“You must come and see us when we get back to England,” said Ronald cheerfully. “We shall expect you on a long visit. Little Guy will see to that if nobody else does. Would you like that, Sheila? I beg your pardon, I ought not to call you that. It comes through hearing you always spoken of by that soft name.”
“I like you to call me Sheila,” said the girl shyly, and with a soft blush. “I have never been called anything else by friends—till quite lately.”
“Well, when we are by ourselves I should like to,” said Ronald, “and you must do the same by me. I think it is much nicer when people are real friends to drop ceremonious titles.”
After that the ride seemed all sunshine to both of them. Ronald thought he had sufficiently advanced his cause, and abstained from any more direct overtures; but he talked in a fashion that was delightful to his companion, and the exhilarating freshness of the air and the beauty of everything about them seemed a fit setting for their happiness, as they rode along together side by side in the clear soft sunshine.
“Here we are!” cried Ronald at length, as they reached the green plateau at the summit of the hill. “There is the clock-tower that the doctor built. Do you know that before they had that, the people here had no means of knowing the time—and that on market days, or when they wanted to get down early in Funchal, they used often to get up in the middle of the night, and sit up watching for the dawn, afraid to go to sleep again lest they should not awake in time.”
From the edge of the plateau there were beautiful views of the sea, and away to the left the long jagged line of the reef running out to the east from the most easterly portion of the island. The sea seemed sleeping and dreaming away below them. It looked more like the blue Mediterranean than the storm-tossed Atlantic.
They had dismounted and left the men to take care of the horses. They wandered happily about together from place to place, finding new beauties at every turn. They were recalled to the present by the familiar cry of the “bully-boy.” Sheila exclaimed—
“Oh, here come the rest! The carro must be coming! Can you make the noise the boys do? I have tried so often, but I can’t quite get it right.”
Ronald made attempts more or less successful to imitate the wild peculiar cries by which the boys and men encourage and guide the bullocks, and Sheila stood laughing and praising.
“I think it is so sweet of the bullies not to go unless the boy goes in front. They really won’t. I thought it was a make up when I heard it first. But one day after a cricket match our boy was missing for a little while, and nothing would induce the bullies to start, not all the prodding and yelling of the man. But the moment the boy came and walked in front they went like lambs!”