"I reckon," said she, dogmatically, and nodding that wise little head, "that this is Old England--the England my ancestors left in search of liberty, and that's a plant that ranks before cherry-trees, I rather think. No, I couldn't have gone; I'd have stayed and killed a hundred tyrants. But I wouldn't have chopped their heads off" (to Vizard, very confidentially); "I'd have poisoned 'em.""Don't, Miss Gale!" said Fanny; "you make my blood run cold."As it was quite indifferent to Miss Gale whether she made Miss Dover's blood run cold or not, she paid no attention, but proceeded with her reflections. "The only thing that spoils it is the smoke of those engines, reminding one that in two hours you or I, or that pastoral old hermit there in a smock-frock, and a pipe--and oh, what bad tobacco!--can be wrenched out of this paradise, and shrieked and rattled off and flung into that wilderness of brick called London, where the hearts are as hard as the pavement--except those that have strayed there from Barfordshire."The witch changed face and tone and everything like lightning, and threw this last in with a sudden grace and sweetness that contrasted strangely with her usual sharpness.
Zoe heard, and turned round to look down on her with a smile as sweet as honey. "I hardly think that is a drawback," said she, amicably. "Does not being able to leave a place make it sweeter? for then we are free in it, you know. But I must own there _is_ a drawback--the boys' faces, Miss Gale, they _are_ so pasty.""Indeed!" says Rhoda, pricking up her ears.
"Form no false hopes of an epidemic. This is not an infirmary in a wood, Miss Gale," said Vizard. "My sister is a great colorist, and pitches her expectations too high. I dare say their faces are not more pasty than usual; but this is a show place, and looks like a garden; so Zoe wants the boys to be poppies and pansies, and the girls roses and lilies.
Which--they--are--not."
"All I know is," said Zoe, resolutely, "that in Islip the children's faces are rosy, but here they are pasty--dreadfully pasty.""Well, you have got a box of colors. We will come up some day and tint all the putty-faced boys." It was to Miss Dover the company owed this suggestion.
"No," said Rhoda. "Their faces are my business; I'll soon fix them. She didn't say putty-faced; she said pasty.""Grateful to you for the distinction, Miss Gale," said Zoe.
Miss Gale proceeded to insist that boys are not pasty-faced without a cause, and it is to be sought lower down. "Ah!" cried she, suddenly, "is that a cherry that I see before me? No, a million. They steal them and eat them by the thousand, and that's why. Tell the truth, now, everybody--they eat the stones."Miss Vizard said she did not know, but thought them capable.
"Children know nothing," said Vizard. "Please address all future scientific inquiries to an 'old inhabitant.' Miss Gale, the country abounds in curiosities; but, among those curiosities, even Science, with her searching eye, has never yet discovered an unswallowed cherry stone in Hillstoke village.""What! not on the trees?"
"She is too much for me. Drive on, coachman, and drown her replies in the clatter of hoofs. Round by the Stag, Zoe. I am uneasy till I have locked Fair Science up. I own it is a mean way of getting rid of a troublesome disputant.""Now I think it is quite fair," said Fanny. "She shuts you up, and so you lock her up.""'Tis well," said Vizard, dolefully. "Now I am No. 3--I who used to retort and keep girls in their places--with difficulty. Here is Ned Severne, too, reduced to silence. Why, where's your tongue? Miss Gale, you would hardly believe it, this is our chatterbox. We have been days and days, and could not get in a word edgewise for him. But now all he can do is to gaze on you with canine devotion, and devour the honey--Ibeg pardon, the lime-juice--of your lips. I warn you of one thing, though; there is such a thing as a threatening silence. He is evidently booking every word you utter; and he will deliver it all for his own behind your back some fine day."With this sort of banter and small talk, not worth deluging the reader dead with, they passed away the time till they reached the farm.
"You stay here," said Vizard--"all but Zoe. Tom and George, get the things out." The grooms had already jumped out of the dog-cart, and two were at the horses' heads. The step-ladder was placed for Zoe, and Vizard asked her to go in and see the rooms were all right, while he took Miss Gale to the stables. He did so, and showed her a spirited Galloway and a steady old horse, and told her she could ride one and drive the other all over the country.
She thanked him, but said her attention would be occupied by the two villages first, and she should make him a report in forty-eight hours.
"As you please," said he. "You are terribly in earnest.""What should I be worth if I was not?'
"Well, come and see your shell; and you must tell me if we have forgotten anything essential to your comfort."She followed him, and he led her to a wing of the farmhouse comparatively new, and quite superior to the rest. Here were two good sunny rooms, with windows looking south and west, and they were both papered with a white watered pattern, and a pretty French border of flowers at the upper part, to look gay and cheerful.
Zoe was in the bedroom, arranging things with a pretty air of hospitality. It was cheerily fitted up, and a fire of beech logs blazing.