His eye swept up and down the slope. “There probably isn’t a finer site for a house in the whole South,” he told himself. “The living-rooms front south and west. We’ll get scrumptious sunsets from that back porch. And on the other side there’s the view clear to the Blue Ridge. And as for this garden, no landscape artist need apply. The outlines are all here; it needs only to be put back. We’ll first rake out the rubbish, chop down that underbrush and trim the box. The shrubs only want pruning. Then we’ll mend the pool and set the fountain going and put in some goldfish. Flower-seeds and bulbs are cheap enough, I fancy. Just think of a bed of black and gold pansies running down to the lake! And on the other side a wilderness garden. I’ve seen pictures of them in the illustrated weeklies. Those rotten posts, under that snarl of vines, were a pergola. Any old carpenter can rebuild that—I can draw the plans myself.”
He skirted the lake. “Only to grub out some of the lilies—there’s too many of them—and straighten the rim—and weed the pebble margin to give those green rocks a show. I’ll build a little wharf below them to dive from, and—yes, I’ll stock it with spotted trout. Not just to yank out with a barbed hook, but to make it inhabited. How well a couple of white swans would look preening in the shade out there! The roof’s gone from that oval summer-house, but it’s no trick to put another on.”
He penetrated farther into the tangle and came out into a partially cleared space shaded with great trees, where the grass was matted with clover into a thick rug, sprinkled with designs worked in bluebells and field-daisies, with here and there a flaunting poppy, like a scarlet medallion. He was but a few hundred yards from the house, yet the silence was so deep that there might have been no habitation within fifty miles. All at once he stopped short; there was a sudden movement in the thicket beyond—the sound of light fast footfalls, as of some one running away.
He made a lunge for the dog, but with a growl Chum tore himself from the restraining grasp and dashed into the bushes. “A child, no doubt,” he thought as he plunged in pursuit, “and that lubberly brute will scare it half to death!”
He pulled up with an exclamation. In a narrow wood-path a little way from him, partly hidden by a windfall, stood a girl, her skirt transfixed with a wickedly jagged sapling. He saw instantly how it had happened; the windfall had blocked the way, and she had sprung clean over it, not noting the screened spear, which now held her as effectually as any railroad spike. She was struggling with silent helpless fury to release herself, wrenching viciously at the offending stuff, which seemed ridiculously stout, and disregarding utterly the bulldog, frisking madly about her feet with sharp joyous barks.
In another moment Valiant had reached her and met her face, flushed, half defiant, her eyes a blue gleam of smoldering anger as she desperately, almost savagely, thrust wild tendrils of flame-colored hair beneath the broad curved brim of her straw hat. At her feet lay a great armful of cape jessamines.
A little thrill, light and warm and joyous, ran through him. Until that instant he had not recognized her.