

Robert gave a little unsteady laugh.

"It was homage, my lady," said he. "Just my pledge of fealty, before I go. You forget--I have the misfortune to displease you by being a monarchist!"

Barbara was silent a moment. She was sorry he had reminded her of their differences of opinion. But, on the other hand, homage was not unpleasant; and her scorn of kings did not of necessity extend to queens.

"_Why_ do you go?" she asked.

"My grandmother is sending me at a moment's notice, to represent her in a law-sc.r.a.pe which some property of hers--of ours--in New York has suddenly got into. You know that, now that I am through college, I have to get down to work at once in New York, and fit myself to look after our estates. But I didn't dream I should have to go so soon!"

"I am sorry!" said Barbara, simply. "We were having such a pleasant time together!"

"Were we, dear lady?" asked Robert.

"_Weren't_ we?" demanded Barbara.