“Oh, they’ll come up all in good time,” answered Ronald carelessly. “One can’t ride in a cavalcade in these narrow roads.”
For the peculiarity of Madeira is that for miles and miles the roads run between walls, with houses or cultivated ground behind them. It is only as the heights are reached that these walls are left behind, and more open country reached. Often the road is so narrow that two horses can barely ride abreast.
“What does tabaco habilitado mean?” asked Sheila, “that you see written on almost every tenth house.”
“I believe it means licensed to sell tobacco,” answered Ronald, “and I expect they have to pay pretty high too for the licence. The imposts here are iniquitous. I wish we had the place. We’d make a different country of it. Just look at these barbarous roads cut straight up the sides of the mountains! It’s ridiculous. It might be beautiful if they had only zig-zagged them as they do in other places. But let us ride on now. We shall get beyond the region of walls soon; up yonder I believe the country is very pretty. They say it is like a hot spring day in England when you get to Camacha.”
“Shall we not wait for the others?” asked Sheila.
“I don’t see why. They will come on all right. Our horses are bound to get ahead anyway. One must let them take their own natural pace. We shall all meet at the rendezvous. The horses soon get fidgety standing still. Come along, I believe it gets very pretty a little farther on.”
Sheila looked back, but there was no sign of the rest of the party, and she followed Ronald perforce. She had a vaguely uneasy feeling that her aunt was not pleased with her, and she would rather have avoided all cause of offence, and she thought this might possibly be one. Since that New Year’s Eve night something had been creeping into Sheila’s life which she did not altogether understand—something that made her happy, yet pensive, restless sometimes, and sometimes half afraid of her own thoughts and dreams. She strove to banish the thoughts and feelings which she did not understand, but they would not be altogether banished, though she often managed to forget them or push them out of sight. She had been a child so long that she did not know what it meant—this waking of her womanhood within her.
Yet some instinct had made her keep very close to Lady Dumaresq and little Guy at starting, whilst Ronald had ridden beside Effie’s hammock through the town, wherever the streets were wide enough, amusing her with his gay talk, and pointing out things which he thought might interest her as they went along.
But with the ascent through the narrow lanes, and up the very steep places, this order had been broken. The horses took matters into their own hands. The fast animals gradually distanced bullocks, hammock bearers, and the pony which little Guy bestrode, and beside which his mother walked her horse, and Sheila found herself riding with Ronald some considerable distance in advance of the rest.
She did not know why she had a feeling that her aunt would be displeased, and gradually in Ronald’s merry talk she forgot her misgiving. It was so delightful leaving behind the region of walls and houses, and getting out into the open country—seeing leafless trees again, just like England—although other things were not much like, for oranges and lemons grew freely, and the scent of orange blossom was heavy sometimes in the air, and arum lilies growing wild evoked rapturous exclamations from the girl.