CHAPTER VIII.
'IT WAS NO DREAM.'
To Roland Lindsay there was some new and undefinable attraction towards Annot Drummond, against which, to do him justice, he strove in vain, and his eyes actually fell under the calm glance of his cousin Hester. 'Call it what one may,' says a writer, 'that such a power does exist, and most seriously influences our lives, is an undoubted fact. We may deride and deny it as we will; but who can honestly doubt that the sudden and mutual attraction felt by two persons who are in essential matters absolutely ignorant of each other, does occur in the lives of most of us, and it is not to be fought against or laughed away in any manner.'
Whether the attraction was quite mutual in this instance remains to be seen. As yet the intercourse between Roland and Miss Drummond seemed, with a little more empressement of manner, merely the well-bred companionship of two persons connected through mutual relations and residence in the same pleasant country house; but the change in Roland's manner to herself—veil it as he might—was subtly felt by Hester, and became apparent even to her father, the otherwise obtuse old Indian campaigner.
'He was ever attentive, full of fun, lightness, and merriment; but, oh, there is no mistaking that there is a change now—a change since she came. What can it be—what has come over him?' thought Hester.
'It is all very odd,' growled Sir Harry; 'I can't make out the situation now. Roland does not seem a flirting fellow, whatever the girl may be, and she is plain when compared with my Hester; yet he looks like a shorn Samson in the fairy hands of this little golden-haired Delilah, and seems never happy except when with her. It appears to me that people nowadays always fall in love when, where, and with whom they ought not. Ah, he is one of the "Lightsome Lindsays;" yet I never saw anyone so changed,' added Sir Harry, who had latterly found him wax weary of his Indian reminiscences.
Meanwhile Annot, who firmly believed in the dictum of Thackeray, 'that any woman who has not positively a hump can marry any man she pleases,' quietly pursued her own course; and day by day it was Hester's lot to see this courtship evidently in progress—herself at times ignored and reduced to 'playing gooseberry,' as Annot thought (if, indeed, she ever thought at all)—reduced again to her own inner life once more; and knowing that nothing of it could interest them now, so much did they seem bound in each other, she pursued her old avocations among the poor and parish people more than ever.
The love—the budding love—he certainly once loved her—was less than a shadow now!
She ceased to accompany them in their walks and long rambles in the woody glen by Mavisbank and Eldin groves, and knowing the time when Roland was certainly 'due' at Earlshaugh, she counted every hour till he should leave Merlwood.
'What a couple of wanderers you have become!' said Sir Harry, a little pointedly.
'Roland is so sympathetic,' simpered Annot; 'he appreciates fully all my yearnings after the beautiful, of which we can see nothing in the brick wilderness of London; and certainly your scenery on the Esk is surpassingly lovely, uncle!' though in reality she cared not a jot about it, and had somewhat the Cockney's idea of a landscape, 'that too much wood and too much water always spoiled it.'