Wych Hazel Part 60

There is a great difference in people's riding, as there is in people's walking; and once in a while, among plenty of good average walkers and riders, there is one whom it is a pleasure to see. This man was such a one. He was a perfectly well-made man, and had the ease and grace in all his movements which such a build goes far to ensure; when on horseback it seemed as if he had communicated these qualities to his horse, and the two moved as one embodiment of ease and grace, with power superadded. Stuart Nightingale on horseback was a fine gentleman, perfectly got up, and riding well, but yet a fine gentleman in the saddle. Major Seaton rode ruggedly, if I may say so. Mr. May was more at home in his phaeton; others were more or less stiff and uncertain. But the att.i.tude and action of Rollo were utter unconscious ease, whatever form of action his horse might take. So it was now. For a few minutes his restless animal moved in all sorts of eccentric ways; but where most men would have been a little awkward and many very miserable, his rider was simply unconcerned and seemed to be taking his pleasure. To see such a rider is to be filled with a great sense of harmony.

What a ride they had then, when the hill was descended and the gates of Chickaree left behind! The road for some miles was known to Wych Hazel; then they branched off into another where all was new. The qualities of the brown mare had been coming to her rider's knowledge by degrees; a beautiful mouth, excellent paces, thorough training; knowing her business and doing it. As they entered upon a long smooth stretch of road without anybody in sight, Rollo proposed a run; and they had it; and it was upon drawing bridle after this that he asked a question.

'How do you like her?'

Now Miss Kennedy, in defiance of all-known laws, had never been so smitten with the regulation beaver upon a man's head, as to place it on her own. So instead of its stiff proportions she wore a little round straw hat; utterly comfortable, utterly graceful, and drooping down over her eyes a la Marie Stuart, so as to keep those wayward things in deep seclusion when she chose. Just now, however, she turned them full on her companion, answering:

'O _very_ much!--I suspect she has only one fault.'

'What in the world is that? Have you discovered already what I have sought for in vain?

'It is the reverse of my speciality,' said Wych Hazel--'so perhaps that makes me sharpsighted. I am afraid she always behaves well.'

'She knows her business,' said Rollo. 'I think what you want her to do, she will do. Pardon me; do you wish her--it is rather paradoxical--to _thwart_ you wishes!'

'No,' said the girl, laughing a little,--'I put it somewhat differently: perhaps I might like, just occasionally, to thwart hers!'

'She'll be an extraordinary animal if she does not some time or other give you a chance. Now do you know what you are coming to?'

The scenery was changing, had changed. The level, open road they had been clearing on the gallop, had gradually drawn within high banks, which as they went on grew higher and broken, till the country a.s.sumed the character of a glen or deep valley. Opening a little here and there, this valley shewed ahead of them now a succession of high, long, dingy buildings; and a large, rapid stream of water was seen to run under the opposite bank. It had not been visible until now; so it probably turned off near this point into an easier channel than the course of their road would have afforded. The scene was extremely picturesque; sunshine and shadow mingling on the sides of the dell and on the roofs and gables of the buildings in the bottom. These were both large and small; it was quite a settlement; cottages, small and mean and dingy, standing all along on the higher banks, as well as lower down near the stream. Gradually the dell spread into a smooth, narrow valley.

'The mills, I suppose? I have not been this way before. It makes me half wild to get out again! So if I do any wild things----How lovely the dell is!'

'This is Morton Hollow,' said Rollo, looking at her. 'Can I help you do any wild things?'

'The houses are like him,' said Hazel, turning away, and her colour deepening under the look. 'Such a place!'

She might say 'such a place.' As they went on the character of it became visible more and more. There were dark, high, close factories, whence the hum of machinery issued; poor, mean dwellings, small and large, cl.u.s.tered here and there in the intermediate s.p.a.ces, from which if any sounds came, they were less pleasant than the buzz of machines. Scarce any humanity was abroad; what there was deepened the impression of the dreariness of the place.

'Mr. Rollo,' said Hazel, at last. 'I hope your friend does not live down here?'

'I don't think I have any friend here,' he answered, rather thoughtfully. He had been riding slowly for the last few minutes, looking intently at what he was pa.s.sing. Now, at a sudden turn of the road, where the valley made a sharp angle, they came upon an open carriage standing still. Two ladies were in it. Rollo lifted his hat, but the lady nearest them leaned out and cried 'Stop, stop!'

A gentleman must obey such a behest. Rollo wheeled and stood still.

'Where are you going?' said the lady. Probably Rollo did not hear, for he looked at her calmly without answering.

'Is that the little lady?' said the speaker, stretching her head out a little further to catch better sight of Wych Hazel.

'Aren't you going to introduce me, Dane? I must know her, you know.'

It is quite impossible to describe on paper the flourish with which Rollo's horse responded. Like a voluntary before the piece begins, like the elegant and marvellous sweep of lines with which a scribe surrounds his signature, the bay curvetted and wheeled and danced before the proposed introduction. Very elegant in its way, and to any one not in the secret impossible to divine whether it was the beast or his rider at play. Finally brought up on the other side of Wych Hazel, when Rollo spoke.

