“Where? where?”
“Up yonder! We’ve been talking of kites and magpies. Behold, two birds of worse augury than either!”
They are passing the mouth of a little influent stream, up which at some distance are seen two men, one of them seated in a small boat, the other standing on the bank, talking down to him. He in the boat is a stout, thick-set fellow in velveteens and coarse fur cap, the one above a spare thin man, habited in a suit of black—of clerical, or rather sacerdotal, cut. Though both are partially screened by the foliage, the little stream running between wooded banks, Miss Wynn has recognised them. So, too, does the companion; who rejoins, as if speaking to herself—
“One’s the French priest who has a chapel up the river, on the opposite side; the other’s that fellow who’s said to be such an incorrigible poacher.”
“Priest and poacher it is! An oddly-assorted pair; though in a sense not so ill-matched either. I wonder what they’re about up there, with their heads so close together. They appeared as if not wishing we should see them! Didn’t it strike you so, Nelly?”
The men are now out of sight; the boat having passed the rivulet’s mouth.
“Indeed, yes,” answered Miss Lees; “the priest, at all events. He drew back among the bushes on seeing us.”
“I’m sure his reverence is welcome. I’ve no desire ever to set eyes on him—quite the contrary.”
“I often meet him on the roads.”
“I too—and off them. He seems to be about everywhere skulking and prying into people’s affairs. I noticed him, the last day of our hunting, among the rabble—on foot, of course. He was close to my horse, and kept watching me out of his owlish eyes, all the time; so impertinently I could have laid the whip over his shoulders. There’s something repulsive about the man; I can’t bear the sight of him.”