The rest were called for by Mr. Rivers’s carriage and brake. Mrs. Charles Wilmot and her little girl were the only additions to the party, and Meta, putting Blanche into the carriage to keep company with her contemporary, went herself in the brake. What a brilliant little fairy she was, in her pink summer robes, fluttering like a butterfly, and with the same apparent felicity in basking in joy, all gaiety, glee, and light-heartedness in making others happy. On they went, through honeysuckled lanes, catching glimpses of sunny fields of corn falling before the reaper, and happy knots of harvest folks dining beneath the shelter of their sheaves, with the sturdy old green umbrella sheltering them from the sun.
Snatches of song, peals of laughter, merry nonsense, passed from one to the other; Norman, roused into blitheness, found wit, the young ladies found laughter, and Richard’s eyes and mouth looked very pretty, as they smiled their quiet diversion.
At last, his face drawn all into one silent laugh, he directed the eyes of the rest to a high green mound, rising immediately before them, where stood two little figures, one with a spy-glass, intently gazing the opposite way.
At the same time came the halt, and Norman, bounding out, sprang lightly and nimbly up the side of the mound, and, while the spy-glass was yet pointed full at Wales, had hold of a pair of stout legs, and with the words, “Keep a good lockout!” had tumbled Mr. May headforemost down the grassy slope, with Mary rolling after.
Harry’s first outcry was for his precious glass—his second was, not at his fall, but that they should have come from the east, when, by the compass, Stoneborough was north-north-west. And then the boys took to tumbling over one another, while Meta frolicked joyously, with Nipen after her, up and down the mounds, chased by Mary and Blanche, who were wild with glee.
By-and-by she joined Ethel, and Norman was summoned to help them to trace out the old lines of encampment, ditch, rampart, and gates—happy work on those slopes of fresh turf, embroidered with every minute blossom of the moor—thyme, birdsfoot, eyebright, and dwarf purple thistle, buzzed and hummed over by busy, black-tailed, yellow-banded dumbledores, the breezy wind blowing softly in their faces, and the expanse of country—wooded hill, verdant pasture, amber harvest-field, winding river, smoke-canopied town, and brown moor, melting grayly away to the mountain heads.
Now in sun, now in shade, the bright young antiquaries surveyed the old banks, and talked wisely of vallum and fossa, of legion and cohort, of Agricola and Suetonius, and discussed the delightful probability, that this might have been raised in the war with Caractacus, whence, argued Ethel, since Caractacus was certainly Arviragus, it must have been the very spot where Imogen met Posthumus again. Was not yonder the very high-road to Milford Haven, and thus must not “fair Fidele’s grassy tomb” be in the immediate neighbourhood?
Then followed the suggestion that the mound in the middle was a good deal like an ancient tomb, where, as Blanche interposed with some of the lore lately caught from Ethel’s studies, “they used to bury their tears in wheelbarrows,” while Norman observed it was the more probable, as fair Fidele never was buried at all.
The idea of a search enchanted the young ladies. “It was the right sort of vehicle, evidently,” said Norman, looking at Harry, who had been particularly earnest in recommending that it should be explored; and Meta declared that if they could but find the least trace, her papa would be delighted to go regularly to work, and reveal all the treasures.
Richard seemed a little afraid of the responsibility of treasure-trove, but he was overruled by a chorus of eager voices, and dispossessed of the trowel, which he had brought to dig up some down-gentians for the garden. While Norman set to work as pioneer, some skipped about in wild ecstasy, and Ethel knelt down to peer into the hole.