“There is something more in your Pilot than at first appears,” she said. “The Duke was quite right.”
“He is a great man,” I said with enthusiasm; “tender as a woman and with the heart of a hero.”
“You and Bill and The Duke seem to agree about him,” she said, smiling.
Then I told her tales of The Pilot, and of his ways with the men, till her blue eyes grew bright and her beautiful face lost its proud look.
“It is perfectly amazing,” I said, finishing my story, “how these devil-may-care rough fellows respect him, and come to him in all sorts of trouble. I can't understand it, and yet he is just a boy.”
“No, not amazing,” said Lady Charlotte slowly. “I think I understand it. He has a true man's heart; and holds a great purpose in it. I've seen men like that. Not clergymen, I mean, but men with a great purpose.”
Then, after a moment's thought, she added: “But you ought to care for him better. He does not look strong.”
“Strong!” I exclaimed quickly, with a queer feeling of resentment at my heart. “He can do as much riding as any of us.”
“Still,” she replied, “there's something in his face that would make his mother anxious.” In spite of my repudiation of her suggestion, I found myself for the next few minutes thinking of how he would come exhausted and faint from his long rides, and I resolved that he must have a rest and change.
It was one of those early September days, the best of all in the western country, when the light falls less fiercely through a soft haze that seems to fill the air about you, and that grows into purple on the far hilltops. By the time we reached the canyon the sun was riding high and pouring its rays full into all the deep nooks where the shadows mostly lay.
There were no shadows to-day, except such as the trees cast upon the green moss beds and the black rocks. The tops of the tall elms were sere and rusty, but the leaves of the rugged oaks that fringed the canyon's lips shone a rich and glossy brown. All down the sides the poplars and delicate birches, pale yellow, but sometimes flushing into orange and red, stood shimmering in the golden light, while here and there the broad-spreading, feathery sumachs made great splashes of brilliant crimson upon the yellow and gold. Down in the bottom stood the cedars and the balsams, still green. We stood some moments silently gazing into this tangle of interlacing boughs and shimmering leaves, all glowing in yellow light, then Lady Charlotte broke the silence in tones soft and reverent as if she stood in a great cathedral.