Sparkin had no excuse for the moment. It would have been useless to explain that he preferred the more vigorous form of exercise.
“I met Mistress Barbara in the yew walk, captain.”
His innocence was sublime. What earthly interest could John Gore take in such a coincidence?
“I was birds’-nesting, and I thought it would be good manners to run away.”
John Gore maintained his hold on Sparkin’s ear, and looked down at him with shrewd amusement. Then he gave him a fillip, and a gesture in the direction of the house, a hint that the boy had the wisdom to accept as final.
The stone bench in the yew walk was set forward a little from the trunks of the trees, and John Gore, as he entered the alley, saw the girl’s figure outlined against the gold of the western sky. This tunnel of shadows seemed to him to lead toward mystery and desire. The figure at the end thereof remained motionless as a statue in black marble set before the entrance to a shrine.
She did not wake to his presence till he was quite near to her, with the sun shining upon his face, and upon the new coat of scarlet cloth that he wore. There may have been some symbolism in the very color of the cloth. The simple richness of it suited his brown skin and the swarthy strength of his clean-shaven face.
“Oh, is it you!”
“You were tired of watching grown men playing with a ball?”
“Perhaps I had other things to think of.”