The Star-Gazers Part 49

He spoke lightly and merrily, and Glynne hastily put aside her book, and rose from her chair.

"Did you want me to go out for a ride, Robert?" she said rather eagerly.

"Well, no; not this afternoon."

The smile Glynne had called up, and which came with an unbidden flush, died out slowly, and a look of calmness, even of relief, dawned upon her countenance as the young man went on.

"Thought you wouldn't mind if we didn't go this afternoon. Looks a bit doubtful, too. Quite fine, now, but the weather does change so rapidly."

"Does it?" said Glynne, looking at him rather wistfully.

"Yes. I think it's the pine woods. High trees. Attract moisture.

Don't say it is, dear. I'm not big at that sort of thing, but we do have a deal of rain here."

"Why, papa was complaining the other day about want of water," said Glynne, smiling.

"Ah, that was for his turnips. They want rain. You won't be disappointed?"

"I?--oh, no," said Glynne, quietly.

"Think I'll do a bit of training this afternoon. I'm not quite up to the mark."

"Are you always going to train so much, dear?" said Glynne, thoughtfully.

"Always? Eh? Always? Oh, no; of course not; but it's a man's duty to get himself up to the very highest pitch of health and strength. But if you'd set your mind upon a ride, we'll go."

"I?--oh, no," said Glynne. "I thought you wished it, dear."

"That's all right then," said Rolph, cheerfully. "By-bye, beauty," he said, kissing her. "I say, Glynne, 'pon my word, I think you are the most lovely woman I ever saw."

She smiled at him as he turned at the doorway, nodding back at her, and she remained fixed to the spot as the captain, cigar in mouth, pa.s.sed directly after, turning to kiss his hand as he saw her dimly through the window.

For Glynne did not run across the room to stand and watch him till he was out of sight, but remained where he had left her, with a couple of dull red spots glowing in her cheeks for a time, and then dying slowly out, leaving her very pale.

Glynne was thinking deeply, and it was evident that her thoughts were giving her pain, for her eyes darkened, then half-closed, and she slowly walked up and down the room a few times, and then returned to her chair, to bend over, rest her head upon her hand, and sit gazing straight before her at the soft carpet, remaining almost motionless for quite half-an-hour, when she sighed deeply, took up her book, and continued reading.

Rolph went right off at once through the park and out across the long meadow and into the fir wood, where, as if led by some feeling of attraction, he made for the spot where the encounter had taken place a week before, and stopped for a few minutes to gaze at the ground, as if he expected to see the traces still there.

"Tchah!" he exclaimed, impatiently; "it was an accident. Guns will go off sometimes."

He wrenched himself away, walking on amongst the trees rapidly for a time, and then stopped to relight his cigar, whose near end was a good deal gnawed and shortened.

"Tchah!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed again. "I won't think of it. Just as well blame oneself, if a fellow in one's troop goes down, and breaks his leg in a charge."

He puffed furiously at his cigar as he went on, and then forgot it again, so that it went out, and he threw it away impatiently, thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked as fast as the nature of the ground would permit.

For, evidently with the idea of giving himself a very severe course of training, he kept in the woods where the pathways were rugged and winding and so little frequented that at times the young growth crossed, switching his hat or face, and often having to be beaten back by the hands which he unwillingly withdrew from his pockets.

Rolph probably meant to reach some particular spot before he turned, for twice over he crossed a lane, and instead of taking advantage of the better path afforded, he plunged again into the woods and went on.

At the end of an hour he came upon another lane more solitary and unused than those he had pa.s.sed. It was a mere track occasionally used by the woodcutters for a timber wagon, and the marks of the broad wheels were here and there visible in the white sand, which as a rule trickled down into all depressions, fine as that in an hour-gla.s.s, and hid the marks left by man.

"Rather warm," muttered Rolph as he was crossing the sandy track; and he was in the act of charging up the bank on the other side, when there was a cheery hail, and as he turned with an angry e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, he became aware of the fact that Sir John was coming along the lane upon one of his ponies, whose tread was unheard in the soft sand.

"Why, hullo, Rob, where are you going?" cried the baronet. "You look like a lost man in a forest."

"Do I? oh, only having a good breather. Getting a little too much fat.

Must keep myself down. Ride very heavy with all my accoutrements."

"Hah! Yes. You're a big fellow," said Sir John, looking at him rather fixedly. "Why didn't you have the horses out, then, and take Glynne for a ride?"

"Glynne? By Jove, sir, I did propose it, only she had got a book in the drawing-room."

"d.a.m.n the books!" cried Sir John, pettishly. "She reads too much. But, hang it all, Rob, my lad, don't let her grow into a bookworm because she's engaged. She's not half the girl she was before this fixture, as you'd call it, was made."

"Well, really, I--"

"Yes, yes, I know what you'd say. You do your best. But, hang it all, don't let her mope, and be always indoors. Plenty of time for that when there are half-a-dozen children in the nursery, eh? Coming back my way?"

"No. Oh, no," cried Rolph, hastily; "I must finish my walk. I shall take a short cut back. Been for a ride?"

"I? Pooh! I don't go for rides, my lad. I've been to see my sheep on the hills, and I've another lot to see. There, good-bye till dinner-time, if you won't come."

He touched his pony's ribs and cantered off. Rolph plunging into the wood, and hastily glancing at his watch as he hurried on.

"Lovers are different to what they were when I was a young fellow," said Sir John. "We were a bit chivalrous and attentive then. Pooh! So they are now. There's no harm in the lad. It isn't such a bad thing to keep his body in a state of perfection--real perfection of health and strength. Makes a young fellow moral and pure-minded; but I wish he would devote himself more to Glynne. Take her out more; she looks too pale."

"Hang him! I wish he had been at Jericho," muttered the subject of Sir John's thoughts. "Let's see, I can keep along all the way in the woods now. I sha'n't meet any one there."

The prophecy concerning people held good for a quarter of an hour or so, and then, turning rapidly into an open fir glade, Rolph found out that being prophetic does not pay without a long preliminary preparation, and an ingenious consideration of probabilities and the like, for he suddenly came plump upon the major, stooping down, trowel in hand--so suddenly, in fact, that he nearly fell over him, and the two started back, the one with a muttered oath, the other with words of surprise.

"Why, I didn't expect to find you in this out-of-the-way place," said the major.

"By Jove, that's just what I was going to say," cried Rolph.

"Not raw beef-steaks this time, is it?" said the major with a grim look full of contempt.

"Steaks--raw steaks. I don't understand you."

"This is rough woodland; you are not training now, are you?" said the major, carefully placing what looked like a handful of dirty little blackish potatoes in his fishing creel.

"Training? Well, yes, of course I am. Keeping myself up to the mark,"

retorted Rolph. "A soldier, in my opinion, ought to be the very perfection of manly strength."

"Well, yes," said the major, rubbing the soil off one of his dirty little truffles, and then polishing his bright little steel trowel with a piece of newspaper, "but the men of my time did pretty well with no other training than their military drill."

"_Autres_--I forget the rest," said Rolph. "I never was good at French.

It means other fellows had other manners in other times, major. Got a good haul of toadstools?"