"Very lucky," replied Ned, feeling aggrieved. He had gone on pulling against that miscounted tide till he positively could no more, and even now the pain of his ill-mended arm made him feel almost sick. He had been forced to give in, and though Ted had been perfectly within his rights in failing to let Aura know that the disability was--well! not absolutely blameworthy--he need not have sculled so confoundedly well.
He had been a picture to look at, bending easily to the long stroke while Ned was idly steering.
"We had better take the Crudel valley," said the latter as a bye-path showed up a lonely glen; "it isn't half as pretty as this, but it is shorter, and we haven't much time. I delayed you horribly."
Aura smiled tolerantly. "But we came along splendidly afterwards, didn't we?"
"You know this country awfully well," remarked Ted, feeling the urgent need of generosity. "I haven't an idea where we are."
But Ned was in no humour for patronage.
"I happen to hold the mineral rights of the Crudel valley in rather a queer, roundabout way," he replied. "They went with a property my uncle had bought in Shropshire--but that is beside the point. Naturally, with all the fuss there has been about the slate quarries lately, I have had to know something as to the lie of the land. When we first met, I was down to see it, so there is nothing wonderful in my knowledge."
Ted stared at him. "By George! Then it is you who put a spoke in the wheel of that new company?"
Aura looked at him also, and with quick disapproval. "Is it you who have thrown all the people out of work?" she asked. "Do you know some of the children haven't enough to eat,--at least," she added, her look having brought her, she scarcely knew why, a vague doubt, "Martha told me that the people were getting up a subscription for them."
Ned laughed derisively and shrugged his shoulders.