'What I say. Your fair lady is in trouble, summoned to the old thorn tree half-way up the hill by her sister, who is in dire need. I have my suspicions that the paper she showed me is not wrote by her by whom it is pretended. Speed away, honest Jack, and see what you will see.'
But Jack stood still; he was always slow of perception, and never took up any idea hastily. 'She may not want me,' he thought; 'she may be angry, as she was last Sunday, but—' As Chatterton gave him another sharp slap on his back, as a parting encouragement to set off, he said aloud,—
'Well, I may as well walk that way as any other; it's no odds to me.'
Chatterton then left him. He was on his way to his good friend Mr Clayfield's, and was to meet there several of the friends who had been kind to him and stood by him in the distress of Easter eve.
Jack Henderson pulled himself together and began his walk, crossed the ferry, and went on in the direction which Chatterton had pointed out, greatly wondering what Betty could possibly have to say to Bryda which she could not have put down on paper.
'Perhaps that brute has put an execution in the farm, turning out the old man into the road, like enough. Well, I may as well follow, for it's a lonely road for her, and there's lots of ill-looking fellows lurking about birds nesting and ratting on Sundays.' Then Jack heaved a deep sigh as he said, 'P'r'aps she won't mind my taking care of her for once, though a week ago she just treated me as if I was naught to her.' And as Jack recalled the scene on the summit of St Vincent's Rocks he felt a pain at his heart, which, as he thought, time would never cure.
Meantime Bryda pressed bravely on, though the storms of hail often beat on her face, and then the cloud breaking, great fields of deepest blue sky appeared in the rifts, and now and again the sun shone out brightly on the young leaves and primrose banks, as if to reassure them that the present cold was but an afterthought of winter, and that spring and May would soon reign again.
Bryda's way led along a lonely road. There were no villages, only here and there a shepherd's hut, and not a house to be seen. A few ragged boys foraging in the hedges for birds' nests, or paddling in a little wayside stream for tadpoles, were the only people she saw. The ascent was long and steep, but Bryda stepped quickly on, and at last the thorn tree, with its rugged, gnarled trunk, came in sight.
Here the road branched off in two directions; that to the left led across the side of the hill towards Bath, the other down to the village of Bower Ashton, and following straight on led to Dundry, beyond which was Bishop's Farm.
When Bryda reached the old crooked thorn, which was but scantily covered with blossoms in its old age, she looked in vain for Betty.