“Well, young man, are you obliged to whisper what you say to my niece? Come, Sage, my girl, it’s time you were indoors.”
“Uncle!” cried Sage, joyously, as she sprang to his side with a sigh of relief.
“Yes, my girl,” he said, coldly, “it is uncle;” and he stuck his thistle staff down into the soft earth, and leaned his hands upon the round top. “You can go on,” he continued; “I’m not coming home yet.”
“But, uncle,” she cried, excitedly.
“Go home, my lass,” he said, imperatively.
“Yes, dear,” she half sobbed; “but you will not—”
“I say go home!” he shouted; and, with a low wail, she turned off, and walked hurriedly towards the farm, her uncle standing watching her, while Cyril Mallow coolly took a cigar-case from his breast pocket, opened it, carefully selected a cigar, picking, choosing, and returning one after the other till he had found one to his fancy, when he snapped to the case once more and thrust it back in his pocket, afterwards biting off the cigar-end and proceeding to light it with a fusee that evinced a strong dislike to burst into sparks and then smoulder away.
As he did this, however, he kept glancing furtively at the Churchwarden, who was watching the retiring form of Sage, her troubled mien winning a glance or two from Cyril as well.
The cigar burned badly, and had to be lit again, this time being watched by the Churchwarden with a kind of good-humoured contempt for the man who could smoke those rolls of tobacco-leaf in place of an honest pipe.
At last the cigar drew freely, and the eyes of the two men met.