Yet it was only for a moment.
"I had better ride, and lead the mare," I heard the squire say in a low, concerned voice. "She won't be fit to mount again, or even to drive the cart."
I lifted my head.
"Oh, indeed, Squire Broderick, I'm not in the least hurt," said I, as cheerfully as I could, for I was grateful for those kindly tones. "I can ride Marigold home perfectly well."
"No, my dear, that you won't," said mother, all her decision returning now that her alarm was over. "I've had quite enough of this fright for one day."
Joyce returned from the farm with a glass of water, and Harrod by her side with some brandy that he had begged at the doctor's house hard by. I drank the water but I refused the brandy, and scoffed at the notion of the doctor coming out in person. Then I got into the cart. I insisted on driving, and as the horse was the quiet old black Dobbin, mother consented. Joyce sat behind, and Harrod rode after upon Marigold.
The squire showed signs of joining our caravan at first; but as I turned round and assured him once more that I was perfectly well, and begged him to continue his road, he was almost obliged to turn his horse back again in the direction in which he had been going when he overtook us. But he still looked so very much concerned that I was forced to laugh at him. I think it was the only time I laughed that day.
The drive home was soothing enough across those miles of serene pasture-land whose marge the sea was always kissing, and where the sheep cropped, in sleepy passiveness, beneath faint rosy clouds that lay motionless upon the soft blue; the vast dreamy pastures, browning with autumn tints of many planes of autumn grasses that changed as they swayed in the lazy breeze, were hemmed by a winding strip of beach, pink or blue, according as the sun was behind or above one, and to-night bordered beyond it by a stretch of golden sand, over which rows upon rows of little waves rippled with the incoming tide. We drove along the margin of the beach; the yellow sea-poppies bloomed amid their pale, blue-green leaves upon every mound of shingle, and not even the distant church-spires and masts of ships, that told of man's presence, could disturb the breathless placidity that no memory of storm or strife seemed to awaken into a throb of life.
But suddenly upon the vast line of wide horizon, where the sea melted into the sky with a little hovering streak of haze, a throb of light stirred; at first it was but a spot of gold upon the bosom of the distance, but it was a spot that grew larger, though with a soft and rayless radiance unlike the dazzle of the sun-setting; then out of the breast of it was made a red ball that sent a path of gilded crimson down the sea, and tipped the crest of every little wave that crept towards us with a crown of opalescent light; it was the sun's last kiss welcoming the moon as she rose out of the sea.