Poor John’s countenance had changed many times during this address. His intent gaze fell from her, and returned and fell again. A shade came over his face—he shook his head, not in contradiction of what she said so much as in despondency; and when he spoke, his voice had taken a chill, as it were, and lost all the musical thrill of imagination and passion that was in it. “Miss Crediton,” he said, mournfully, “you remind me of what I had forgotten—the great gulf there is between you and me. I had forgotten it, like an ass. I had been thinking of you not as a rich man’s daughter, but as—— And I, a poor aimless fool, not able to make up my mind as to how I am to provide for my own life! Forgive me—you have brought me to myself.”
“Now I should like to know what that has to do with it,” cried Kate, with a little air of exasperation—exasperation more apparent than real. “I tell you I want you to be rich like papa, and you answer me that I remind you I am a rich man’s daughter! Well, what of that? I want you to be a rich man too. I can’t help whose daughter I am. I did not choose my own papa—though I like him better than any other all the same. But I want you to be rich too, you understand; for many reasons.”
“For what reasons?” said John, lighting up again. She had drooped her head a little when she said these last words. A bright blush had flushed all over her. Could it be that she meant—— John was not vain, and yet the inference was so natural; he sat gazing at her for one long minute in a suggestive tremulous silence, and then he went faltering, blundering on. “I would be anything for your sake—that you know. I would be content to labour for you from morning to night. I would be a ploughman for your sake. To be a rich man is not so easy; but if you were to tell me to do it—for you—I would work my fingers to the bone; I would die, but I should do it—for you. Am I to be rich for you?”
“Oh, fancy! here we are already,” cried Kate, in a little tremor, feeling that she had gone too far, and he had gone too far, and thinking with a little panic, half of horror, half of pleasure, of the walk that remained to be taken through the enchanted wood. “How fast the stream has carried us down! and yet I don’t suppose it can have been very fast either, for the shadows are lengthening. We must make haste and get home.”
“But you have not answered me,” he said, still leaning across his oars with a look which she could not face.
“Oh, never mind just now,” she cried; “let us land, please, and not drift farther down. You are paying no attention to where the boat is going. There! I knew an accident would happen,” cried Kate, with half-mischievous triumph, running the boat into the bank. She thought nothing now of his feet getting wet, as he stepped into the water again to bring it to the side that she might land. She even sprang out and ran on, telling him to follow her, while he had to wait to secure the boat, and warn the people at the forester’s cottage that he had left it. Kate ran on into the wood, up the broad road gradually narrowing among the trees, where still the sunshine penetrated like arrows of gold, and the leaves danced double, leaf and shadow, and the birds carried on their ceaseless interluding, and the living creatures stirred. She ran on mischievously, with a little laugh at her companion left behind. But that mood did not long balance the influence of the place. Her steps slackened—her heart began to beat. All at once she twined her arms about a birch to support herself, and, leaning her head against it, cried a little in her confusion and excitement. “Oh, what have I done? what shall I say to him?” Kate said to herself. Was she in love with John that she had brought him to this declaration of his sentiments? She did not know—she did not think she was—and yet she had done it with her eyes open. And in a few minutes he would be by her side insisting on an answer. “And what shall I say to him?” within herself cried Kate.
But when John came up breathless, she was going along the road very demurely, without any signs of emotion, and glanced at him with the same look of friendly sovereignty, though her heart was quailing within her. He joined her, breathless with haste and excitement, and for a moment neither spoke. Then it was Kate who, in desperation, resumed the talk.
“You must tell me what you think another time,” she said, with an air of royal calm. “Perhaps what I have said has not been very wise; but I meant it for good. I meant, you know, that the man of action can do most. I meant—— But, please, let us get on quickly, for I am so afraid we shall be too late for dinner. Your father does not like to wait. And you can tell me what you think another time.”
“What I think has very little to do with it,” said John. “It should be what you think—what you ordain. For you I will do anything—everything. Good heavens, what a nuisance!” cried the young man.
At this exclamation Kate looked up, and saw,—was it Isaac’s substitute—the ram caught in the thicket?—Fred Huntley riding quietly towards them, coming down under the trees, like somebody in romance. “It is Mr Huntley,” said Kate, with a mental thanksgiving which she dared not have put into words. “It is like an old ballad. Here is the knight on the white horse appearing under the trees just when he is wanted—that is, just when you were beginning to tire of my society; and here am I, the errant damosel—— What a nice picture it would make if he were only handsome, which he is not! But all the same, his horse is white.”