“You’re a fool, John; an’ I’m a greater. A good guinea wasted.”
Nearing home, they turned off the Moor, passed the cottage of Aggett’s mother, and proceeded along the hill. Then it was that John, desiring to shift the game-bag from his girdle to his shoulder, hung back some forty paces. His fingers were cold and the buckle was stiff; his master therefore gained upon him and, passing the corner of a plantation, went out of sight. Mending his pace to overtake the other, John heard hidden voices, the hour then being dusk; and, a moment later, coming round the corner of the woodlands, he saw Timothy Chave in conversation with a woman. She was clad in scarlet flannel even to the snug hood round her ears, and her figure shone brightly through the gloaming.
He heard words half laughing, half annoyed, in the girl’s uplifted voice.
“Who be glazin’ at then? Make way, caan’t ’e? Do ’e think I be a ghost out the wood?”
“Not a bit of it! A good fairy, more likely. And forgive me; I wanted so much to hear you speak.”
“You’m a very impident chap then, for all your gert gashly gun awver your shoulder!”
The woman passed Timothy light footed, then, turning quickly down a lane, she disappeared, just as John joined his master. The young man was in an extremity of excitement.
“Good God! Did you see her—that red girl? An’ after what the hag said! Her eyes, man! Eyes like stars in the dark and a voice like the wood doves! I came straight upon her peeping out of her red hood, like the queen of pixies! Who is she, John? Who’s her father? And where has she vanished to? Speak if you know. ’Tis a marvellous miracle of a thing that I should meet her in this way. I could swear I was dreaming; yet I’m as much awake as she was alive. Who in the name of wonder is she? Speak if you know.”
“She’m a maiden by the name of Sarah Belworthy, darter o’ Smith Belworthy; an’ she’m tokened to me,” said Aggett, stolidly.