It was all vain my remonstrating. She vowed that by crossing
the stepping-stones close by she could, by a short cut, reach the
house, and return with my pencils and block-book in a quarter of
an hour. Away then, with many a jump and fling, scampered
Milly's queer white stockings and navvy boots across the irregular
and precarious stepping-stones, over which I dared not follow
her; so I was fain to return to the stone so 'pure and flat,' on
which I sat, enjoying the grand sylvan solitude, the dark background
and the grey bridge mid-way, so tall and slim, across
whose ruins a sunbeam glimmered, and the gigantic forest trees
that slumbered round, opening here and there in dusky vistas, and breaking in front into detached and solemn groups. It was the setting of a dream of romance.
It would have been the very spot in which to read a volume of
German folk-lore, and the darkening colonnades and silent
nooks of the forest seemed already haunted with the voices and
shadows of those charming elves and goblins.
As I sat here enjoying the solitude and my fancies among the
low branches of the wood, at my right I heard a crashing, and
saw a squat broad figure in a stained and tattered military coat, and loose short trousers, one limb of which flapped about a wooden leg. He was forcing himself through. His face was rugged and wrinkled, and tanned to the tint of old oak; his eyes black, beadlike, and fierce, and a shock of sooty hair escaped from under his battered wide-awake nearly to his shoulders. This forbidding-looking person came stumping and jerking along toward me, whisking his stick now and then viciously in the air, and giving his fell of hair a short shake, like a wild bull preparing to attack.
I stood up involuntarily with a sense of fear and surprise, almost fancying I saw in that wooden-legged old soldier, the forest demon who haunted Der Freischütz.
So he approached shouting—
'Hollo! you—how came you here? Dost 'eer?'
And he drew near panting, and sometimes tugging angrily in
his haste at his wooden leg, which sunk now and then deeper
than was convenient in the sod. This exertion helped to anger
him, and when he halted before me, his dark face smirched with
smoke and dust, and the nostrils of his flat drooping nose
expanded and quivered as he panted, like the gills of a fish; an
angrier or uglier face it would not be easy to fancy.
'Ye'll all come when ye like, will ye? and do nout but what
pleases yourselves, won't you? And who'rt thou? Dost 'eer—who
are ye, I say; and what the deil seek ye in the woods
here? Come, bestir thee!'
If his wide mouth and great tobacco-stained teeth, his scowl, and loud discordant tones were intimidating, they were also extremely irritating. The moment my spirit was roused, my courage came.
'I am Miss Ruthyn of Knowl, and Mr. Silas Ruthyn, your
master, is my uncle.'
'Hoo!' he exclaimed more gently, 'an' if Silas be thy uncle
thou'lt be come to live wi' him, and thou'rt she as come overnight—eh?'
I made no answer, but I believe I looked both angrily and
disdainfully.
'And what make ye alone here? and how was I to know't, an' Milly not wi' ye, nor no one? But Maud or no Maud, I wouldn't let the Dooke hisself set foot inside the palin' without Silas said let him. And you may tell Silas them's the words o' Dickon Hawkes, and I'll stick to'm—and what's more I'll tell him myself—I will; I'll tell him there be no use o' my striving and straining hee, day an' night and night and day, watchin' again poachers, and thieves, and gipsies, and they robbing lads, if rules won't be kep, and folk do jist as they pleases. Dang it, lass, thou'rt in luck I didn't heave a brick at thee when I saw thee first.'
'I'll complain of you to my uncle,' I replied.
'So do, and and 'appen thou'lt find thyself in the wrong box, lass; thou canst na' say I set the dogs arter thee, nor cau'd thee so much as a wry name, nor heave a stone at thee—did I? Well? and where's the complaint then?'
I simply answered, rather fiercely,
'Be good enough to leave me.'
'Well, I make no objections, mind. I'm takin' thy word—thou'rt
Maud Ruthyn—'appen thou be'st and 'appen thou baint. I'm not aweer on't, but I takes thy word, and all I want to know's just this, did Meg open the gate to thee?'
I made him no answer, and to my great relief I saw Milly
striding and skipping across the unequal stepping-stones.