“Now that’s a delightfully quaint and characteristic simile,” laughed the girl. “I must really store it in mind for future use.”
“Is it worth it? But aren’t we getting a bit off the road? What is this ‘favour’?”
“I want you to take me for a walk, if you have nothing better to do—or think about,” she added mischievously.
“If I were to say ‘How could I have?’ you would tax me with making compliments again, I suppose. But wouldn’t you rather ride?”
“No. Sandy’s a bit lame, and Bles is away down the kloof, and by the time he was got up I should have lost all inclination to do either. And there’s no other horse on the place that’ll stand a skirt. We’ll take the path by Goba’s vee-kraal to Bromvogel Nek. There’s a lovely view from there, and this is just the day to sit and enjoy it.”
“When will you be ready?”
“I’m ready now if you are. Are you? Well then, come along.”
Hazel chatted briskly as they took their way along the winding and somewhat stony bush-path, but her companion said little. He preferred to hear her talk. There was that in the light-hearted gaiety of this bright, sweet-natured child that appealed powerfully to the strong, lonely, self-contained man, that almost made him sigh for his past youth. He liked to hear her talk, and simply talk. That in itself was a pleasure to him. At the same time he was wondering with what object she had persuaded him to accompany her; the last thing in the world that would have occurred to Harley Greenoak being that it was simply for the pleasure of his own company. He supposed she wanted to talk about Dick Selmes, to “draw” him perhaps, as to his charge’s general character. Well, if that were so, Dick should have a good one. And, as though to fit in with the idea, at that moment, from the further side of the great crater-like hollow that constituted the bulk of Hesketh’s farm, there rolled forth a distant and double report. Both stopped to gaze in the direction of the sound.
“Wonder if Dick’s getting any luck,” said Greenoak. “It’s astonishing how his keenness in that direction has thawed off of late,” he added slily.
“Yes, it has,” came the ready answer. “He’s getting quite lazy. In fact, I sent him out to hunt this morning, told him if he didn’t bring back a bush-buck ram I shouldn’t speak to him until he did. He’s much too young to be hanging about the house all day.”