In turning out beyond the garden, I could not help noticing how pretty and romantic was the scene. A good many trees grew about that part, thick enough almost for a wood in places; and the light and shade, cast by the moon on the grass amidst them, had quite a weird appearance. It was a bright night; the moon high in the sky.
“Is that Hyde?” cried Tod.
Halting for a moment in doubt, he peered out over the field to the distance. Some one was leisurely pacing under the opposite trees. Two people, I thought: but they were completely in the shade.
“I think it is Hyde, Tod. Somebody is with him.”
“Just wait another instant, lad, and they’ll be in that patch of moonlight by the turning.”
But they did not go into that patch of moonlight. Just before they reached it (and the two figures were plain enough now) they turned back again and took the narrow inlet that led to Oxlip Dell. Whoever it was with Hyde had a hooded cloak on. Was it a red one? Tod laughed.
“Oh, by George, here’s fun! He has got Kettie out for a moonlight stroll. Let’s go and ask them how they enjoy it.”
“Hyde might not like us to.”
“There you are again, Johnny, with your queer scruples! Stuff and nonsense! Stockhausen can’t have anything to say to Kettie that all the world may not hear. I want to tell him about to-morrow.”
Tod made off across the grass for the inlet, I after him. Yes, there they were, promenading Oxlip Dell in the flickering light, now in the shade, now in the brightest of the moonbeams; Hyde’s arm hugging her red cloak.