Presently, "Beloved," said Hugh (he wavered between this and "Purple Maid" as names for Hildegarde, wholly ignoring her own name), "Beloved, there is an angel near me. Did you know it?"
"There might well be angels in this place," said Hildegarde, looking at the boy, whose wide blue eyes wore a far-away, spiritual look.
"I don"t mean just here in this spot. I mean floating through the air at night. I hear him, almost every night, playing on his harp of gold."
"Dear Hugh, tell me a little more clearly."
"Sometimes the moon shines in at my window and wakes me up, you know.
Then I get up and look out, for it is so like heaven, only silver instead of gold; and then--then I hear the angel play."
"What does it sound like?"
"Sometimes like a voice, sometimes like birds. And then it sobs and cries, and dies away, and then it sounds out again, like "blow up the trumpet in the new moon," and goes up, up, up, oh, so high! Do you think that is when the angel goes up to the gate, and then is sorry for people here, and comes back again? I have thought of that."
"My bonny Sir Hugh!" said Hildegarde gently. "Would you care less about the lovely music if it was not really made by an angel? if it was a person like you and me, who had the power and the love to make such beautiful sounds?"
The child"s face lightened. "Was it you?" he said in an awe-struck voice.
"Not I, dear, but my cousin, my cousin Jack, who plays the violin most beautifully, Hugh. He practises every night, up in the garret at Roseholme, because--only think! his uncle does not like to hear him."
"The ostrich gentleman!" cried Hugh, bursting into merry laughter. "Is it the ostrich gentleman?"
Hildegarde tried to look grave, with moderate success. "My cousin is tall," she said, "but you must not call names, little lad!"
"Never any more will I call him it," cried Hugh, "if he is really the angel. But he does look like one. Must we go?" he asked wistfully, as Hildegarde rose, and held out her hand to him.
"Yes, dear, I am going to the village, you know. I thought we would come this way because I wanted you to see the Ladies" Garden. Now we must go across the meadow, and round by the back of Roseholme to find the road again."
They crossed the brook by some mossy stepping-stones, and climbed the dark slope on the further side, thick-set with ferns and dusky hemlock-trees. Then came the wall, and then the sudden break into the sunny meadow. Hugh threw off his grave mood with the shadow, and danced and leaped in the sunshine.
"Shall I run with Merlin?" he asked. "You have never seen us run, Beloved!"
Hildegarde nodded, and with a shout and a bark the two were off. A pretty sight they were! the boy"s golden head bobbing up and down in full energy of running, the dog bounding beside him with long, graceful leaps. They breasted the long, low hill, then swept round in a wide circle, and came rushing past Hildegarde, breathless and radiant. This was more than our heroine could bear. With a merry "Hark, follow!" she started in pursuit, and was soon running abreast of the others, with head thrown back, eyes sparkling, cheeks glowing.
"Hurrah!" cried Hugh.
"Hurrah it is!" echoed the Purple Maid.
"Wow, _wow_!" panted Merlin, ecstatically.
As the chase swept round the hill the second time, two gentlemen came out of the woods, and paused in amazement at the sight. Hildegarde"s long hair had come down, and was flying in the wind; her two companions were frantic with delight, and bobbed and leaped, shouting, beside her.
So bright was the sunshine, so vivid in colour, so full of life the three runners, they seemed actually to flash as they moved.
"Harry Monmouth!" cried Colonel Ferrers. "Here is a girl who knows how to run. Look at that action! It"s poetry, sir! it"s rhythm and metre and melody.
""Nor lighter does the swallow skim Along the smooth lake"s airy rim."
After her, Master Milksop, and let me see what your long legs can do!"
Jack Ferrers needed no second bidding, and though his running was not graceful, being rather a hurling himself forward, as if he were catapult and missile in one, he got over the ground with great rapidity, and caught his cousin up as she came flying round the meadow for the third time. Hildegarde stopped short, in great confusion.
"Jack!" she faltered, panting. "How--where did you come from? You must have started up out of the earth."
Turning to capture her flying tresses, she caught sight of Colonel Ferrers, and her confusion was redoubled.
"Oh!" she cried, the crimson mounting from her cheeks to her forehead, bathing her in a fiery tide. "Oh! how could you? He--he will be _sure_ I am a tomboy now."
"Nothing of the kind, my fair Atalanta!" exclaimed the Colonel, who had the ears of a fox. He advanced, beaming, and flourishing his stick.
"Nothing of the kind!" he repeated. "He is delighted, on the contrary, to see a young creature who can make the free movements of nature with nature"s grace and activity. Harry Monmouth! Miss Hildegarde, I wish I were twenty years younger, and I would challenge you to a race myself!"
CHAPTER XI.
A CALL AND A CONSPIRACY.
"AND you really seriously intend pa.s.sing the winter here?" asked Miss Leonie Loftus.
This young lady had come to make a parting call at Braeside. It was near the end of August, and three months of country life were all that she could possibly endure, and she was going with her mother to Long Branch, and thence to Saratoga.
"You really mean it?" she repeated, looking incredulous.
"a.s.suredly!" replied Hildegarde, smiling. "Winter and summer, and winter again, Miss Loftus. This is our home now, and we have become attached to it even in these few months."
"Oh, you look at it in a sentimental light," said Miss Loftus, with a disagreeable smile. "The domestic hearth, and that sort of thing. Rather old-fashioned, isn"t it, Miss Grahame?"
"Possibly; I have never thought of it as a matter of fashion," was the quiet reply.
"And how do you expect to kill time in your wilderness?" was the next question.
"Kill him?" Hildegarde laughed. "We never can catch him, even for a moment, Miss Loftus. He flies faster at Braeside than even in New York.
I sometimes think there are only two days in the week, Monday and Sat.u.r.day."
"I hear you have a sewing-school in the village. I suppose that will take up some time."
"I hope so! The children seem interested, and it is a great pleasure to me. Then, too, I expect to join some of Miss Wayland"s cla.s.ses in the fall, and that will keep me busy, of course."
"Miss Wayland, over in Dorset? Why, it is three miles off."
"And even if so? I hear it is a delightful school, and Miss Wayland herself is very lovely. Do you know her?"
"No!" said Miss Loftus, who had been "dying" as she would have put it, to get into Miss Wayland"s school three years before. "A country boarding-school isn"t _my_ idea of education."
"Oh!" said Hildegarde civilly. "But to go back for a moment, Miss Loftus. Your speaking of the children reminds me to ask you, is little Hugh going with you to Long Branch?"
Miss Loftus coloured. "Oh, dear, no!" she replied. "A child at such places, you know, is out of the question. He is to be sent to school. He is going next week."