“Have you any plan marked out with reference to the roads we may take, or the towns we are to pass through or avoid?” he asked.
“Yes. We will reach York to-night, then follow the London road as far as Stamford. After that we branch southwest through Northampton to Oxford.”
“It is all settled then,” he said, smiling.
“I know the way well, and you told me you were a stranger. I have passed between York and London four times,” she answered seriously, and with a chilling tone of finality which seemed to indicate that further discussion was unnecessary. The inflexion may have been too subtle to impress itself upon the young man, for he continued with obvious geniality,—“You have wandered far afield for one so young.” To this remark the girl made no reply. Her eyes were fixed on the road ahead, and Armstrong, being at a loss to continue a one-sided conversation, found nothing further to say. He was vaguely conscious of the constraint that had come between them, for she had talked with him freely enough the day before; but he could not account for the change. He had always been accustomed to the free-spoken communion of men, and knew little of the vagaries of the other sex, whom he had ever regarded as the more talkative. He feared he had offended her by some thoughtless observation, and racked his brain trying to remember what it might have been. If it were her brother who rode beside him he would have asked him plainly where the offence lay, and would have fought him joyfully if the answer was not to his mind; but he was afraid of this dainty lady and anxious not to displease her. He began to see that he ran risk of disappointment in his anticipation of pleasure through a companionship which the other party plainly regarded as enforced and not at all to her liking.
They approached a declivity which disclosed a small hamlet at the foot of which flowed a stream.
“Do you know the name of this river?” he asked. “It is the Tees,” she answered shortly.
“Then that will be Yorkshire beyond?”
“Yes.”
Again he could think of nothing further to say, and inwardly chafed at his own awkwardness. He sympathized deeply with his companion, compelled to leave her only brother lying helpless from a serious wound, and thought her taciturnity arose from brooding on his peril, which in part it did. He wished he could call to his tongue some consolatory phrase, but his usually ready wit seemed to have deserted him. Yet he thought it impossible that they should journey thus gloomily the length of the land. Perhaps to-morrow would prove an amendment on to-day. And so through Yorkshire the silent progress continued.
The road was better than that to the north of the Tees, and also less deserted. They passed long trains of pack-horses travelling toward York, and occasionally met an equestrian, sometimes alone, but more often attended by one or more servants. So far they had seen nothing to show that civil war cursed the country, and no soldier had stepped forward to question their purpose in being abroad.