“I hadn’t any conversation left about tea-caddies,” she informed Deborah, when Larry had extricated her. “And I was quite right about kleptomania being in the family. He’s always talking about ‘collecting’ things. It’s the modern form, you know. I kept a strict look-out when he lunched at Crump, but he didn’t actually make off with anything except a few match-boxes and a handkerchief of Christian’s; though as we haven’t been through the inventory yet, there’s no knowing what may have happened to the drawing-room silver!”
Hounds found in the marshy bottom by Guard Hill, and were over the ditch and half-way across the big meadow before the field had got into its stride. Deb found Callander beside her as she measured her distance for the slippery jump into the thorny arms of the well-laid fence in front.
“Well, was it very bad?” he asked bluntly, when he had engineered her through the prickins, and they were racing side by side over the short grass. “I didn’t see you hanging out any signals of distress, so I kept away. And I rather think myself that you’re enjoying it!”
She laughed, turning a glowing face towards him.
“Swainson took me under his protection,” she said breathlessly, as they climbed the hill. “It’s an honour, though it may not exactly jump to the eye! And the people who cut me are wallowing in that last ditch, which is distinctly cheering. No, it wasn’t so bad, except when Larry marched me out at the head of the procession. And of course I’m enjoying it!” she added, as they stopped at a closed gate. “It’s good for the soul to run up and down the earth in the spring of the year, and come home covered with mud and scratches and full of fresh air. It’s a pity one can’t always do it.”
“You’re stopping in too much,” Callander growled, arguing with a Westmorland method of securing gates that had not as yet come under his notice. “You stick in that pretty little house of yours and mope. You should get out, and stop out. Things are right enough, out of doors. Do you know how the confounded thing works?”
Deb solved the problem for him, and they hurried on, for hounds had vanished round a plantation.
“Life sounds so simple with you Men of the Land!” she said, smiling. “Your recording Angel doesn’t need to use shorthand! And of course you’re right. It’s a true gospel, at least, for us who ‘belong.’”
He glanced at her sideways—that “belong” had been a revelation—but she was watching eagerly for the reappearance of the first smooth head, and was evidently unconscious of her last words. She did indeed “belong,” he thought, looking at the alert figure, the lightly ruffled hair and sparkling face. She was part and parcel of the picture rolling away beneath them—plough and meadow, hedge, river, plantation and snug-laid farm, backed beyond and beyond by mountain and sea. She had been made of the warm, living earth, the crisp wind, the soft, gray-blue sky. Given every tie that binds a human to the soil, she “belonged” to the land by heritage, by affinity and by love.
Nettie and Larrupper were at their heels by the time they reached the top gate of all, which Larry fastened with great deliberation in the face of a panting horde behind, while his companion stamped with impatience and entreated him to come on, for hounds were still in full cry below.