“No—I will stay with you.”
The struggle between man and brute lasted a minute or two longer, at the end of which, all danger being over, they were speeding on rapidly to Kingcombe Holm. Agatha sat very thoughtful.
“I fear,” she said—when he tried to draw her out of her contemplative mood, showing her the wild furzy slopes and the fir-trees, almost the only trees that grow in this region—standing in black clumps on the hill-tops, like sentinel-ghosts of the old Romans, who used to encamp there—“I fear you have made me as much in awe of you as you have the pony.”
He smiled, and was quoting something about “love casting out fear,” when he suddenly corrected himself, and grew silent. In that silence they swept on to the gates of Kingcombe Holm.
It was a place—more like an ancient manorial farm than a gentleman's residence—nestled snugly in one of those fairy valleys which are found here and there among the bleak wastes of Dorsetshire coast scenery—the richer for the barrenness of all around. Before and behind the house rose sudden acclivities, thick with autumn-tinted trees. On another side was a smooth, curving, wavy hill, bare in outline, with white dots of grazing sheep floating about upon its green. The Holm, with its garden and park, lay on a narrow plain of verdurous beauty, at the bottom of the valley. Nothing was visible beyond it, save a long, bare, terraced range of hill, and the sky above all. There was no other habitation in sight, except a tiny church, planted on one acclivity, and two or three labourers' cottages, in the doors of which a few rolypoly, open-eyed children stood, poking their fingers in their mouths, and staring intensely at Agatha.
“Oh, what a delicious nest,” she cried—overcome with excitement at her first view of Kingcombe Holm, where, however, there was not a creature visible but the great dog, that barked a furious welcome from the courtyard, and the peacock, that strutted to and fro before the blank windows, sweeping his draggled tail. “Are they at home, I wonder? Will they all be waiting for us?”
“In the drawing-room, most likely. It is my father's way. He receives there all strangers—new-comers, I mean. We shall see nobody till then.”
“Don't be too sure of that, brother Nathanael,” said a quick, lively voice. “So, ho! Dunce, hold still, do'ee! You used to be as precise as the Squire himself, bless his heart! Now then, N. L. Jump down!”
The speaker of all this had come flying out of the hall-door—a vision of flounces, gaiety, and heartiness, had given the pony a few pats, or rather slaps, en passant, and now stood balancing herself on one of the spokes of the wheel, and leaning over into the carriage.