Directly supper was over Don rose to go. Not having been in bed on the previous night, and having been hard at work all day, he was so sleepy that he could hardly keep his eyes open. Sophy would have besought him to lie down on the settle in the living-room and have his sleep out there, but she was so concerned that her mother should not be alone another night that she would not even suggest his remaining at Ripple.
“Where are you two going to sleep to-night?” he asked, just as he was going to mount his horse.
“In one of the upstairs rooms. We have had the bed out in the sun all day,” said Sophy, and there was in her mind a swift wonder at his concern.
“That is right. Look here, sis, if there is a bolt to the stairs door, mind you shoot it when you go upstairs, and don’t come down in the night whatever you may hear. I’m not afraid that anyone would harm either of you—if you keep out of the way, that is. But I should not be surprised if someone tried a bit of burgling on here, for there are plenty of people silly enough to think that old Wrack was a miser, and not so bed-rock poor as he looked.”
“We won’t come down, I promise you,” said Sophy. Then she added, with a merry laugh: “Not even if another surprise party happens along this way, and dances all night to the strains of a cornet and flute. Oh, I say, wouldn’t it be weird!”
“I should think it would,” replied Don, and bothered though he was by the lonely condition of the two, he could not forbear a chuckle of amusement at the fancy picture his sister had called up. “Mose Paget is the only man that can play the cornet in the township that I know of, and he is going to help Mrs. Buckle with Sam to-night.”
It was very weird and still at Ripple when Don had ridden away. The darkness dropped over the forest like a pall. It was cloudy to-night, and the young moon had no chance at all against the billowy masses of cloud that were piled along the horizon. It would rain before morning, so Sophy said. If the weather broke it might even be dull and stormy for a week or more, and she sighed, because she loved fine weather so much the best. Pam sighed too, and her face was a little white and drawn when she dropped the heavy bar of ironwood into the socket at the side of the door. Sophy had told her that the nearest house was three miles away, and she was trying to picture the situation. Brought up in London, taught from her childhood to understand that there were bristling dangers all around her, the solitude of Ripple seemed to put her almost outside the world. She argued that if there were no people there could be no danger, and then was surprised because she was scared at the solitude.
The dog had attached itself to her with slavish devotion. The creature accorded Sophy a bare tolerance, but there was perfect worship in the gaze it turned on Pam, and she was tremendously flattered by its preference. It even wanted to come up to bed with her that night when, soon after Don had gone, they betook themselves to the upstairs room where they intended to sleep. They humoured the animal, feeling that it would really be a comfort to have it upstairs with them, and they did not forget to bolt the door at the bottom of the stairs when they shut it.
They were so tired that the night passed for both of them in dreamless slumber, and they did not rouse until the dog woke them by whining to be let out. It was Pam who, with a dressing-gown round her, came down to open the house door that the creature might go free. She stood on the doorstep for a moment sniffing the freshness and drinking in the beauty of the morning. There was a chill in the air which made her shiver, for the dressing-gown was thin and the sun was not up yet. It was the magical beauty of the forest that was drawing her, the call of the wild that was in her blood.
“I love it, I love it, I would not go back to England if I could!” she whispered as she turned into the house again to go upstairs and dress. Then it suddenly occurred to her to wonder what would happen if her grandfather failed to return. “It is silly even to think of such a thing. Of course he will come back!” she murmured as she went upstairs; but she could not repress a little shiver, for the possibility would haunt her despite her efforts to banish it.