"We must come back at the turn, Pertâb," he said, to bolster up his own resolution.
"Of course we must come back," replied Pertâbi, digging her small heels into the old grey mare. "Can't you make the stupid go faster, Nâno? We may as well have all the fun we can."
So the old mare went faster down the high-arched avenue of flickering light and shade, and Pertâbi's little red legs flounced about in a way suggestive of falling off. But she shrieked with laughter and held tight to her cavalier.
"Don't let us go back yet, Nâno!" she pleaded; "the old thing is all out of breath, and Chachcha-ji will find out you've been galloping her, and beat you. I shouldn't like you to be beaten, Nâno dear, and it is so lovely."
It was lovely. They were in the open now among the level stretches of young green corn, and there were the fallen battalions of red and gold canes, and from that clump of trees came the familiar creak of the press. Nay, more! wafted on the soft breeze the delicious, the irresistible smell of sugar-boiling. Other people's sugar-boiling.
"It's time we were going back," remarked Nânuk boldly.
"Tchu!" cried Pertâbi from behind, "we are not going back any more. See! I've tied your shawl to my veil. When I do that to my dolls, then they are married; so that settles it. Go on, Nâno! it's all right. Besides it is no use going back now, they would only beat us for getting married. Go on, Nâno--or I'll pinch."
Perhaps it really was fear of the pinching, perhaps it was the conviction that they had gone too far to recede, which finally induced young Lochinvar to give the old mare her head towards home. But even then he showed none of the alacrity displayed beneath him and behind him by the female aiders and abettors. His face grew graver and graver, longer and longer.
"We can't be married until we've taken the seven steps," he said at length. "Look! they have been burning weeds in the field. Let's get down and do it, or the gods will be angry."
Pertâbi clapped her hands. "It will be fun, anyhow, so come along, Nâno."