He gave in, only stipulating that at all costs they should start to return by a certain hour, unless the snow should have already begun, in which case Marion was to run no risks, but either to hire a fly to bring her home by the road, or to stay in the town with some of her friends till the weather cleared again.
"And I'll meet you," he added. "Let us set our watches together—I'll start from here so as to be at—let me see——"
"Half-way between the stiles," said Marion. "We can each see the other from one stile to the opposite one, you know, even though it's a good bit of a way. Yes, dear, I'll time it as near as I can to meet half-way between the stiles."
And with these words the last on her lips, she set off, a picture of health and happiness—little Nelly crowing back to "Dada" from over stout Betsy's shoulder.
Betsy was home again within the hour.
But the mother and child—alas and alas! It was the immortal story of "Lucy Gray" in an almost more pathetic shape.
Farmer Giles, as I have said, was a studious, often absent-minded man. There was not much to do at that season and in such weather, and what there was, some amount of supervision on his part was enough for. After his early dinner he got out his books for an hour or two's quiet reading till it should be time to set off to meet his darlings. No fear of his forgetting that time, but till the clock struck, and he saw it was approaching nearly, he never looked out—he was unconscious of the rapid growth of the lurid, steely clouds; he had no idea that the snowflakes were already falling, falling, more and more closely and thickly with each instant that passed.
Then rose the storm spirit and issued his orders—all too quickly obeyed. Before Barnett Giles had left the village street he found himself in what now-a-days would be called a "blizzard". And his pale face grew paler, and his heart beat as if to choke him, when at last he reached the first stile and stood there panting, to regain his breath. It was all he could do to battle on through the fury of the wind, the blinding, whirling snow, which seemed to envelop him as if in sheets. Not for many and many a day will that awful snowstorm be forgotten in Scarshire.
It was at the appointed trysting place they found him—"half-way between the stiles". But not till late that evening, when Betsy, more alarmed by his absence than by her mistress's not returning, at last struggled out through the deep-lying snow to alarm the nearest neighbours.