After that they were silent; they had left the high road and were driving along winding country lanes, catching glimpses every now and then of golden corn fields still unreaped, or of fields just beginning to be dotted with sheaves, where the men were at work. It was a late harvest that year, but a good one. Presently they passed the tiny little village church which nestled under the brow of the hill, and then came a steep ascent, which made Donovan spring out of the pony chaise. Erica's words had awakened a long train of thought, had carried him back to the far past, and had brought him fresh proof of that wonderful unity of Nature which, though often little dreamed of, binds man to man. He gave the ponies a rest half way up the hill, and, stretching up into the high hedge, gathered a beautiful spray of red-berried briony for Erica.
“Do you remember that grand thought which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Henry V.”
“'There is some soul of goodness in things evil.'
'Tis wonderful to look back in life and trace it out.”
He spoke rather abruptly, but Erica's thoughts had been following much the same bent, and she understood him.
“Trust is easy on such a day as this and in such a place,” she said, looking down to the beautiful valley and up to the green, encircling hills.
Donovan smiled, and touched up the ponies.
It seemed to Erica that they had turned their backs on bigotry, and annoyance, and care of every description, and were driving right into a land of rest. Presently they turned in at some iron gates, and drove down a long approach, bordered with fir trees. At the end of this stood the manor, a solid, comfortable, well-built country house, its rather plain exterior veiled with ivy and creepers. Donovan led her into the hall, where stately old high-backed chairs and a suit or two of old armor were intermixed with modern appliances, fishing tackle, a lawn-tennis box, and a sprinkling of toys, which indicated that there were children in the house.
This fact was speedily indicated in another way, for there came a rush and a scamper overhead, and a boy of five or six years old ran down the broad oak staircase.
“Oh, father! May I ride round to the stables on Speedwell?” he cried, in a desperate hurry to attract his father's attention away from the servant and the portmanteau; then, catching sight of Erica, he checked himself, and held out his hand with a sort of shy courtesy. He was exactly what Donovan must have been as a child, as far as looks went.
“To the stables, Ralph?” replied his father, looking round. “Yes, if you like. Put on your hat though. Where's your mother?”