When the "singing" "let out," Tom availed himself of the first moment of confusion, while Rachel stood apart, to ask permission to go home with her, in the well-worn formula which was the only polite and proper word to use for the purpose; for it is strange how rigidly certain exact forms were adhered to among people where intercourse was for the most part familiar and unconventional.
"May I see you safe home?" he asked, as he had often asked before, but never before with trepidation.
"No," said Rachel, with an evident effort, and without looking at Tom's face.
Such an answer is technically known as "the sack" and "the mitten," though it would take a more inventive antiquary than I to tell how it got these epithets. But it was one of the points on which the rural etiquette of that day was rigorous and inflexible, that such a refusal closed the conversation and annihilated the beau without allowing him to demand any explanations or to make any further advances at the time. Tom was not of the sort easily snuffed out. He had to ride past Rachel's house, and it would be an addition to his disappointment that everybody would see his discomfiture. So he answered.
"Well, I'll lead up your horse for you anyhow," and he went out before she could make up her mind to refuse him, and brought the sorrel filly alongside a tree-stump left standing in front of the school-house for a horse-block. The rest had by this time either mounted and gone, or were walking away afoot. Rachel felt a secret admiration for his audacity as she sprang into her saddle, while Tom held her bridle and adjusted the stirrup to her foot.
"What have I done, Rachel?"
"You know, well enough." Her voice was low and tremulous. She had dismissed other favorites, but never before had she found in herself so much reluctance.
"Do you mean my gambling with Dave Sovine?" said Tom, driving, as usual, point-blank at the very center of things.
"Yes."
"Who told you?" He still held on to her bridle-rein with his left hand,—somewhat as a highwayman does in romances.