"Faith! then I did myself," Mr. Stewart laughingly called out. "And it was before a lady too--or the small beginnings of one. I saw him with my own eyes, Daisy, get knocked into the ashes by a young man, and jump up and run at him with both fists out--and all on your account, too, my lady; and then--"
"Oh, I am reminded!"
It was Daisy who cried out, and with visible excitement. Then she clapped her hand to her mouth with a pretty gesture; then she said:
"Or no! I will not tell you yet. It is so famous a secret, it must come out little by little. Tell me, papa, did you know that this Mr. Cross up at the Hall--Lady Berenicia's husband--is a cousin to the old Major who brought me to you, out of the rout at Kouarie?" "Is that your secret, miss? I knew it hours ago."
"How wise! And perhaps you knew that the Major became a Colonel, and then a General, and died last winter, poor man."
"Alas, yes, poor Tony! I heard that too from his cousin. Heigh-ho! We all walk that way."
Daisy bent forward to kiss the old man. "Not you, for many a long year, papa. And now tell me, did not this Major--my Major, though I do not remember him--take up a patent of land here, or hereabouts, through Sir William, while he was on this side of the water?"
"Why, we should be on his land now," said Mr. Stewart, reining up the horse.
We sat thus in the moonlight while he pointed out to us, as nearly as he knew them, the confines of the Cross patent. To the left of us, over a tract covered thick with low, gnarled undergrowth, the estate stretched beyond the brow of the hill, distant a mile or more. On our right, masked by a dense tangle of fir-boughs, lay a ravine, also a part of the property. We could hear, as we passed there, the gurgle of the water running at the gulf's bottom, on its way to the great leap over the rock wall, farther down, of which I have already written.
"Yes, this was what Tony Cross took up. I doubt he ever saw it. Why do you ask, girl?"