Cilla answered nothing, but nodded gravely at Yeoman Hirst and went out by the door that opened on the garden. Up the young, green pastures she went, carrying first love with her. All things to-day were big with self-importance; and she, who had thought but little of herself till now, wondered if she would be always fair in Reuben’s eyes. She trusted so; for Gaunt seemed worth the best that she could bring him.
One deep regret she had, to temper the new gladness. She was holding a secret from her father, and the knowledge, just as it had done last night, brought a sense of shame to her from time to time. In the background, too, was another shadow—that of David the Smith, with his abiding care for her. But the day was not one for shadow except such as the sun and the breeze between them chased across the pastures. The world would not let Priscilla be out of mood with it; the reek of the drying grass, on which late dewdrops lingered still, the clamour of the birds, the restless pushing up toward the light of winter’s hidden shoots—all was a conspiracy against repinings or backward glances.
By the mossy lane past Brow-Top Ings she went, and wild-strawberry blooms, white and starry, peeped out at her from hidden nooks. Sometimes loitering, sometimes moving quickly, as if her thoughts outpaced her, she found the highest fields at last and saw the dark face of the moor above her. Not caring where she went, and obeying any whim, she climbed a fence or two and was free of the open heath. Here, too, spring’s advance was plainly marked, though it needs a subtler study to perceive it here than in the lower lands.
Priscilla had no thought of foreign countries now. Garth, whose face she knew—Garth, the familiar and well-tried—was full of mysteries, delights, surprises. Could she have ever thought, she wondered, that Reuben Gaunt had painted fairer lands for her than this in which she lived?
She lifted her head on the sudden, hearing a pad of hoofs across the peaty ground. Gaunt’s horse, weary of his freedom already and finding himself lost on the edge of an alien moor, was searching for his master. Cilla was the first human being he had seen since Widow Mathewson loosed his bridle and sent him wide across the heath; so now he came, with mincing steps across the broken ground, and laid his muzzle in her hand, and asked for guidance.
Cilla knew the horse; it was the best in Garth, indeed, and known to folk less interested than she in Reuben. Out from the blue sky and the sunshine fear came suddenly to Priscilla of the Good Intent. Apart from love of his master, there is always something of portent and foreboding when a riderless horse comes fawning at one’s hand.
“Where is the master?” cried Priscilla, soothing his muzzle with a hand that trembled.
The cob tossed his head. That was the question he had brought to Cilla, trusting that in her wisdom she would give him a plain answer. She had none, it seemed, and presently, growing restless again, he shook his head free and cantered off.
Cilla watched him take wide circuits, slacken to a trot, then to a walk. He was snuffing the ground like a hound on trail, and last of all he seemed to find a clue, for he turned down the moor along a narrow track, found the gate open at the bottom and trotted out of sight. The girl turned, and wandered as aimlessly about the moor as the horse had done; she was sure that Reuben was lying somewhere in the heather, thrown and badly hurt, and unable to help himself.
What had she said to her father not long ago? That snow might follow all this April weather. And now she recalled the words, recalled the cold sense of foreboding that had accompanied them.