'Thirty miles this morning, and thirty last night; and how many yesterday morning?—A hundred, I should say, by my measurement.'
'Rollo!—What a dinner you have brought us!' said Mr. Falkirk, who maintained a quiet and passive behaviour.
'You cannot set off for some hours yet, sir—the horses must have rest. I believe—but am not sure—that somebody got up very early this morning to make that pie. I told them I had left some friends in distress; and Primrose and I—did what we could. I realized this morning what must be the position of a Commissary General on a rapid march.'
The provision on the board called for no excuses. Rollo served everybody, even Mrs. Saddler, and afterwards dispensed strawberries of much larger growth than those of the day before. He was the impersonation of gay activity as long as there was anything to do; and then he subsided into ease- taking. The smoke of a cigar did not indeed offend Miss Kennedy's mill-door; but in a luxurious position under a tree at some distance the sometime smoker settled himself with his sketch-book, and seemed to be comfortably busy at play, till it was time for moving.
Wych Hazel had been in an altogether quiet mood since the arrival of the rockaway. In that mood she had watched the unpacking of the basket, in that mood she had eaten her dinner. It was strange, even to herself, the sort of quietus Mr. Rollo was to her. Not feeling free to play with him, by no means disposed to play before him, she had ventured to offer her services no further than by asking him what he wanted; then left him to himself; oddly conscious all the while, that if it had been any other one of her new feline friends, she would have put her little hand into the business and the basket with pleasant effect. So she sat still and watched him,—giving a bit of a smile now and then indeed to his direct remarks, but as often only a fuller look of the brown eyes. Since the gentleman had been under the tree she had been idly busy with her own thoughts, having sketched herself tired in the morning. "Prim" she recognized at once—Dr. Maryland's sister,—she had heard him speak of her. Would she be a friend? any one to whom these many thoughts might come out? So Wych Hazel sat, gazing out upon the lengthening shadows, leaning her head somewhat wearily in her hand, wishing the journey over and herself on her own vantage ground at Chickaree. It would be such a help to be mistress of the house!—for these last two days she had been nothing but a brown parcel, marked "fragile"—"with care."
CHAPTER X.
CHICKAREE.
Rollo had driven the rockaway down and was going to drive back. He put Wych Hazel into the carriage, recommending to her to lean back in the corner and go to sleep. Phoebe was given the place beside her; Mr. Falkirk mounted to the front seat; and off they drove.
It was about four o'clock of a fine June day, and the air was good to breathe; but the way was nothing extraordinary. A pleasant country, nothing more; easy roads for an hour, then heavier travelling.
The afternoon wore on; the miles were plodded over; as the sun was dipping towards the western horizon they came into scenery of a new quality. At once more wild and more dressed; the ground bolder and more rocky in parts, but between filled with gentler indications. The rockaway drew up. The driver looked back into the carriage, while the other gentleman got down.