'I am not much of a steersman in a craft like this,' said George laughing, 'but my hand is stronger than yours, and I can save you from wreck.'
Phoebe looked slyly round, and her great blue eyes peeped timidly up in the fisherman's face. 'Thank you so much, George. I shall never, never forget your great kindness.'
'There's nothing in it,' said the blunt fisherman; 'I'd do the same for any girl.'
'I know how polite you are,' continued Phoebe; then putting her hand on the reins, 'I don't think you need drive quite so fast, George; I don't want to get the horse hot, or Isaac will scold.'
'A jog trot like this will hurt no horse.'
'Perhaps you want to get back. I am sorry I have taken you away. Of course you have pressing business. No doubt you want to get to the Ray.' A little twinkling sly look up accompanied this speech. De Witt waxed red.
'I'm in no hurry, myself,' he said.
'How delightful, George, nor am I.'
The young man could not resist stealing a glance at the little figure beside him, so neat, so trim, so fresh. He was a humble fellow, and never dreamed himself to be on a level with such a refined damsel. Glory was the girl for him, rough and ready, who could row a boat, and wade in the mud. He loved Glory. She was a sturdy girl, a splendid girl, he said to himself. Phoebe was altogether different, she belonged to another sphere, he could but look and admire—and worship perhaps. She dazzled him, but he could not love her. She was none of his sort, he said to himself.
'A penny for your thoughts!' said Phoebe roguishly. He coloured. 'I know what you were thinking of. You were thinking of me.'
De Witt's colour deepened. 'I was sure it was so. Now I insist on knowing what you were thinking of me.'
'Why,' answered George with a clumsy effort at gallantry, 'I thought what a beauty you were.'
'Oh, George, not when compared with Mehalah.'
De Witt fidgeted in his seat.
'Mehalah is quite of another kind, you see, Miss.'
'I'm no Miss, if you please. Call me Phoebe. It is snugger.'
'She's more—' he puzzled his head for an explanation of his meaning. 'She is more boaty than you are—'
'Phoebe.'
'Than you are,' with hesitation, 'Phoebe.'
'I know;—strides about like a man, smokes and swears, and chews tobacco.'
'No, no, you mistake me, M——.'
'Phoebe.'
'You mistake me, Phoebe.'
'I have often wondered, George, what attracted you to Mehalah. To be sure, it will be a very convenient thing for you to have a wife who can swab the deck, and tar the boat and calk her. But then I should have fancied a man would have liked something different from a—sort of a man-woman—a jack tar or Ben Brace in petticoats, to sit by his fireside, and to take to his heart. But of course it is not for me to speak on such matters, only I somehow can't help thinking about you, George, and it worries me so, I lie awake at nights, and wonder and wonder, whether you will be happy. She has the temper of a tom cat, I'm told. She blazes up like gunpowder.'
De Witt fidgeted yet more uneasily. He did not like this conversation.
'Then she is half a gipsy. So you mayn't be troubled with her long. She'll keep with you as long as she likes, and then up with her pack, on with her wading boots. Yo heave hoy! and away she goes.'
De Witt, in his irritation, gave the horse a stinging switch across the flank, and he started forward. A little white hand was laid, not now on the reins, but on his hand.
'I'm so sorry, George my friend; after your kindness, I have teased you unmercifully, but I can't help it. When I think of Mehalah in her wading boots and jersey and cap, it makes me laugh—and yet when I think of her and you together, I'm ashamed to say I feel as if I could cry. George!' she suddenly ejaculated.
'Yes, Miss!'
'Phoebe, not Miss, please.'
'I wasn't going to say Miss.'
'What were you going to say?'
'Why, mate, yes, mate! I get into the habit of it at sea,' he apologised.
'I like it. Call me mate. We are on a cruise together, now, you and I, and I trust myself entirely in your hands, captain.'
'What was it you fared to ask, mate, when you called "George"?'
'Oh, this. The wind is cold, and I want my cloak and hood, they are down somewhere behind the seat in the cart. If I take the reins will you lean over and get them?'
'You won't upset the trap?'
'No.' He brought up the cloak and adjusted it round Phoebe's shoulders, and drew the hood over her bonnet, she would have it to cover her head.
'Doesn't it make me a fright?' she asked, looking into his face.
'Nothing can do that,' he answered readily.
'Well, push it back again, I feel as if it made me one, and that is as bad. There now. Thank you, mate! Take the reins again.'
'Halloo! we are in the wrong road. We have turned towards the Strood.'
'Dear me! so we have. That is the horse's doing. I let him go where he liked, and he went down the turn. I did not notice it. All I thought of was holding up his head lest he should stumble.'
De Witt endeavoured to turn the horse.
'Oh don't, don't attempt it!' exclaimed Phoebe. 'The lane is so narrow, that we shall be upset. Better drive on, and round by the Barrow Farm, there is not half-a-mile difference.'
'A good mile, mate. However, if you wish it.'
'I do wish it. This is a pleasant drive, is it not, George?'
'Very pleasant,' he said, and to himself added, 'too pleasant.'
So they chatted on till they reached the farm called Waldegraves, and there Phoebe alighted.
'I shall not be long,' she said, at the door, turning and giving him a look which might mean a great deal or nothing, according to the character of the woman who cast it.
When she came up she said, 'There, George, I cut my business as short as possible. Now what do you say to showing me the Decoy? I have never seen it, but I have heard a great deal of it, and I cannot understand how it is contrived.'
'It is close here,' said De Witt.
'I know it is, the little stream in this dip feeds it. Will you show me the Decoy?'
'But your foot—Phoebe. You have sprained your ankle.'
'If I may lean on your arm I think I can limp down there. It is not very far.'
'And then what about the horse?'
'Oh! the boy here will hold it, or put it up in the stable. Run and call him, George.'
'I could drive you down there, I think, at least within a few yards of the place, and if we take the boy he can hold the horse by the gate.'
'I had rather hobble down on your arm, George.'
'Then come along, mate.'
The Decoy was a sheet of water covering perhaps an acre and a half in the midst of a wood. The clay that had been dug out for its construction had been heaped up, forming a little hill crowned by a group of willows. No one who has seen this ill-used tree in its mutilated condition, cut down to a stump which bristles with fresh withes, has any idea what a stately and beautiful tree it is when allowed to grow naturally. The old untrimmed willow is one of the noblest of our native trees. It may be seen thus in well-timbered parts of Suffolk, and occasionally in Essex. The pond was fringed with rushes, except at the horns, where the nets and screens stood for the trapping of the birds. From