The Mayor of Troy Part 17

She looked to right, to left, and all around her in a panic.

Could she have dropped it into the stream in her hurry? And had the stream carried it down the fall?

She drew on one stocking and shoe, and catching up the other shoe in her hand, crept down to explore. The stream leapt out of sight through a screen of hazels. Parting these, she peered through them, to judge the distance between her and the pool and see if any track led down to it. A something flashed in her eyes, and she drew back.

Then, peering forward again, she let a faint cry escape her.

On the pebbly bank beside the pool stood a man--Dr. Hansombody--in regimentals. In one hand he held a razor (this it was that had flashed so brightly in the sunlight), in the other her lost stocking.

Apparently he had been shaving, kneeling beside the pool and using it for a mirror; for one half of his face was yet lathered, and his haversack lay open on the stones by the water's edge beside his shako and a tin cup under which he had lit a small spirit-lamp; and doubtless, while he knelt, the stream had swept Miss Marty's stocking down to him. He was studying it in bewilderment; which changed to glad surprise as he caught sight of her, aloft between the hazels.

"Hallo!" he challenged. "A happy month to you!"

"Oh, please!" Miss Marty covered her face.

"I'll spread it out to dry on the stones here."

"Please give it back to me. Yes, please, I beg of you!"

"I don't see the sense of that," answered the Doctor. "You can't possibly wear it until it's dry, you know."

"But I'd _rather_."

"Are you anch.o.r.ed up there? Very well; then I'll bring it up to you in a minute or so. But just wait a little; for you wouldn't ask me to come with half my face unshaven, would you?"

"I can go back. . . . No, I can't. The bank is too slippery. . . .

But I can look the other way," added Miss Marty, heroically.

"I really don't see why you should," answered the Doctor, as he resumed his kneeling posture. "Now, to my mind," he went on in the intervals of finishing his toilet, "there's no harm in it, and, speaking as a man, it gives one a pleasant sociable feeling."

"I--have often wondered how it was done," confessed Miss Marty.

"It looks horribly dangerous."

"The fact is," said the Doctor, wiping his blade, "I cannot endure to feel unshaven, even when campaigning."

He restored the razor to his haversack, blew out the spirit-lamp, emptied the tin cup on the stones, packed up, resumed his shako, and stood erect.

"My stocking, please!" Miss Marty pleaded.

"It is by no means dry yet," he answered, stooping and examining it.

"Let me help you down, that you may see for yourself."

"Oh, I _couldn't_!"

"Meaning your foot and ankle? Believe me you have no cause to be ashamed of _them_, Miss Marty," the Doctor a.s.sured her gallantly, climbing the slope and extending an arm for her to lean upon.

"Those people--across the water," she protested, with a slight blush and a nod in the direction of the shouting, which for some minutes had been growing louder.

"Our brave fellows--if, as I imagine, the uproar proceeds from them-- are pardonably flushed with their victory. They are certainly incapable, at this distance, of the nice observation with which your modesty credits them. Good Lord!--now you mention it--what a racket!

I sincerely trust they will not arouse Sir Felix, whose temper-- _experto crede_--is seldom at its best in the small hours. There, if you will lean your weight on me and advance your foot--the uncovered one--to this ledge--Nay, now!"

"But it hurts," said Miss Marty, wincing, with a catch of her breath.

"I fear I must have run a thorn into it."

"A thorn?" The Doctor seized the professional opportunity, lifted her bodily off the slope, and lowered her to the beach. "There, now, if you will sit absolutely still . . . for one minute. I command you! Yes, as I suspected--a gorse-p.r.i.c.kle!"

He ran to his haversack, and, returning with a pair of tweezers, took the hurt foot between both hands.

"Pray remain still . . . for one moment. There--it is out!"

He held up the p.r.i.c.kle triumphantly between the tweezers. "You have heard, Miss Marty, of the slave Andrew Something-or-other and the lion? Though it couldn't have been Andrew really, because there are no lions in Scotland--except, I believe, on their shield. He was hiding for some reason in a cave, and a lion came along, and--well, it doesn't seem complimentary even if you turn a lion into a lioness, but it came into my head and seemed all right to start with."

"When I was a governess," said Miss Marty, "I used often to set it for dictation. I had, I remember, the same difficulty you experience with the name of the hero."

"Did you?" the Doctor exclaimed, delightedly. "That _is_ a coincidence, isn't it? I sometimes think that when two minds are, as one might say, attuned--"

"They are making a most dreadful noise," said Miss Marty, with a glance across the river. "Did I hear you say that you were victorious to-night?"

"Completely."

"The Major is a wonderful man."

"Wonderful! As I was saying, when two minds are, as one might say, attuned--"

"He succeeds in everything he touches."

"It is a rare talent."

"I sometimes wonder how, with his greatness--for he cannot but be conscious of it--he endures the restrictions of our narrow sphere.

I mean," Miss Marty went on, as the Doctor lifted his eyebrows in some surprise, "the petty business of a country town such as ours."

"Oh," said the Doctor. "Ah, to be sure! . . . I supposed for a moment that you were referring to the--er--terrestrial globe."

He sighed. Miss Marty sighed likewise. Across in the covert of the woods someone had begun to beat a tattoo on the drum. Presently a cornet joined in, shattering the echoes with wild ululations.

"Those fellows will be sorry if Sir Felix catches them," observed the Doctor, anxiously. "I can't think what Hymen's about, to allow it.

The noise comes from right under the home-park, too."

"You depreciate the Major!" Miss Marty tapped her bare foot impatiently on the pebbles; but, recollecting herself, drew it back with a blush.

"I do not," answered the Doctor, hotly. "I merely say that he is allowing his men yonder to get out of hand."

"Perhaps _you_ had better go, and, as the poet puts it, 'ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm,'" she suggested, with gentle sarcasm.

The Doctor rose stiffly. "Perhaps, on the whole, I had.

Your stocking"--he lifted and felt it carefully--"will be dry in five minutes or so. Shall I direct Cai Tamblyn to bring the boat hither if I pa.s.s him on my way?"

She glanced up with a quivering lip.

"Isn't--isn't that a Sulphur Yellow?" she asked, pointing to a b.u.t.terfly which wavered past them and poised itself for an instant on a pebble by the brink of the pool.

"Eh? By George! so it is." The Doctor caught up his shako and raced off in pursuit. "Steady now! . . . Is he gone? . . . Yes. . . . No, I have him!" he called, as with a swift wave of his arm he brought the shako down smartly on the pebbles and, kneeling, held it down with both hands.