“I do not think that the animal is much hurt, madam,” I said humbly. “’Tis but a flesh wound at most. Nevertheless, in case of further mishap, may I be permitted to return with you?”
And then indeed she looked at me.
“The road is public property, I believe, sir!” she replied in the same icy tone. “And I cannot prevent you, if you force your presence on me. But if you were anything but what you are—if you laid any pretence to being a gentleman, you would spare me the loathing of your company!”
I fell back then, indeed, as if she had struck me, and without a word in reply I returned slowly to the sorrel’s side and made pretence of tightening the girths with fingers that were trembling.
This was her gratitude! This my reward! Yet I consoled myself with the thought that even yet she would be obliged to seek my assistance in remounting, and I determined that I would not be the one to again make advances. But I did not know my lady, nor had I taken into consideration the fact of the boulders scattered plentifully around.
As with my back to her I fumbled at my saddle, I heard the mare’s footsteps receding; and, turning sharply, was in time to see her ladyship move slowly away.
Erect in the saddle, with never a backward glance, she urged the mare into a canter, breasted the green slope, disappeared, and left me there in the sunlit hollow—alone!
CHAPTER VII
OF CERTAIN PASSAGES IN THE ROSE GARDEN
Neither that day nor the following one did I again see my lady. And if I yet retained some lingering hope of her relenting in her old attitude towards me, I was doomed to be disappointed.
Nevertheless, in pursuance of my duties many a visit I paid to solitary farms and to the houses of the gentry scattered along the coast; at some to meet with the respect which my uniform and the nature of my errand warranted; at others—and these for the most part belonging to Catholic gentlemen—to encounter an ill-concealed hostility that sufficiently testified with whom their sympathies rested. And everywhere I found the same brooding spirit of alarm and discontent. The whole country was on the tiptoe of expectation. Rumours of William’s defeat and death were freely circulated by James’s infatuated followers. Scarcely a fisherman upon the coast but who woke fully expecting to see a French army drawn up upon the shore. Indeed, throughout all the western counties the Jacobites were secretly arming, awaiting but the success of the Stuart cause in Ireland to kindle anew the flames of civil war.