"_Chapeaux bas!_" the Colonel murmured, throwing Jane into the most unlady-like fit of giggles.
"Where did it come from?" Bob asked later. He was riding with her a hundred yards behind the buggy that held the Colonel and Dale, the old rifle sticking out at the back like a bean pole.
"A heaven-sent deliverer," she quietly answered.
"I appreciate that," he said, in a more serious vein.
Her very reticence told him how deeply she had been shocked, and that it was a subject to be avoided, for the present, at least. Bob was quick to divine situations. For the moment, then, he drifted into another channel, saying with a laugh that could hardly have been called spontaneous:
"If he"s an example of celestial types I"ll--"
"Lead a different life?" she interrupted, smiling.
"No such plagiarism, thank you," he retorted. "I was about to say something else!"
"You"ve been giving Bip some most unfatherly theories about that place, by the way," she observed. "He has confided in me."
"Bip," Bob quietly remarked, with an oozing pride in the subject of his six-year-old son, "has reached the age of embarra.s.sing questions."
"And is being fed unpardonable answers," she said. "Between old Aunt Timmie"s declaration that it"ll smell like heliotrope and taste like possum the year "round, and Uncle Zack swearing it"s just a big race track where everybody"s horse will win, and doubtless the Colonel"s word for it that it"s a perpetual spring flowing with ice-cold mint juleps, I quite despair of the child"s salvation. How have you been picturing it?"
"I pa.s.sed that on," he ruefully admitted. "You and Ann can tackle it."
"I wasn"t home this afternoon at his lesson time. Did he miss me?"
"Miss you! Ann says he went to your room about five o"clock, and then came running to her saying something had happened to you. She was quite a while getting him settled. And then, much shame to us, we realized you"d not got back. I drove over to the Colonel"s really expecting you had stopped there." After a brief pause he asked: "Was that fellow much unruly? I wouldn"t disturb you about it, but think you ought to tell us."
"About five o"clock," the girl mused. "That"s most interesting, Bob.
I"ve told you, haven"t I, that the child is tremendously psychic?"
"I don"t know just what psychic is," he laughed. "It sounds like medicine." And then repeated his other question: "Was Tusk much unruly?"
"Oh, no," she lightly answered. "Has Mr. McElroy been up in the hills today?"
"There"s the laziest chap in clothes," he declared. "I don"t believe he"s done a lick of work since he came--and that"s two months ago!
Personally, I don"t care. He"s bully company, and I"m not rabid for that d.i.n.ky little railroad, anyhow."
"It"ll make all the difference to the mountaineers" future," she said.
"Quite right," he agreed, "and cut through my best pasture."
"Not your best pasture, surely!"
"My dear Jane, don"t you know that when a railroad kills your cow it"s always your best cow? Pastures accordingly! Still," he added with a wry look, "the people"s good comes first, doesn"t it! That"s the proper motto!" And suddenly he began to laugh. "Brent and your new friend up there in the buggy ought to be a combination to keep the Colonel amused for awhile! What do you think?"
She, too, had to laugh. The mental picture of the immaculate, devil-may-care Brent McElroy--sent down in behalf of his father"s corporation to develop coal fields, to run a line for the little railroad which Bob had just characterized as "d.i.n.ky," and otherwise to put into practice college experiences not included in its curriculum--chumming with this new child of nature, threw them again into peals of mirth.
"I wish someone would urge him on faster, anyhow," she said, more seriously now.
"Why don"t you try," he suggested.
They had turned into the lane, a mile of cool meanderings that led from the pike to hospitable Arden, and for awhile rode in contemplative silence. Faintly glimmering lights, yellow between the trees, from time to time twinkled a welcome from the cla.s.sic old house. Through four generations of the Colonel"s family this place had stood; occasionally being altered to meet the requirements of comfort, but its stately colonial front and thick brick walls remained intact. And for four generations the neighborhood had looked at it with deep respect.
Valiantly had it held the fortification against encroaching modernism, yet by slow degrees surrendering. A telephone had taken the place of the more picturesque negro on a mule; the rural delivery of mail had made another breach in the walls of seclusion. Only an automobile the Colonel would not essay, declaring himself too much a lover of horseflesh to offend his thoroughbreds with this; but when a touring car occasionally penetrated as far as Arden, it was noticeable that his horses viewed it with less suspicion than their master. Fortunately for the old gentleman"s peace of mind such a form of vehicle remained a novelty in this section of Kentucky. The pike out of Buckville was good for a few miles only, and then came almost impa.s.sable stretches of unworked roads before connecting with those beautiful highways which wind and interwind through the creamier centers of the State--a condition that did not invite motorists.
Now as they drew near to the vine and tree entangled yard, the ma.s.sive white columns stood out through the gloom to meet them. From some of the outlying cabins, former quarters of slaves, came low, minor singing of present day field hands. However many times Bob approached this place, his thoughts reverted to the evenings--half a score of years behind him--when he would ride across from his own farm to court the Colonel"s daughter. He was thinking of this, of its sweetness to him then, of its blessings to him now, and quietly said:
"When you marry I hope you will be as happy as I am."
"Existence is satisfying enough with you and Ann and Bip," she lightly replied, "unless you want to get rid of me!"
He flushed, and turned almost angrily.
"There, I take it back," she said in tones as soft as the night. "It was horrid! You"ve been so splendid in giving me a home--although I do sometimes feel guilty for not being with the Colonel after all he"s done! Yet, were I there, I couldn"t give nearly as much time to Bip.
Nothing can--"
"I wish you"d chop that," he growled. "You talk like you"re under an obligation, when you know darn well--"
"I was saying," she looked up brightly, "that nothing can take its place, not even your suggested slavery; and there isn"t a man in the world whom I wouldn"t despise for asking me. I just don"t feel a bit like it!"
"Lord help us!" he cried. "When will D. Cupid, Esquire, discover this pristine hunting ground? You"ve a blue ribbon surprise in store for you, that"s all!"
"Perhaps Mr. D. Dawson will spring it," she laughed.
"Or the _blase_ B. McElroy," he suggested.
She made a grimace at this.
Lucy whinnied, and they saw the Colonel and Dale waiting at the bottom step.
"Come in for awhile," the old gentleman urged.
"Now, Colonel," Bob said reproachfully, "do you know anything of Ann"s temper when under suspense?"
"I see, sir," his eyes wrinkled into a merry smile, "that you"re as much of a n.i.g.g.e.r about the house over there as I was when she honored me by living here. Go home to your tyrant, sir, but come over, all of you, tomorrow for dinner."
Lucy, now free of her burden, crossed to the silent but watchful mountaineer and nestled her nose in his arm. It was an evidence of affection which touched them all.
As Bob and Jane were leaving, in the buggy this time, they heard the Colonel ask Uncle Zack if Mr. McElroy were home, and that old darky of diminutive stature answer:
"No, sah, Cunnel, he done rid off harf hour ago."
"Maybe," Jane presently suggested, when they were well on their way, "he"s gone over to our house!"
"Maybe," Bob replied, wondering where of late the young engineer had been spending his evenings.
"Do you know," she said irrelevantly, after a silence of several minutes, "I believe a man in whom animals show implicit faith is to be trusted."
"In this particular case, perhaps," he agreed, for it just so happened that he, too, now was thinking of Dale. "Yet old Tom Hewlet has a lot of dogs which fawn all over him!"