“Well, then, I will,” she said in a low voice. “I d’ ’low you are a good man, and as you do say I—I can’t always be so lonesome.”
She paused a moment with downcast eyes; then, taking up her basket again, turned away.
Robert stood stock still, watching her receding figure as it flitted away down the long alley. The sun had now set, and the woods were enveloped in even deeper mystery than that which had possessed them a little while ago; leafage and branch were inextricably mingled; yonder tiny object in the path might either be a rabbit or a stump; but Rebecca’s light dress defined her flying figure amid the gloom which otherwise would have engulfed her. Her shape showed white at first, then grey, as it receded farther, until at last it stood out for a moment almost black against the still glowing peep of sky which showed between the over-arching boughs at the farther end; then it vanished altogether. Even then Robert remained gazing after her, and at length he heaved a deep sigh.
“Yon chap,” he said, “him as was her sweetheart—I wonder if she was so stand-off wi’ him.”
The query seemed to open up an unpleasant train of thought; he struck at the sod with the heel of his heavy boot and frowned. “I’d ha’ summat to say to him if ever I comed across him,” he muttered; and then turned to continue on his beat.
“I never see a bonnier lass,” he said presently in a softer tone; “poor lass—how pitiful she looked at me; I could do wi’ her very well—’tis to be hoped as she’ll mak’ up her mind to do wi’ me.”
A bat twinkled round his head as he emerged into the open, a host of rabbits scurried away at his heavy footfall.
“And all they dumb things love her,” meditated Robert. “’Tis along of her bein’ so innocent-like! Eh, she’s a flower.”
Soon he, too, had left the woods behind, and was marching across the solitary down, grey at this hour save on the upper slopes, where the short grass still caught some faint remnant of the rosy after-glow. Night creatures were stirring in every thicket that he passed, and as the dull thud of his step fell upon the resonant ground it caused a flutter and commotion amid the drowsy children of the day, which had taken shelter there, deeming themselves secure from disturbance. A rustle of wings, a patter of tiny feet, a sleepy twitter, the shriek of a blackbird, the heavy beat of a startled pigeon’s wings as it darted blindly from its ambush—Robert held on his way without noticing any of these things, and presently darkness and liberty reigned undisturbed in the many-peopled waste.
For many subsequent evenings he visited Oakleigh Wood at the specified time, but, though he patrolled it from end to end, and strained his eyes in vain for a glimpse of Rebecca Masters, not so much as a flutter of her skirts rewarded his patient gaze.