“Ay, sir,” Hugh answered, and sauntered away down the walk. He kept his chin up and his mouth was sulky, but in his boy’s heart every fibre of awakening manhood was quivering at this last insult. Go play! when every moment was big with events, when war was bursting on the land, and there was work for every man to do, he was bidden to content himself with a ball!
He went slowly down the steps at the south end of the terrace and bearing off from the stables struck through the long grass toward the orchard. He walked with eyes on the ground, too deeply buried in his own resentful thoughts to heed whither he was going, but he realized when he entered the orchard, for the sunlight that had been all about him since he quitted the terrace went out; he saw the earth was no longer grassy but bald and brown, and he trod on a hard green apple that rolled under his foot.
A second small apple suddenly plumped to the ground before him, and a girl’s voice called, “Hugh, Hugh.”
The boy looked up. Just above his head, through the branches of the great apple tree, he saw the face of Lois Campion, the orphan niece of Nathaniel Oldesworth’s wife. “Are you hunting for snails?” she asked, while her dark eyes laughed. “Prithee, give over now, like a good lad, and help me hence. I have sat here half the morning for lack of an arm to aid me.”
She had slipped down the branches to the fork of the tree so that she could rest her hands on Hugh’s shoulders, and as they came thus face to face her tone changed: “Why, Hugh, what has gone wrong?”
“Nothing,” he answered shortly, swinging her down to the ground.
“You look as though you had eaten a very sour apple,” said Lois. “Try these. There are sweet tastes in them, if you chew long enough.” She had seated herself at the foot of the tree with her head resting against the gnarled gray trunk.
“It’s not apples I want,” Hugh replied gruffly, and then the troubled look in the girl’s eyes made him sit down beside her with a thought of saying something to make amends for his surliness; only words did not come easily, for his mind could run on nothing but his own discontent.
“I think I know,” Lois spoke gently and put her hand on his arm. “’Tis because of Cousin Peregrine.”
Hugh shook off her hand and dropped down full length on the ground with his forehead pressing upon his arms; he felt it would be the crowning humiliation of the morning if the girl should see the look on his face at the mere mention of his trouble.