“Looking after pigs,” said Llewellyn, as he sat down.
Isoline opened her eyes; she thought that only people who wheeled barrows with pitchforks stuck in them did that.
“He is my father’s agent,” explained Harry.
Llewellyn was rather amused. Harry had not told him that he was going down to Waterchurch that day, so the meeting of the brothers was purely accidental. It did not escape him that two was company and three was none, for he marked Isoline’s little air of complacency at her entire absorption of her cavalier, and his having broken in upon her raised a faint but pleasant malice in him. It could not exactly be said that he disliked her, for he did not know her in the least, though he had observed her a good deal at the ball, and, considering that he had seen very little of the world, he was a youth wonderfully free from prejudice. But, had he put his feelings into thoughts, he would have known that he was irritated. Isoline glanced at him once or twice, and made up her mind that she hated him.
“Were you buying pigs then?” asked Harry, as they were trotting along the high-road again.
“Father wants a few young Berkshires, and I came to see some belonging to a man out here. It sounds low, does it not, Miss Ridgeway?” said his brother, looking at Isoline, and knowing by instinct that the subject was uncongenial.
“Oh, no, not at all, I assure you,” replied she, quite uncertain how she ought to take his remark. That pigs were vulgar was well known, nevertheless she could not help a vague suspicion that she was being laughed at. But Llewellyn’s face was inscrutable, and she could only move uneasily on her seat and wish him miles away.
For the rest of the journey the two young men looked after her carefully, Llewellyn vying with his brother in his attention to her every wish; but a snake had entered into her Eden, a snake who was so simple that she could not understand him, but who was apparently not simple enough to misunderstand her.
Sometime later they clattered through Llangarth, stopping at the Bull Inn, where Harry had been kept for so many hours on the night of the riot, and went along the Brecon road parallel with the river. The toll-gate by Crishowell had not yet been re-erected, and the bare posts stuck dismally up at the wayside by the little slate-roofed house. As it came in sight they observed a vehicle drawn up beside the hedge, and evidently awaiting the advent of the coach.
“That must be my uncle’s carriage,” said Isoline, beginning to collect her wraps.