In an instant, I remembered the pocket-flask, which I had entirely forgotten since the day in which it came into my possession; for all I knew, it was then lying yet in the drawing-room at the Dovecot.
"Yes, my boy, that will I," returned I; "but I fear I have not brought her what she wants."
He looked up in the bright interrogative manner peculiar to his tribe, so different to the stolid wonder of the agriculturist.
"She wants you, sir, as I understood. This is the sixth day that she has set me to watch for you by this roadside. Will you please to follow me?"
The boy started off at a pace which compelled me to move too fast for further questioning; and skirting the plantation for a hundred yards, stopped at the entrance of a roadway leading through the wood. The coming winter had not yet turned the broad green track to sand, and it ran so straight and far, that the pine trees seemed to stand on either side—a solid wall—with nothing but the blue heaven for their limit. This landscape of right lines would have delighted a painter of the Pre-Raphaelite school, it looked so stiff and unnatural; but pursuing the track for a little distance, and then plunging over a ditch and bank into the plantation itself, we suddenly came upon a scene which would have suited Morland. A low tent, with half-naked but merry children crawling in and out; a she-ass and her foal; a handsome male Epicurean, lying on his back, smoking a short, well-coloured pipe, the hue of which precisely resembled that of his own skin; a young girl in scarlet mantle, and with earrings of great splendour, gathering fir-cones to feed the flames which licked around an iron pot suspended on four sticks, piled musket-fashion; and an old crone, sitting by the same, and picking the feathers from a bird, which, had the time of year been beyond the end of September, I should have certainly taken for a hen-pheasant. But to suppose this, would have been to suppose an infraction of the game laws! The walnut-stained children stopped their play as I approached, and stood in various attitudes of wonder, like beauteous bronzes; the man turned over on his side, and opened his slumbrous eyes a hairbreadth; the girl flashed one quick, comprehensive glance upon me, and then resumed her occupation. The old woman nodded familiarly without rising, and observed quietly, "So you are come at last, Peter Meredith. I trust you have brought good news of Marmaduke Heath."
"He is better," said I, "much better; and he knows who brought him help, and is very grateful. You have been expected daily at the Dovecot, where something more substantial than mere thanks is waiting for you."
"Rachel Liversedge desires neither silver nor gold," returned the old woman; "she has had her reward already, if what you say be true. It was not for love of the boy that I acted as I did; he has too much evil blood in him to earn my liking. But I am glad as though he were my own son that he will live."
"Carew," cried she, triumphantly, "no wonder bura Sir Massingberd looked kalo as ourselves."
"Oh, the great man looks black, does he?" said I.
The old woman dropped the bird, the girl her fir-cones, and both stared wildly at me, as though my voice had come from the clouds; the man sprung to his feet, and uttered a cry of wonder.