With these words the girl made a spring on the hasp of the padlock, and then got easily over the gate.
"Can"t you do that, cousin?" whispered Milly to me, with an impatient nudge. "I _wish_ you"d try."
"No, dear--come away, Milly," and I began to withdraw.
"Lookee, la.s.s, "twill be an ill day"s work for thee when I tell the Governor," said Milly, addressing the girl, who stood on a log of timber at the other side, regarding us with a sullen composure.
"We"ll be over in spite o" you," cried Milly.
"You lie!" answered she.
"And why not, huzzy?" demanded my cousin, who was less incensed at the affront than I expected. All this time I was urging Milly in vain to come away.
"Yon la.s.s is no wild cat, like thee--that"s why," said the st.u.r.dy portress.
"If I cross, I"ll give you a knock," said Milly.
"And I"ll gi" thee another," she answered, with a vicious wag of the head.
"Come, Milly, _I"ll_ go if _you_ don"t," I said.
"But we must not be beat," whispered she, vehemently, catching my arm; "and ye _shall_ get over, and _see_ what I will gi" her!"
"I"ll _not_ get over."
"Then I"ll break the door, for ye _shall_ come through," exclaimed Milly, kicking the stout paling with her ponderous boot.
"Purr it, purr it, purr it!" cried the la.s.s in the red petticoat with a grin.
"Do you know who this lady is?" cried Milly, suddenly.
"She is a prettier la.s.s than thou," answered Beauty.
"She"s _my_ cousin Maud--Miss Ruthyn of Knowl--and she"s a deal richer than the Queen; and the Governor"s taking care of her; and he"ll make old Pegtop bring you to reason."
The girl eyed me with a sulky listlessness, a little inquisitively, I thought.
"See if he don"t," threatened Milly.
"You positively _must_ come," I said, drawing her away with me.
"Well, shall we come in?" cried Milly, trying a last summons.
"You"ll not come in that much," she answered, surlily, measuring an infinitesimal distance on her finger with her thumb, which she pinched against it, the gesture ending with a snap of defiance, and a smile that showed her fine teeth.
"I"ve a mind to shy a stone at you," shouted Milly.
"Faire away; I"ll shy wi" ye as long as ye like, la.s.s; take heed o"
yerself;" and Beauty picked up a round stone as large as a cricket ball.
With difficulty I got Milly away without an exchange of missiles, and much disgusted at my want of zeal and agility.
"Well, come along, cousin, I know an easy way by the river, when it"s low,"
answered Milly. "She"s a brute--is not she?"
As we receded, we saw the girl slowly wending her way towards the old thatched cottage, which showed its gable from the side of a little rugged eminence embowered in spreading trees, and dangling and twirling from its string on the end of her finger the key for which a battle had so nearly been fought.
The stream was low enough to make our flank movement round the end of the paling next it quite easy, and so we pursued our way, and Milly"s equanimity returned, and our ramble grew very pleasant again.
Our path lay by the river bank, and as we proceeded, the dwarf timber was succeeded by grander trees, which crowded closer and taller, and, at last, the scenery deepened into solemn forest, and a sudden sweep in the river revealed the beautiful ruin of a steep old bridge, with the fragments of a gate-house on the farther side.
"Oh, Milly darling!" I exclaimed, "what a beautiful drawing this would make! I should so like to make a sketch of it."
"So it would. _Make_ a picture--_do_!--here"s a stone that"s pure and flat to sit upon, and you look very tired. Do make it, and I"ll sit by you."
"Yes, Milly, I _am_ tired, a little, and I _will_ sit down; but we must wait for another day to make the picture, for we have neither pencil nor paper. But it is much too pretty to be lost; so let us come again to-morrow."
"To-morrow be hanged! you"ll do it to-day, bury-me-wick, but you _shall_; I"m wearying to see you make a picture, and I"ll fetch your conundrums out o" your drawer, for do"t you shall."
CHAPTER x.x.xIV
_ZAMIEL_
It was all vain my remonstrating. She vowed that by crossing the stepping-stones close by she could, by a short cut, reach the house, and return with my pencils and block-book in a quarter of an hour. Away then, with many a jump and fling, scampered Milly"s queer white stockings and navvy boots across the irregular and precarious stepping-stones, over which I dared not follow her; so I was fain to return to the stone so "pure and flat," on which I sat, enjoying the grand sylvan solitude, the dark background and the grey bridge mid-way, so tall and slim, across whose ruins a sunbeam glimmered, and the gigantic forest trees that slumbered round, opening here and there in dusky vistas, and breaking in front into detached and solemn groups. It was the setting of a dream of romance.
It would have been the very spot in which to read a volume of German folk-lore, and the darkening colonnades and silent nooks of the forest seemed already haunted with the voices and shadows of those charming elves and goblins.
As I sat here enjoying the solitude and my fancies among the low branches of the wood, at my right I heard a crashing, and saw a squat broad figure in a stained and tattered military coat, and loose short trousers, one limb of which flapped about a wooden leg. He was forcing himself through. His face was rugged and wrinkled, and tanned to the tint of old oak; his eyes black, beadlike, and fierce, and a shock of sooty hair escaped from under his battered wide-awake nearly to his shoulders. This forbidding-looking person came stumping and jerking along toward me, whisking his stick now and then viciously in the air, and giving his fell of hair a short shake, like a wild bull preparing to attack.
I stood up involuntarily with a sense of fear and surprise, almost fancying I saw in that wooden-legged old soldier, the forest demon who haunted Der Freischutz.
So he approached shouting--
"Hollo! you--how came you here? Dost "eer?"
And he drew near panting, and sometimes tugging angrily in his haste at his wooden leg, which sunk now and then deeper than was convenient in the sod.
This exertion helped to anger him, and when he halted before me, his dark face smirched with smoke and dust, and the nostrils of his flat drooping nose expanded and quivered as he panted, like the gills of a fish; an angrier or uglier face it would not be easy to fancy.
"Ye"ll all come when ye like, will ye? and do nout but what pleases yourselves, won"t you? And who"rt thou? Dost "eer--who _are_ ye, I say; and what the deil seek ye in the woods here? Come, bestir thee!"
If his wide mouth and great tobacco-stained teeth, his scowl, and loud discordant tones were intimidating, they were also extremely irritating.
The moment my spirit was roused, my courage came.
"I am Miss Ruthyn of Knowl, and Mr. Silas Ruthyn, your master, is my uncle."