“Fairies is nonsense-folk!” he exclaimed aloud once and again; “I can’t think as thikky maid can be so artful as she do seem.”
On the following Sunday, by some accident, he found himself next her in church, and, perceiving that he had no hymn-book, Ann-Car’line was kind enough to permit him to share hers. She looked as fair and innocent as a flower, and sang with all her heart. Timothy was quite carried away. Artful indeed! There wasn’t her match in the whole county of Dorset for looks, and he’d go warrant she was as good as she seemed.
When they emerged from the church he asked her to walk with him, and before half an hour had passed had begun to court her in form. He actually forgot, for the time being, all about the watch and his suspicions connected with it, and it was not until Ann-Car’line had unexpectedly broken a somewhat long and contented silence by a fragment of some gay little song—not a hymn-tune—that he remembered the phrase which had so much puzzled him a few days before.
“What was that you was a-sayin’ about bein’ a fairy?” he enquired, abruptly.
Ann-Car’line’s little white teeth flashed out in a mischievous smile. “I was axed once if I’d like to be a fairy,” said she. “Don’t ye think I’d make a very good one?”
“There’s no such folks as fairies,” returned Timothy. “Nobody couldn’t ha’ axed ye such a thing.”
“They did though!” retorted Ann-Car’line. “Says they, ‘You be a pretty maid—you’d make a very good fairy. Would you like to be one?’”
“Now that’s a nonsense tale,” said the shepherd firmly. “I’ll not put up wi’ no such stories. If you and me be to walk out, and to—and to—carry on reg’lar same as we’ve a-made up our minds to do, you did ought to have more respect for I. So don’t ye be a-comin’ to I again wi’ such made-up tales.”
The girl laughed again in a queer, little secret way that annoyed him still more.
“There must be truth between us,” he said, almost harshly. “You must tell me the truth about everything.”