Only a minute or two, and then Kitty Hood could endure the struggle no longer. She was very unhappy and not a little penitent. She could not remain any longer in the midst of those noisy children: she must go home (or elsewhere) and see what facilities fate might yet throw in her way for seeing and speaking once more to her angry lover before his departure. Perhaps she could even find some means, still, for inducing him to remain, and then——. And at that thought the school-mistress raised her head, informed her school that she had a bad headache and must go home to bed, and dismissed them for a half-holiday.
Whereupon one of the larger girls, who had seen the lover go away, without hearing any of the parting words, and who thought that she understood all about the affair, remarked to one of her companions that: "That was real nice, and she thought all the better of Miss Hood for it!" while one of the larger boys, unawake as yet to any of the softer feelings, bawled out to his mates that: "Miss Hood was going to see her old beau off—ki-yah!" It is painful to be obliged to say, justifying previously-expressed apprehension, that even the stranded vessel was forgotten in the haste with which the school separated, and that all the imaginary pirates of the Society, the Friendly and various other islands that maintained every thing else rather than friendly society for sailors, had at least one day more of chance at her with their canoes and pirogues.
Her scholars dismissed, Kitty Hood took time to wash and cool her eyes and to smooth her hair, for a moment, at the little wash-closet in one corner of the school-room—then flung on her light bonnet and gauzy mantle and took her way, walking somewhat rapidly in spite of the heat of the coming noon, along the path that led around the base of the hill north-westward towards the residence of Carlton and Elsie Brand.
Mr. Richard Compton had meanwhile been walking yet more rapidly, with his bundle under his arm, up the path leading over the hill, almost due north, and through the belt of woods discernible from the school-house. Whether the increasing heat of the day added to the heat of his temper is uncertain; but certain it is that he did not at all cool down under it. He had the excuse of being the party last ill-used, if not indeed the party first so treated. He loved Kitty Hood beyond all reason, and he was of course the person most likely to grow angry at her and jealous of her, beyond all endurance. He felt that he could not worse punish her, or better satisfy himself, than by carrying out his threat and soundly flogging Carlton Brand if he should once catch him under proper circumstances; he had no doubt whatever of his ability to flog him or "any other man," when he once set about the task; and while surmounting the hill, and even after plunging into the cool, thick, leafy woods, full of the twitter of birds and the fragrance of June blossoms, which should have had the power to soften passion in the breast of any man who held a true sympathy with Nature, his mental fists were clenched and his teeth set in a manner most threatening for any opposing force with which he might happen to be brought into contact.
That "opposing force" was much nearer than the young man at the moment imagined. He was just emerging by the path to the main road which he was to cross, half a mile before reaching his own farm, when he saw a horseman riding rapidly up from the eastward. Intersecting the path just where it joined the road, was a blind road leading through the woods across toward the Darby, and closed at the entrance by a swinging gate. There was a low panel near it, and the young farmer leaped it in preference to unfastening the clumsy latch—finding himself, when beyond the fence, in the presence of Carlton Brand, who had just reined in his horse at the gate. Whatever there may have been in the face of the horseman at that moment, within a few minutes after his leaving the presence of Margaret Hayley and his sister, the eyes of Dick Compton were not sufficiently keen to recognize it. He only saw the handsome, proud-looking young lawyer, and his old antipathy rose, with the remembrance of the threat he had just used, accompanying it. Carlton Brand saw nothing more in the face of the young farmer than he had been accustomed to see, and accosted him as he might have done any other acquaintance, under the same circumstances, with a request for a slight service.
"Ah, Compton, is that you?—just be kind enough to throw open that gate for me, will you?"
"No—I'll not do any thing of the kind. If you want the gate open, just get off and open it yourself!" was the surly reply, very much to the astonishment of the lawyer. His face paled a little, then flushed, and he hesitated for an instant before he asked:
"What do you mean, Richard Compton, by answering me in that manner?"
"What I say!" answered Compton, quite as insolently as before. "You are a puppy, Carlton Brand, and I have half a mind to take you off that horse and flog you soundly, instead of opening a gate for you."
"The d——l you have!" was the very natural reply. "Well, Dick Compton, I do not know what it is all about, but you are behaving very much like a ruffian, to a man who has never done any thing worse to you than to treat you like a gentleman."