‘And where are you going?’
‘To Hayward’s farm. Is that too far for you? He wants an abatement of his rent for some improvements, and I want to judge what they may be worth.’
‘Hayward’s—oh, not a bit too far!’ and holding up her skirts, she picked her way as daintily as her weighty chaussure would permit, along the narrow green footway that crossed the expanse of dewy turf in which the dogs careered, getting their noses covered with flakes of thick gossamer, cemented together by dew. Fly scraped it off with a delicate forepaw, Vixen rolled over, and doubly entangled it in her rugged coat. Humfrey Charlecote strode on before his companion with his hands in his pockets, and beginning to whistle, but pausing to observe, over his shoulder, ‘A sweet day for getting up the roots! You’re not getting wet, I hope?’
‘I couldn’t through this rhinoceros hide, thank you. How exquisitely the mist is curling up, and showing the church-spire in the valley.’
‘And I suppose you have been reading all manner of books?’
‘I think the best was a great history of France.’
‘France!’ he repeated in a contemptuous John Bull tone.
‘Ay, don’t be disdainful; France was the centre of chivalry in the old time.’
‘Better have been the centre of honesty.’
‘And so it was in the time of St. Louis and his crusade. Do you know it, Humfrey?’
‘Eh?’
That was full permission. Ever since Honora had been able to combine a narration, Humfrey had been the recipient, though she seldom knew whether he attended, and from her babyhood upwards had been quite contented with trotting in the wake of his long strides, pouring out her ardent fancies, now and then getting an answer, but more often going on like a little singing bird, through the midst of his avocations, and quite complacent under his interruptions of calls to his dogs, directions to his labourers, and warnings to her to mind her feet and not her chatter. In the full stream of crusaders, he led her down one of the multitude of by-paths cleared out in the hazel coppice for sporting; here leading up a rising ground whence the tops of the trees might be overlooked, some flecked with gold, some blushing into crimson, and beyond them the needle point of the village spire, the vane flashing back the sun; there bending into a ravine, marshy at the bottom, and nourishing the lady fern, then again crossing glades, where the rabbits darted across the path, and the battle of Damietta was broken into by stern orders to Fly to come to heel, and the eating of the nuts which Humfrey pulled down from the branches, and held up to his cousin with superior good nature.
‘A Mameluke rushed in with a scimitar streaming with blood, and—’
‘Take care; do you want help over this fence?’
‘Not I, thank you—And said he had just murdered the king—’
‘Vic! ah! take your nose out of that. Here was a crop, Nora.’
‘What was it?’
‘You don’t mean that you don’t know wheat stubble?’
‘I remember it was to be wheat.’
‘Red wheat, the finest we ever had in this land; not a bit beaten down, and the colour perfectly beautiful before harvest; it used to put me in mind of your hair. A load to the acre; a fair specimen of the effect of drainage. Do you remember what a swamp it was?’
‘I remember the beautiful loose-strifes that used to grow in that corner.’
‘Ah! we have made an end of that trumpery.’
‘You savage old Humfrey—beauties that they were.’
‘What had they to do with my cornfields? A place for everything and everything in its place—French kings and all. What was this one doing wool-gathering in Egypt?’
‘Don’t you understand, it had become the point for the blow at the Saracen power. Where was I? Oh, the Mameluke justified the murder, and wanted St. Louis to be king, but—’
‘Ha! a fine covey, I only miss two out of them. These carrots, how their leaves are turned—that ought not to be.’
Honora could not believe that anything ought not to be that was as beautiful as the varied rosy tints of the hectic beauty of the exquisitely shaped and delicately pinked foliage of the field carrots, and with her cousin’s assistance she soon had a large bouquet where no two leaves were alike, their hues ranging from the deepest purple or crimson to the palest yellow, or clear scarlet, like seaweed, through every intermediate variety of purple edged with green, green picked out with red or yellow, or vice versâ, in never-ending brilliancy, such as Humfrey almost seemed to appreciate, as he said, ‘Well, you have something as pretty as your weeds, eh, Honor?’
‘I can’t quite give up mourning for my dear long purples.’
‘All very well by the river, but there’s no beauty in things out of place, like your Louis in Egypt—well, what was the end of this predicament?’
So Humfrey had really heard and been interested! With such encouragement, Honora proceeded swimmingly, and had nearly arrived at her hero’s ransom, through nearly a mile of field paths, only occasionally interrupted by grunts from her auditor at farming not like his own, when crossing a narrow foot-bridge across a clear stream, they stood before a farmhouse, timbered and chimneyed much like the Holt, but with new sashes displacing the old lattice.
‘Oh! Humfrey, how could you bring me to see such havoc? I never suspected you would allow it.’
‘It was without asking leave; an attention to his bride; and now they want an abatement for improvements! Whew!’
‘You should fine him for the damage he has done!’
‘I can’t be hard on him, he is more or less of an ass, and a good sort of fellow, very good to his labourers; he drove Jem Hurd to the infirmary himself when he broke his arm. No, he is not a man to be hard upon.’
‘You can’t be hard on any one. Now that window really irritates my mind.’
‘Now Sarah walked down to call on the bride, and came home full of admiration at the place being so lightsome and cheerful. Which of you two ladies am I to believe?’
‘You ought to make it a duty to improve the general taste! Why don’t you build a model farm-house, and let me make the design?’
‘Ay, when I want one that nobody can live in. Come, it will be breakfast time.’
‘Are not you going to have an interview?’
‘No, I only wanted to take a survey of the alterations; two windows, smart door, iron fence, pulled down old barn, talks of another. Hm!’
‘So he will get his reduction?’
‘If he builds the barn. I shall try to see his wife; she has not been brought up to farming, and whether they get on or not, all depends on the way she may take it up. What are you looking at?’
‘That lovely wreath of Traveller’s Joy.’
‘Do you want it?’
‘No, thank you, it is too beautiful where it is.’
‘There is a piece, going from tree to tree, by the Hiltonbury Gate, as thick as my arm; I just saved it when West was going to cut it down with the copsewood.’
‘Well, you really are improving at last!’
‘I thought you would never let me hear the last of it; besides, there was a thrush’s nest in it.’
By