Meanwhile the light glimmers through the trees upon Rose’s head, bending over the great basket, and upon the wet leaves, from which she shakes the last remaining rain-drops, as she places them under the fragrant fruit; and it is singular now, when the basket is full, to observe how careful she is in choosing those leaves, and how she scatters little bits of oak, tender brown and green, and spreads cool twigs of plane tree over the strawberries, and sends Violet away stealthily to gather white jasmine blossoms, and strew them on the fruit. Violet, nothing loth, twists a long bough of jasmine round Rose’s dark hair, and Katie suggests cabbage-leaves to cover up the basket; which suggestion prosaic as it is, has to be carried out, and so the basket is borne away.
The day after to-morrow Harry promises to return, and they watch him go away with doubt and pain; but he himself is very cheerful, and speaks so confidently of what “I” will do, and evidently feels himself so dignified and independent a man, that they are comforted. “Everybody else in Harry’s station does the same thing,” says Agnes, a little proudly, and Martha assents with an averted face, and they separate in silence—the one to occupy herself pleasantly with little domestic cares, the other to take up her work again, and sit at her open window, and pray in her heart.
But Rose has wandered to the mall, and sits under the oak tree, which rounds its termination. They have made a little seat there under the thick foliage, where there is always shade; and Rose, not without a compunction about the work which she should be doing, either to help Martha or the dressmaker, resigns herself to a dream. The water at her side glides on. She can see it floating past her, through the loving leaves which droop over it, and dip into its dazzling tide; and at her other hand, the spear head glitters on the turret, and a glistening lime tree throws its wet boughs abroad, and shakes them in the face of the brave sun. Then there are rays of sober daylight stealing with sidelong quietness through the beeches farther down, and Violet and Katie send pleasant articulate voices into the universal rustle, which the soft air waving about everywhere, calls forth from the water and the trees.
Behind her is a corn-field, the greatest rustler of all; and Rose hears a heavy foot wading through the scanty grain, chance sown under the hedge. But just then, the children with their unfailing attendant, Dragon, have come close upon Rose on the other side of the oak, but do not see her, though she hears all they say.
There is a pause of perfect stillness for a moment, and Violet sighs.
“Eh, Dragon!” said Lettie, “I wouldna like to be here in the dark.”
“You dinna ken how bonnie it is in the dark, Missie,” said the old man, “‘specially when there’s stars shining, that ye canna tell whether they’re in the water or the sky; and there was ance a fairy ring somegate about the steps yonder, and I’ve heard mony a ane say they had listened lang syne to sair groans out of that oak. They say ane o’ the lairds that planted it came by a violent death, and ye can aye hear’t make a moan and complaint, at the season of the year when he was killed; but I canna answer for that story—and I never heard the tree say a word mair than ony ither tree, a’ my days.”
“But listen, Dragon,” said Lettie, covering her eyes: “if it was dark, I could think it was the rustling of Lady Violet’s gown.”
“And it’s naething but the corn,” said Dragon, with a feeble laugh; “naething but the wind in the corn, and your ain fancy. Ay, but there is anither sound. What would ye say if it was Mailie in among Willie Hunter’s corn?”
“I would get a wand, and drive her out again. I would like, Dragon—is it her that’s in the corn?” cried Katie Calder.