Aunt Julia's hair was not so brown now, and of the eight daughters five were prosperously married. Horatia knew that none of them considered herself to have had a childhood other than happy. Perhaps it was a good preparation for the state of matrimony, to have your "will broken" early in life. If so, how far was she herself from possessing that desired qualification!
Horatia smiled at the thought as she walked along. Since the death of the mother whom she could not remember, and the extinction of the hope of a son (for Mr. Grenville had a feeling against second marriages), she had been to her father almost everything that a son could have been—with the added advantage that she was never obliged to leave him. Latin and Greek and ancient history had been laid open to her as to a boy; she was able to take an interest in the Rector's antiquarian pursuits, and could have abstracted passages from the Fathers for him if he had wanted them. All this Mr. Grenville had taught her himself, turning a deaf ear to family representations on the necessity of a governess, the use of the globes, and deportment. Music and Italian masters, however, visited the Rectory from time to time, imparting knowledge when their pupil was in the mood to receive it, but it was to the old émigré priest settled at East Hendred, whom she loved, that she owed her remarkably good knowledge and pronunciation of French, and her interest in the history of his native land. For after all Horatia was not a typical classical scholar; her acquaintance with Greek and Latin authors was by no means extensive, and need not so much have alarmed her neighbours.
(2)
Decidedly it would, after all, soon be autumn in earnest. Only five days ago, when she was in the garden among the flowers, Horatia had scouted the thought, but there was less of summer here. Farmer Wilson's beeches were actually beginning to turn. There was a tiny trail of leaves along the side of Narrow Lane, as she could see by glancing down it. The high road, less overshadowed, was clearer of these evidences of mortality. How blue was the line of the Downs!
A horseman overtook her, riding fast, and raising his hat as he passed, but without looking at her. It was no one that she knew, yet, a good rider herself, Horatia instinctively remarked his ease and grace, his perfect seat. He was taking the same road as she, but long before she got to the turn he had disappeared round it; and indeed she had forgotten him even sooner, for Rover the spaniel suddenly went delirious over a hedgehog which he just then discovered, and which he had to be coerced into leaving behind. Horatia was still praising and scolding her dog when she got to the turn—and when the sound of loud screaming ahead caused her to hasten her steps.
By the side of the road, a little way down, was a group composed of the gentleman who had passed her, his horse, and a small child in a pinafore. From this infant, seated upon the border of grass, proceeded the loud wails which Horatia had heard; the rider, one buckskinned knee upon the ground, was stooping over it and addressing it in tones that, as Horatia came nearer, sounded alternately anxious and coaxing.
"It is Tommy Wilson," thought Miss Grenville aghast. "He is always playing in the road, and now he's been ridden over.... But it can't be serious, or he would not be able to yell like that." Nevertheless she hastened still more. The gentleman, absorbed in his blandishments, did not hear her.
"Leetle boy," she heard him say—"leetle boy, you are not hurt, not the least in the world. You are frightened, soit, but you are not hurt. See, here is a crown"—the yells ceased for a moment—"now rise and go to your home. Quoi! you cannot stand upon your feet?" For he had lifted the infant to a standing posture, which it instantly abandoned, falling this time prone upon the ground, and emitting now perfect shrieks of rage or terror.
"Dieu! a-t-il des poumons!" exclaimed the young man despairingly to himself. He made a gesture and rose; at the same instant heard Horatia's step and, turning round, snatched off his hat. His mien implored the succour which she would have rendered in any case.
"Is the child really hurt, Sir?" she asked. As well pretend that she took him for an Englishman, since he spoke the tongue so readily!