Its significance sent a strange thrill through Robin's heart as he bent down to kiss the pale face.
[CHAPTER XI]
FOREST LODGE
THERE was great excitement in the small hamlet near Oaklands when one day some passers-by observed that bricks and mortar lay in heaps close beside Jonathan's cottage, and that workmen had already begun building just behind it.
"The old man's home was going to be pulled down," they said. "It was too bad, after he had lived in it so many years."
Jonathan smiled at the gossip, and patted the children's heads as they stopped to stare or climbed upon the railings; yet no amount of questioning could make him give the information so eagerly sought.
"Those who live longest will see the most," was his conclusive answer; and nothing further could be got out of him, though everybody tried by turns.
Day by day the walls of the dwelling-house grew higher and higher, until it was ready for its roof and chimneys. Not much could be seen of it from the road, as it was partially hidden by Jonathan's cottage, and faced the forest trees he loved to muse among. The setting sun would glide over their waving tops and fill the rooms with a happy evening glow, and the wood-pigeons would coo their dreamy song close by, all the summer day.
So thought the old man, for it was spring-time again before the last workman departed. But though the new house stood ready for use, who was to occupy it still remained a secret. Neither had any orders been given to pull down the old lodge,—that was the strangest part of all, people thought.
And Robin was as much in the dark as anyone else, though every evening, he recounted in his own home what was going on at Oaklands.