"Georgie," said the young matron, severely, "you are not likely ever to do either; so you needn't be spiteful. Come away and get to work. Mr. Moore, we dine at eight; and, if you are anywhere up or down the strath, you'll hear the bell over the stables rung at seven, and then at half-past."
So they went off and left him; and he was not displeased; he passed out by the front door, lit a cigar, and strolled down towards the banks of the Aivron. It was a bright and sweet-aired afternoon; he was glad to be at the end of his journey; and this was a very charming, if somewhat lonely, stretch of country in which he now found himself. The wide river, the steep hillside beyond hanging in foliage, the valley narrowing in among rocks and then leading away up to those far solitudes of moorland and heather, broken only here and there by a single pine—all these features of the landscape seemed so clear and fine in color; there was no intervening haze; everything was vivid and singularly distinct, and yet aërial and harmonious and retiring of hue. But of course it was the stream—with its glancing lights, its living change and motion, its murmuring, varying voice—that was the chief attraction; and he wandered on by
the side of it, noting here and there the long, rippling shallows where the sun struck golden on the sand beneath, watching the oily swirls of the deep black-brown pools as if at any moment he expected to see a salmon leap into the air, and not even uninterested in the calm eddies on the other side, where the smooth water mirrored the yellow-green bank and the bushes and the overhanging birch-trees. He sat down for a while, listening absently to this continuous, soothing murmur, perhaps thinking of the roar of the great city he had left. He was quite content to be alone; he did not even want Maurice Mangan to be discoursing to him—in those seasons of calm in which questions, long unanswered, perhaps never to be answered, will arise.
Then he rose and went on again, for, from the high-road along which he had driven, he had caught a glimpse of a wilder part of the glen, where the river seemed to come tumbling down a rocky chasm, with some huge boulders in mid-channel; and even now he could hear the distant, muffled roar of the waters. But all of a sudden he stopped. Away along there, and keeping guard (like a stork, as Miss Georgie Lestrange had suggested) above the pool that lay on this side of the double waterfall, was a young lady, her back turned towards him. So far as he could make out, she wasn't doing anything; a long fishing-rod, with the butt on the ground, she held idly in her right hand; while with her left hand she occasionally shaded her face across towards the west—probably, as he imagined, she was waiting for some of those smooth-sailing clouds to come and obscure the too-fierce light of the sun. He knew who she was; this must be Honnor Cunyngham, Lady Adela's sister-in-law; and of course he did not wish to intrude on the young lady's privacy; he would try to pass by behind her unobserved, though here the strath narrowed until it was almost a defile.
He was soon relieved from all anxiety. Sharper eyes than his own had perceived him. The young lady wheeled round; glanced at him for a second; turned again; and then a thin, tall, old man, who had hitherto been invisible to him, rose from his concealment among the rocks close to her and came along the river bank. He was a very handsome old man, this superannuated keeper, with his keen, aquiline nose, his clear, gray eyes, and frosted hair.
"Miss Honnor says will you hef a cast, sir? There's some clouds will be over soon."
"Oh, no, thank you, I could not dream of interrupting her," Lionel said; and then it occurred to him that he ought to go and thank the young lady herself for this frank invitation. "I—I'll go along and tell her so."
As he walked towards her he kept his eye, somewhat furtively, on her, though now she had turned her back again; and all he could make out was that she had a very elegant figure; that she was tall—though not so tall as her three sisters-in-law; and that her abundant brown hair was short and curly and kept close to her head, almost like a boy's. Were not her shoulders a trifle square-set for a woman?—but perhaps that appearance was owing to her costume, for she wore a Norfolk jacket of gray homespun that looked as if it could afford a good defence against the weather. She was entirely in gray, in fact; for her short-skirted dress was of the same material; and so also was the Tam o' Shanter, adorned with salmon flies, that she wore on her shapely head of golden-brown curls. Oh, yes, she looked sufficiently picturesque, standing there against the glow of the western skies, with the long salmon-rod in her right hand; but he was hardly prepared for what followed. The moment that she heard him draw near, she wheeled round and regarded him for a second—regarded him with a glance that rather bewildered him by reason of its transparent honesty and directness. The clear hazel eyes seemed to read him through and through, and yet not to be aware of their own boldness; and he did not know why he was so glad to hear that she had a soft and girlish voice, as she said,
"You are Mr. Moore. I am Lady Adela's sister—of course you know. Won't you take my rod? There will be some shadow very soon, I think."
"Oh, certainly not—certainly not," said he. "But I should be delighted if you would let me stay and look on; it would interest me quite as much—every bit as much."