‘He had no objection to tea; but he used to say, “Everything in its season.” Shall we take ours now—I have waited for you.’
‘I have no objection,’ said I; ‘I feel rather heated, and at present should prefer tea to ale—“Everything in its season,” as the surgeon said.’
* * * * *
I put some fresh wood on the fire, which was nearly out, and hung the kettle over it. I then issued forth from the dingle, and strolled round the wood that surrounded it; for a long time I was busied in meditation, looking at the ground, striking with my foot, half unconsciously, the tufts of grass and thistles that I met in my way. After some time, I lifted up my eyes to the sky, at first vacantly, and then with more attention, turning my head in all directions for a minute or two; after which I returned to the dingle. Isopel was seated near the fire, over which the kettle was now hung; she had changed her dress—no signs of the dust and fatigue of her late excursion remained; she had just added to the fire a small billet of wood, two or three of which I had left beside it; the fire cracked, and a sweet odour filled the dingle.
‘I am fond of sitting by a wood fire,’ said Belle, ‘when abroad, whether it be hot or cold; I love to see the flames dart out of the wood; but what kind is this, and where did you get it?’
‘It is ash,’ said I, ‘green ash. Somewhat less than a week ago, whilst I was wandering along the road by the side of a wood, I came to a place where some peasants were engaged in cutting up and clearing away a confused mass of fallen timber: a mighty-aged oak had given way the night before, and in its fall had shivered some smaller trees; the upper part of the oak, and the fragments of the rest, lay across the road. I purchased, for a trifle, a bundle or two, and the wood on the fire is part of it—ash, green ash.’
‘That makes good the old rhyme,’ said Belle, ‘which I have heard sung by the old woman in the great house:—
‘“Ash, when green,
Is fire for a queen.”’
‘And on fairer form of queen, ash fire never shone,’ said I, ‘than on thine, O beauteous queen of the dingle.’
‘I am half disposed to be angry with you, young man,’ said Belle.