The Ffolliots of Redmarley Part 3

The leggy fox-terrier ceased to bark. Instead, he thrust an inquisitive nose into the stranger's bowler hat and sniffed dubiously.

The girl was strong and had pulled with a will.

"I am much obliged to you," the young man remarked stiffly, at the same time regarding his rescuer with a suspicious and inimical eye, to see if she were laughing at him.

She did nothing of the kind. Her candid gaze merely expressed dismay, subtly mingled with commiseration. "I don't see how we're to clean you,"

she said; "only sc.r.a.ping would do it--a trowel's best, but, then, I don't suppose you've got one about you."

The young man tried to look down his back, always a difficult feat.

"You're simply covered with mud from head to foot," she continued. "The only thing I can think of for you to do is to come to the stables, and I'll get Heaven to clean you . . . unless, perhaps," she added, doubtfully, "you were coming to the house."

"If you will kindly direct me to the village," he said, "I have to pay a call there, and no doubt my friends will a.s.sist me to remove some of this mud."

"But you can't go calling like that," she expostulated; "you'd far better come to the stables first. Heaven's so used to us, he'd clean you up in no time; besides, by far the quickest way to the village is down our drive. There's no right-of-way through these woods; didn't you see the boards?"

"Whenever," he spoke with deliberate emphasis, "I see a board to the effect that trespa.s.sers will be prosecuted, I make a point of walking over that land as a protest."

"Dear me," she said. "It must take you sadly out of your way sometimes.

Where have you come from to-day?"

"From Marlehouse."

"Then you'd have saved yourself at least a mile and a half, and your trousers all that mud, if you'd stuck to the road; it's ever such a long way round to come by the woods."

"I prefer the woods."

There was such superior finality in his tone, that the girl was apparently crushed. She started to walk, he followed; she waited for him, and they tramped along side by side in silence; he, covertly taking stock of his companion; she, gazing straight ahead as though for the moment she had forgotten his existence.

A tall girl, evidently between sixteen and seventeen, for her hair was not "done up," but tied together at the back with a large bow, whence it streamed long and thick and wavy to her waist: abundant light brown hair, with just enough red in it to give it life and warmth.

His appraising eye took in the fact at once that all her clothes were old, shabby, and exceedingly well cut. Her hat was a shapeless soft felt with no tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, save a rather ragged cord, and she wore it turned down all round. It had once been brown, but was now a mixture of soft faded tints like certain lichens growing on a roof. Her covert coat, rather too big, and quite nondescript in colour, washed by the rains of many winters, revealed in flowing lines the dim grace of the broad, yet slender shoulders beneath.

Her exceedingly short skirt was almost as weather-beaten as the coat, but it swung evenly with every step and there was no sagging at the back.

Last of all, his eyes dropped to her boots: wide welted, heavy brown boots; regular country boots; but here again was the charm of graceful line, and he knew instinctively that the feet they encased were slender and shapely and unspoiled.

He raised his eyes again to the serenely unconscious profile presented to his view: a very finished profile with nothing smudgy or uncertain about it. The little nose was high-bridged and decided, the red lips full and shut closely together, the upper short and deeply cleft in the centre.

He was just thinking that, in spite of his muddy hat, he would rather like her to look at him again, when she turned her large gaze upon him with the question:

"Were you preaching just before you fell down?"

He flushed hotly. "Certainly not--did it sound like . . . that?"

"Well, I wasn't sure. I thought if you were a curate trying a sermon you'd have said 'brethren,' but 'fellow men' would do, you know; and then I heard something about the 'house of the Lord,' and I was sure you must be a sucking parson; but when I came up I wasn't so sure. What were you saying over, if it wasn't a sermon?"

"It was stupid of me . . . but I do a good deal of public speaking, and I never dreamt anyone was within miles . . ."

"Oh, a speech, was it? Where are you going to speak it?"

"I shall probably address a meeting in Marlehouse to-morrow night."

"Why?"

"Because I've been asked to do so."

"Will it be in the paper on Sat.u.r.day?"

"Probably."

"How grand; do tell me your name, then I can look for your speech. I'd love to read it and see if you begin with the bit I heard about fellow men and the house of the Lord."

"The House of Lords," he corrected.

"Oh," said the girl. "Them! It's them you're against. I was afraid you objected to churches."

"I don't care much for churches, either," he observed, gloomily. "Do you?"

"I've really never thought about it," she confessed. "One's supposed to like them . . . they're good things, surely?"

"Inst.i.tutions must be judged by their actual utility; their adaptability to present needs. Traditional benefits can no longer be accepted as a reason for the support of any particular cause."

"I think," she said, "that the mud on your clothes is drying. It will probably brush off quite nicely."

Had he ever read _Alice in Wonderland_ he might have remembered what preceded the Caucus Race. But he never had, so he merely thought that she was singularly frivolous and irrelevant.

"You haven't told me your name," she continued, "so that I can look for that speech. We're nearly home, and I'll hand you over to Heaven so that he can make you tidy for your call."

"My name is E. A. Gallup," he replied, shortly.

"Up or op?" she asked.

"Up," he replied, wishing to heaven it weren't.

"Mine's M. B. Ffolliot, two 'fs' and two 'ls'. We live here, you know."

"I guessed you were a Miss Ffolliot. In fact, I may say I knew it."

"Everyone knows us about here," she said sadly. "That's the worst of it.

You can never get out of anything you've done."

E. A. Gallup looked surprised, but as she was again gazing into s.p.a.ce she did not observe him.

"Whenever hay's trampled, or pheasants startled, or gates left open, or pigs chased, or turkeys furious, they always say, 'It's them varmints of young Ffolliots.'"

"Do you know," he said, and his grave face suddenly broke into a most boyish grin, "I believe even I have heard something of the kind."

"If you live anywhere within six miles of Redmarley you'll hear little else, and it isn't always us . . . though it is generally. This stupid gate's locked. We'll have to get over. It's easiest to do it like this."