"Really, Minnie," said her uncle, "you have chosen a strange subject; pray, drop it. How could you have become acquainted with that man? This comes of your running about alone—it must be seen to, and quickly: Mrs. Gillett!" The woman stepped forward at his call; and now she blessed her forethought and policy in having ignored Tremenhere's identity!
"Mrs. Gillett," said her master, while the other two walked on in silence, "what do you know about this? You were with Miss Dalzell: where did you find her, and how?" The woman was quite calm under this criminal examination—she felt so sure of her innocence.
"I know nothing of it, master," she said decidedly: "I met Miss Dalzell, dear child, in the holly field; just as I stepped over the stile, my patten came undone; I was busy settling it; I saw Mr. Skaife and another gentleman, but I'm sure I couldn't swear to him; I never looked in his face—it isn't my custom so to do to them above me, 'specially gentlemen!" and she smoothed her virginal-looking apron, tied over her modest heart with wide tape strings.
Sylvia and Dorcas came out to meet the approaching group. "Where was the child?" demanded the former at the top of her voice. Juvenal looked, and was, much excited. "Mrs. Gillett found her," he replied, "with an improper—a most improper—character!"
"What a dreadful thing!" screamed Sylvia; "who was it?"
Dorcas was by the girl's side, calmly speaking, and inquiring the cause of her protracted stay, which had alarmed them. She knew, however, that Minnie was not in any wilful harm, yet her affection made her fearful of ill. We will leave them to their explanations, to which Mr. Burton was not a witness, having taken his leave hastily of all. Poor Minnie had a sad trial, and a severe lesson and lecture, the consequences of her warm heart and candour—two things, bad guides in this world of brambles; with these her garments would be, haplessly, frequently rent and disfigured.
We will ask our readers to step into the holly field with us, to where we left Skaife and Miles Tremenhere, both of them walking back in deep thought.
CHAPTER V.
From some ambiguous words dropped by Miles in the cottage, and during Minnie's stay with them, it will be remembered that Skaife was impressed with the idea that Tremenhere had, as a boy probably, loved Mary Burns, who had been a protegée of his mother's at the manor-house; and the curate also thought that the other was aware of her sad fate. For some time the silence was unbroken, then Miles, suddenly turning towards his companion, said, like one awakening from a dream, "Pardon me, Mr. Skaife, but I am an uncouth man, much alone, little in humanized society; my chief companions are stocks and stones, and the native inhabitants of wild nature; forgive me again, I had forgotten to thank you, which I do most sincerely, for your kindness to poor Mary Burns, and also to myself personally; few, indeed, would have had the courage to notice, and be thus publicly seen with one at so low a discount as I am in this neighbourhood."