CHAPTER X.
BONNY SIR HUGH.
Meanwhile Hildegarde had not lost sight of little Hugh Allen, the one link of interest which connected her with The Poplars. He, too, had been won by Mrs. Grahame's smile, and had learned the way to Braeside; and the more they saw of him, the more Hildegarde and her mother felt that he was a very remarkable little boy.
Much of the time he seemed to be lost in dreams, wrapped in a cloud of silent thought; and, again, from this cloud would flash out the quaintest sayings, sudden outbursts of passionate feeling, which were startling to quiet, every-day people. When he had been walking with Mrs. Grahame, as he was fond of doing (sneaking out by the back gate from his prison-place, as he called it, and making a détour to reach the road where she most often walked), and when she said, "Now, dear, it is time to say good-by, and go home," he would throw himself on his knees, and hold up his clasped hands, crying, "How can I leave thee?" in a manner which positively embarrassed her.
Now it happened one day that Hugh was sitting with Merlin beside the brook that flowed at the foot of the Ladies' Garden. Hildegarde had told him to come through the garden and wait for her, and it was his first visit to the lovely, silent place. The child went dreaming along between the high box hedges, stopping occasionally to look about him and to exchange confidences with his dog. Merlin seemed to feel the influence of the place, and went along quietly, with bent head and drooping tail. When the murmur of the hidden streamlet first fell upon his ear, "It is like the fishpools of Heshbon," said the boy dreamily. "Isn't it, Merlin? I never understood before." Merlin put his cool black nose in his master's hand, and gave a little sympathetic shake.
And now the pair were sitting on a bank of moss, looking down into the dark, clear water, which moved so swiftly yet so silently, with only a faint sound, which somehow seemed no louder than when they were at a distance.
Hildegarde finding Hugh and Merlin by the Brook.