But Martine was already off her horse and over the low fence, and Mr. Frazer could only follow her example. The farm was situated at the junction of two roads. Martine had taken the precaution to tether her horse to a hitching-post, but Mr. Frazer, trusting too implicitly to the sedateness of his steed, had left it unfettered to nibble the grass by the roadside. The hives that had attracted Martine's attention proved as harmless as she had prophesied, so she wandered on toward an old-fashioned garden, blazing with mid-summer blossoms. Now Jill, the sorrel that Mr. Frazer had ridden so proudly, proved less reliable than might have been expected from the character of its owner; for, in the course of its nibbling, it wandered down the road, passing back of the farm, and Mr. Frazer was so intent upon telling Martine all that he knew about bees and flowers that he quite forgot to keep his eye on his horse. Thus it happened that the animal found itself near some hives whose occupants were changing habitations. Then, at the very moment when Mr. Frazer bethought him of Jill, to his horror and great surprise he saw her starting on a run down this back road. He did not wait to explain matters to Martine; he knew by the cloud of bees in the distance that the horse had undoubtedly been stung. "Wait until I come back," he shouted, as he started in pursuit of his horse.
Martine smiled as he leaped over a fence, his coat tails flying in the air.
"Unseemly haste," she murmured, "for so dignified a person. I wonder how long he can keep it up."
For five or ten minutes Martine continued to wait in the old-fashioned garden; then she looked at her watch. It was later than she supposed; the sun was less bright, and a slight chill in the air warned her of approaching fog.
"I didn't promise to wait," she said to herself, "and after all the bother of arranging it I can't be cheated out of my sight of the Bay. It's a straight road and perfectly safe, and my horse hasn't shown a sign of a trick; so in five minutes, if my guide hasn't returned, I shall go on alone."
At the end of five minutes Mr. Frazer had not appeared, and Martine, remounting her horse, resumed her way toward the Bay Shore. She set off at a speed that would have quite shaken the breath out of Mr. Frazer, and she was really surprised to discover how much life her animal had. Thus it happened that in spite of the delay she really had a glimpse of the Bay of Fundy before the fog had hidden it. It is true that already there was a thin veil of mist floating about her and permitting her to see rather dimly the rocky shore, and the scattered hamlet that lay at her feet.
Martine felt most uncomfortable. Her situation was certainly lonely, and she would gladly have borne the rather tiresome conversation of her late guide for the sake of his protection. But though she waited as long as she dared, he did not appear; nor did she meet him as she turned about toward Annapolis.
Toward Annapolis—but where was Annapolis? For all at once she seemed to be riding through a cloud, and she recalled a day when she and a party of friends had thought themselves lost on one of the highest of the White Mountains, pushing their way vaguely through the cloud that enshrouded them. Of one thing, however, she now felt sure. When she reached the crossroads and the farm where the beehives were, she would have no difficulty in continuing her way.
But, alas for all calculations! how it happened she never knew, but soon she realized that she was on a road quite different from the one by which she had travelled to the shore. In the fog she had turned somewhere, and the new road was lonely in the extreme. There were no houses near; at least, she judged there were not, for the road itself was rough, more like a forest road, and both sides seemed to be lined with trees. For a short time she went on cautiously; then a line of verse came into her mind that she had heard Amy quote only the day before,—
"'When once a man hath misséd the right way, The farther he doth go, the farther doth he stray.' "