Seeing that Mr. Hugh had not been thrown, but was merely snared, she pulled herself together and hesitated for a moment; while he, putting on an air of bravado which was very funny under the cramped circumstances, said: “Yes, here I am, and having parted with my common sense I’m taking the consequences, and you have your revenge. When all the party have had a good look at me, I suppose some one will help me out.”
Miss Letty did not answer though she was afraid he would hear her heart beat it was thumping so loudly, but looking about with a swift glance spied Tommy’s gun that had fallen unnoticed in the grass. Seizing it, she slipped it between the two furthest apart wires, managing to catch a barb in the muzzle, and pried, while with the handle of her riding crop she pulled back the two loose strands with all her strength. There was a sound of tearing cloth, a pocket burst open, throwing its contents in among the leaves, and Mr. Hugh crawled out on his hands and knees, literally at Miss Letty’s feet. Just as she stretched out her hand to help him, lest he slip backward, one of the papers that Tommy was cramming back into the letter-case caught her eye; it was the picture of herself that Anne had taken, and which had disappeared as if by magic. Mr. Hugh, if it was possible, turned redder than he was before he was released; but Letty, with quiet tact, quickly unfastened Brown Kate and, scrambling into the saddle by the aid of a stone at the fence corner, cantered off in the opposite direction to where Mr. Hugh’s horse was now quietly grazing.
For a minute the big man and the little one stood eying each other curiously. Then Tommy broke the pause: “Now isn’t Miss Letty common sensible and useful enough to be your sweetheart, Mr. Hugh, even if she is pretty? And wouldn’t that red and black girl have shouted if she’d seen you in the fence?”
“Yes, Tommy,” said Mr. Hugh, quietly; “you are a better judge than I was; but Miss Letty does not wish to be the sweetheart of an old bear like me.”
“No,” said Tommy, candidly, “I guess not, for I’ve heard her say you were a bear, and so has Anne.” And though Tommy handed back the letter book containing the picture without further comment, he had seen, and when one has seen a thing, one can hardly unsee it again. Mr. Hugh secured his horse and regained the road, Tommy riding in front of him, before he overtook the others; and the beseeching look that the big man gave the little one as he swung him to the ground kept him quiet concerning the barbed wire episode, at least for some hours.
At the end of an afternoon spent in archery, and shooting clay pigeons, winding up with a great game of hide and seek, in which old and young, men and women, joined, the last one to be found receiving a prize of the beautifully painted head of a foxhound, supper and the fire warmth made the party good-naturedly drowsy.
Miss Varley, who won the prize, had hidden herself beyond finding by dropping into the hollow trunk of an old chestnut tree; but the agility that took her in did not get her out again, which was only accomplished by a long, strong pull by two of the most muscular men of the party, engineered by Mr. Hugh. This, however, did not count, and being much elated and in high spirits, she gradually stirred the company into story-telling, camp-fire fashion, with the difference that no one was to talk for a longer time than the faggot he or she threw on the flames should burn. This caused more than one tale to break off before the climax, and the guessing and merriment that ensued soon made every one wide awake again, with the exception of Tommy, who was destined to finish the evening under the blue and white curtains of Mrs. Carr’s ample four poster. So, as he said he had a story to tell, he was given the next turn. Liking quick results, he picked a handful of white pine cones from the basket instead of a stick, and as they flashed into a juicy flame began deliberately:—
“Once there was a barbed wire fence on top of a stone wall. It ought to have been taken down, ’cause it was rusty and wicked, but it wasn’t, ’cause somebody forgot.”—Seeing signs of agitated interest in at least two of his audience, Tommy spoke faster—“This old fence was very cruel indeed, and it caught things tighter than spiders and flies, but the things were bigger. First it caught a dear little dog named Jill, and Mrs. Carr, when she was the Herb Witch, pulled her out and mended her. The next thing that barbed wire fence caught was bigger and funnier—a—great—big—” “Time’s up,” called Mr. Hugh, before Tommy could say another word, at the moment that the blaze vanished in blackness, after the fashion of pine-cone fires; and if you said even a single word after time was called, you must pay a fine.
However, as Anne led Tommy away, fairly stumbling with the sleep that was in his heels if not in his head, he turned, hung back, and said to Mr. Hugh, in a piping voice that could be heard above all the babble, “You needn’t have looked so scared, I wasn’t going to tell it just zackly the way it was—nor about that picture Anne took of Miss Letty—nor—” but the closing door kindly shut Tommy off, and though the entire party suspected a joke of some kind, only one beside the conscious pair saw through the whole affair. This was Miss Jule, who had seen Mr. Hugh slip the photograph into his pocket that afternoon long ago, before the sixlets were born. She had also chanced to see from a distance the barbed wire fence episode, and for some reason known to herself a motherly smile of content lighted her plain features, until Letty, glancing shyly at her aunt, wondered why she had never before thought her fine looking.