The youth hesitated, looked at me, at the stag, and then rather wistfully at his mother.
“We are waiting,” she said, with an impatient wave of her whip, and a glance at me that brought a flash of red to my cheeks. I, in my innocence, thought that she was displeased with the torn state of my poor dress.
The youth mounted, and the hunt dispersed, breaking up into groups and pairs, and scattering a red gleam through the woods.
CHAPTER XXXI.
MY UNEXPECTED ESCORT.
I was left alone, I and the poor trembling, exhausted stag, who lay partly upon his knees, gazing at me through his filmy and half shut eyes.
I looked around for Jupiter, but he was not to be seen—no living thing but the worried stag and myself in all that dim solitude.
A sense of exhaustion and of loneliness fell upon me. My heart grew mournful, and the poor stag with his stiffened limbs and the foam dried on his lips, filled me with compassion. I went down to the brook, brought up water in my hands, and bathed his mouth with it. When this was done, the animal struggled to his feet and staggered away down toward the water, leaving me alone. I felt this total desertion keenly, and burying my face in my lap, began to cry like the child I was.
I sat full ten minutes sobbing forth the desolation of my heart, when the quick tramp of a horse made me look up. I thought it must be Jupiter returning to his duty, but instead of him I saw the young huntsman riding gently through the trees, and now close by me.
I started up, ashamed of my tears, and looked resolutely another way, hoping to escape his notice, but he sprang off his horse and was at my side before I could dash the drops from my burning cheek.
“So you have been crying, poor child?” he said, with a sort of patronizing manliness that would have amused an older person. “No wonder, we were a set of savages to leave you here alone, and with no means of getting home.”