“Not if they wished that father might die?”
This awful supposition overwhelmed Ally altogether. She melted into tears.
“Well, then, come along out into the garden, and don’t let’s think of it any more. I want a little air—the lamp is so nasty to-night—and I’ll finish my pinafore to-morrow. It is very nearly done, all but the button-holes. Do come out and see if the river is rising. That is one good thing about Penton, it is out of reach of the floods. But look, what a change! It is almost as clear as day, and the moon so beautiful. If I had known I should not have stayed in-doors in the light of that horrid lamp.”
“We must do our work some time,” said Ally, faintly, allowing herself to be persuaded. It was rather cold, and very damp; but the moon had come out quite clear, dispersing, or rather driving back into distance the masses of milky clouds which had lost their angry aspect, and no longer seemed to foretell immediate rain. Rain is disagreeable to everybody (except occasionally to the farmers), but it is more than disagreeable to people who live half surrounded by a river; it made their hearts rise to see that the rain-clouds seemed dispersing and the heavens getting clear. And then it takes so very little to lighten hearts of seventeen and eighteen! The merest trifle will do—the touch of the fresh air, even the little nip of the cold which stirred their blood. As they came out Walter appeared, coming back from the gate, a dark figure against the light.
“Oh, Wat, where have you been? Have you been up to the village without telling us? And I did so want a run? Why didn’t you call me?”
“Don’t, Anne,” said Ally; “he is not in spirits for your nonsense. Poor Wat! he can not throw it off like you.”
“Ah,” said Walter, reflectively; but it seemed to the girls that he had to think what it was he could not throw off. “I have not been up to the village,” he said; “only round the dark corner. Martha was there with a little girl who was in a terrible funk. She thought there were lions and tigers under the hedge. I just saw her round the corner.”
“How kind of you, Wat! A little girl! But who could she be?”
“I don’t know a bit,” said Walter, demurely. “It was too dark to see her face.”
He thought his own voice sounded a little strange, but they did not perceive it. They came to either side of him, linking each an arm in his.