“Hush, my dear,” said Lady Archfield; “these gentlemen would not fall out close to us.”
Dr. Woodford was out of sight, having been drawn into controversy with a fellow-clergyman on the limits of toleration. Anne looked anxiously for him, but with provoking coolness Peregrine presently said, “There’s no crowd near, and if you will step out, the fires on the farther hills are to be seen well from the knoll hard by.”
He spoke chiefly to Anne, but even if she had not a kind of shrinking from trusting herself with him in this strange wild scene, she would have been prevented by Mrs. Archfield’s eager cry—
“Oh, I’ll come, let me come! I’m so weary of sitting here. Thank you, Master Oakshott.”
Lady Archfield’s remonstrance was lost as Peregrine helped the little lady out, and there was nothing for it but to follow her, as close as might be, as she hung on her cavalier’s arm chattering, and now and then giving little screams of delight or alarm. Lady Archfield and her daughter each was instantly squired, but Mistress Woodford, a nobody, was left to keep as near them as she could, and gaze at the sparks of light of the beacons in the distance, thinking how changed the morrow would be to her.
Presently a figure approached, and Charles Archfield’s voice said, “Is that you, Anne? Did I hear my wife’s voice?”
“Yes, she is there.”
“And with that imp of evil! I would his own folk had him!” muttered Charles, dashing forward with “How now, madam? you were not to leave the coach!”
She laughed exultingly. “Ha, sir! see what comes of leaving me to better cavaliers, while you run after your fire! I should have seen nothing but for Master Oakshott.”
“Come with me now,” said Charles; “you ought not to be standing here in the dew.”