“People who live in glass houses should not throw stones,” shouted Geoffrey.
“There!” exclaimed Alice, stopping with one foot on the stairs, “I knew it! I told you he would have the last word. No one can silence him but Reginald, and, to quote Geoffrey’s own language, he shuts him up beautifully.”
Five o’clock found the walking party reclining in various luxurious attitudes on the top of Beecher’s Hill—they had evidently but recently arrived. Alice and Geoffrey had scooped out a comfortable nest in the side of a haycock, without loss of time, and were resting after their joint labours.
Under an adjoining “wind” were the remainder of the party. Helen, much out of breath, was fanning herself with feverish energy; Mark presented a grotesque appearance, with loosened necktie, his head covered by a large straw hat, under which he had inserted an enormous cabbage-leaf, which drooped gracefully over his eyes. Prone at his feet lay Reginald, his hands clasped behind his head, his hat tilted far over his forehead—he looked the very embodiment of lazy comfort. Alice turned her attention for some time to the prospect that lay beneath her eyes—a truly English scene. Their own park was immediately below; beyond that, deeply embedded in trees, and merely discovering itself by the smoke from its cottages, a pretty little hamlet tried to conceal itself; then came golden corn-fields, the spire of a Norman church, the steeple at Manister; a long low range of purple hills framed the horizon. It was a lovely summer’s evening, the air was so clear one could see for miles; it was so still, that various curious insects in the grass and the booming of homeward-bound bees alone broke the silence.
Something tickling her neck made Alice abruptly turn her head; it was Geoffrey, of course, with a long piece of spear-grass, with which he had been diligently chasing hay-spiders. “Alice,” he whispered, “let us go over quietly and topple the whole of the haycock over them, it will be no end of fun. I don’t know which will be the most furious, Reginald or Helen. Come along,” holding out his hand encouragingly; “it is an innocent pastime for an idle moment.”
“No, no, Geoffrey; you had better not, mind——”
“Well, will you promise to engage them in lively conversation whilst I go behind and loosen the whole concern? When I cough I advise you to move.”
“I’ll have nothing to say to it. Do you think I am a school-girl? I’m too old for such nonsense!” cried Alice irritably.
“I think you are in one of your tempers, that’s what I think,” returned her cousin in a tone of candid conviction.
“If you think so you are very much mistaken. You may dismiss that notion from your mind.”