'Miss Kennedy, I have the honour to present Mrs. Coles, who wishes to be known to you.'

As Miss Kennedy bent her head, she had one glimpse of a long pale face, surrounded with bandeaux of fair hair, which looked towards her eagerly. Before she had well lifted her head again her horse was moving, and the next instant dashing along at full speed; the bay close alongside. The mills were almost pa.s.sed; a very few minutes brought them quite away from the settlement, and they began to mount to higher ground by a steep hilly path.

'Well!'--said Hazel, looking at her companion.

'Well?' said Rollo, innocently.

She laughed.

'As if I did not know better than that!'

'I wish I did,' said Rollo. 'Now, do you know what you are coming to?'

'No, not a bit. I said I wouldn't come through that place--but when you are in a strange land--and in charge of a--strange!-- cavalier--'

'You are coming to the house of my old nurse in the hills a quarter of a mile further on. I did not understand you to mean that you would not go through _that_ place.'

'Does the man keep another Hollow for himself?' said Wych Hazel. 'I am glad we are going to the hills, if only to help me forget the valley. How can people live so! And oh! how can people let them!'

'This is a concomitant of great civilization. I saw no such place when I was in Norway,' Dane observed.

'And was--what is her name?--living there when you came home?'

'Gyda? Down in the Hollow! O no. I had established her up here in comfort before I left her.'

More and more lovely, wild and lonely, the scenery grew; the road getting deeper among the hills and winding higher and higher with the head of the valley. Then they came to the cottage, the only one in sight; a low house of grey stone, set with its back against the woods which covered the hill. A little cleared and cultivated ground close to it, and in front the road. Rollo dismounted, fastened his horse, and took Wych Hazel down.

'Do you like to come to such places?' he asked as he was tying the brown mare to the fence.

'I know very little about them,' she said. '_This_ looks like a place to come to.'

'It is unique,' said Rollo, as he led the way in.

He opened the door softly. An utterance of joy Wych Hazel heard, before she could see the person from whom it came.

Rollo turned and presented Miss Kennedy then. It was that. He did not present old Gyda to _her_. And then Wych Hazel was established in the best chair, and could look at her leisure, for at first she was not the one attended to.

She saw a little person, with a brown face, much shrivelled; which yet possessed two sparkling keen black eyes. There was not a pretty feature in the old woman's face, for the eyes were not beautiful now, in any sensuous meaning of beauty. And yet, as Wych Hazel looked, presently the word 'lovely' was the word that came up to her. That was of course due only to the pervading expression; which was pure, loving and refined far beyond what the young lady had often seen. She was dressed in a short jacket of dark cloth, braided with bright braid, and fastened at the throat with a large silver brooch. Her petticoat was of the same cloth, drawn up plain over the bosom in an ungraceful manner; her head was covered with a coloured handkerchief, tied so that the ends hung down the back.

After seeing Wych Hazel seated, she for the moment paid her no further attention. Rollo had sat down too; and the old woman came close in front of him and stood looking silently, her head reaching then only a little above his shoulders. She was old, undeniably; however, it was an entirely vigorous and hearty age. Her hand presently came to Rollo's face, pushing back the thick and somewhat curly locks from his temples, and then taking his head in both hands she kissed first one cheek and then the other.

'Don't be partial, Gyda!' said he, smiling at her. And if there was beauty of only one kind in the little black eyes that looked at him, there was much of both kinds in the young man's face. Gyda left him and went over to her other visitor.

And as far as minuteness of examination went, certainly she was not 'partial.' It would have been a bit trying from anybody else--the still, intent, searching look of the old woman upon the young face. But the look was one of such utter sweetness, so thoroughly loving and simple and kind, if it was also keen, that there was after all in it more to soothe nerves than to excite them. Her hand presently came to Wych Hazel's face too, drawing down over the soft cheek and handling the wavy ringlets, and tracing the delicate chin's outline. Slowly and considerately.

'Is she good?' was the first word that Gyda spoke in this connection, as navely as possible. It was rather directed to Rollo. The girl's colour had stirred and mounted under the scrutiny, until interest nearly put shyness out of sight; and the winsome brown eyes now looked at Gyda more wistful than afraid. They followed her question with a swift glance, but then Miss Kennedy hastily took the matter into her own hands.

'Not generally!' she answered, the lips parting and curling in sweet mirthful lines that at least did not speak of very deep wrong-doing. Most gentlemen probably would have uttered a protest, but Rollo was absolutely silent. Gyda looked from one to the other.

'Why are ye no good?' she asked, with her hand on Wych Hazel's shoulder. The expression of the words is very difficult to describe. It was an inquiry, put with the simplest accent of wondering and regretful desire. Hazel looked at her, studying the question rather in the face than in the words.

'I suppose,' she said slowly, 'because I do not like it.'

'You must know, Gyda,' said Rollo, smiling, 'that Miss Hazel's notion of goodness is, giving up her own will to somebody else's.'

'And that's just what it is, Dane Olaf,' said the old woman, looking round at him. 'Ye could not have expressed it better.