CATS.
With the departure of the more stirring member of the company,
Miss Wych had subsided; and in that state could feel that she
was tired. She sat in the doorway of the mill. It was after
sundown; still, bright, sweet, and fair, as after sundown in
June can be. The sky all aglow still with cooler lights; in
the depth of the hollow the morsel of a lake had a dark
shining of its own, like a black diamond, or a green jasper,
with the light off. Mrs. Saddler was gone up the hill with
Phoebe, to get her share of hospitality. Mr. Falkirk had
supped on the remains of the strawberries and milk, and would
have nothing more. Guardian and ward were alone. The stillness
of Summer air floated down from the tree-tops, and did not
stir the lake.
'Wych, how do you like seeking your fortune? I am curious to
be informed?'
'Thank you, sir. The finding to-day has gone so far beyond my
expectations, that I am willing to rest the pursuit till to-
morrow.'
'Fortune and you clasp hands rather roughly at first setting
out! But what do you think of the train she has brought with
her in these seven days?'
'What train, sir?'
'I asked you what you thought of it. Answer straight like a
good child.'
'It's a wonderful train, if it has made a good child of me,'
she answered, with a half laugh. 'Do you mean of people, or
events, sir?'
'The events are left behind, child; the people follow.'
'Will they?' said Wych Hazel. 'Dr. Maryland and all? Mr.
Kingsland might stay behind. Nobody will ever want him.'
'All the rest have your good leave!' said Mr. Falkirk, with an
expression--Wych could not tell what sort of an expression, it
was so complicated. 'Do you think it is an easy office I have
to fill?' he went on.
'Maybe not, sir. I thought you seemed very ready to give it
up. I have felt like stray baggage to-day.'
'How do you suppose I am to guard you from so many enemies?'
'Ready to send me round the country, with the first knight-
errant that starts up?' said the girl, in an aggrieved voice.
'And if _I_ had proposed such a thing!'
'My dear,' said Mr. Falkirk, 'you would have been perfectly
safe at Dr. Maryland's. And much better off than in this old
mill. I am not sure but I ought to have made you go.'
'What do you mean by "enemies," just now, Mr. Falkirk?'
'There's an old proverb,' said Mr. Falkirk with a quirl of his
lips, 'that "a cat may look at a king." And no doubt it is a
queen's liability. But how am I to guard you from the teeth
and the claws?'
'My dear sir, very few cats are dangerous. I am not much
afraid of being scratched.'
'Have you any idea how many of your grimalkins are coming to
Chickaree this Summer?'
'No, sir. The more the better; for then they will have full
occupation for their claws without me.'
'Ah, my dear,' said Mr. Falkirk, 'don't you know that the cat
gets within springing distance before the claws are shown?'
'Yes, sir; but you are presupposing a stationary mouse. Pray,
how many fierce, soft-pawed, sharp-clawed monsters preside
over your ideas at present?'
'Six or seven,' said Mr. Falkirk with the utmost gravity.
'Fortune has come upon you suddenly, Wych.'
It was very pretty, the way she laughed and flushed.
'They are not all troubled with whiskers, sir--my kind medical
friend, for instance.'
'You think so! Pray, in your judgment, what is he, then?'
'Not a cat, sir, and yet no lion. Mr. Rollo calls him a
"specimen." '
'Of what?' (dryly enough.)
'I rebuked him for the expression, sir, but did not inquire
its meaning.'
'Do you suppose that the English traveller, Mr. Shenstone,
will come to Chickaree this Summer for the purpose of
inspecting the Morton manufactories?'
'Let us 'ope not, sir. Mr. Morton will, for his home is just
there. He told me so.'
'And young Nightingale has it in his mind to spend a good deal
of the Summer at his aunt's, Mrs. Lasalle's; for he told me
so. I saw him in town.'
'Mr. Falkirk, you are not a bit like yourself to-day. Are all
men cats, sir?' (very gravely.)
'My dear,' said Mr. Falkirk, 'most men are, when they see a
Chickaree mouse in their path!'
'Poor little me!' said Wych Hazel, laughing. She was silent a
minute, then went cheerfully on. 'I know, Mr. Falkirk, I shall
depend upon you! We're in a fairy tale, you remember, sir, and
you must be the three dogs.'
'Will you trust me, Wych, when I take such a shape to your
eyes?'
'Do you remember?' said she, not heeding. 'The first one with
eyes like saucers, looking--so! And the next with eyes like
mill wheels--so! And the next, with eyes like the full moon!--'
At which point Miss Hazel's own eyes were worth looking at.
'You do not answer me, I observe. Never mind. A woman's
understanding, I have frequently observed, develops like a
prophecy.'
The night in the mill was better, on the whole, than it
promised. No sound awoke Wych Hazel, till little messengers of
light came stealing through every crack and knot hole of the
mill, and a many-toed Dorking near by had six times proclaimed
himself the first cock in creation, let the other be who he
would!
To open her eyes was to be awake, with Wych Hazel; and softly
she stepped along the floor and out on the dewy path to the
lake side; and there stood splashing her hands in the water
and the water over her face, with intense satisfaction. The
lake was perfectly still, disturbed only by the dip of a king-
fisher or the spring of a trout. She stood there musing over
the last day and the last week, starting various profound
questions, but not stopping to run them down,--then went
meandering back to the mill again. On her way she came to a
spot in the grass where there was a sprinkling of robin's
feathers. Wych Hazel stopped short looking at them, smiling to
herself, then suddenly stopped and chose out three or four;
and went back with quick steps to the mill.
Bread and tea were had in the open air, with the seasoning of
the June morning. The stage coach rumbled off by the road it
had come, bearing with it the two countrywomen, and leaving a
pile of baggage for Chickaree. The miller came down and set
his mill agoing, excusing himself to his guests by saying that
there was a good lot of corn to be ground and the people would
be along for it. So the mill became no longer a place of rest,
and Miss Hazel and her guardian were driven out into the woods
by the rumble and dust and jar of machinery. Do what they
would, it was a long morning to twelve o'clock; when the mill
ceased its rumble and the miller went home to his dinner, and
the weary and warm loiterers came back to the shade of the
mill floor. Then the sound of wheels was heard at last; the
first that had broken the solitude that day; and presently at
the mill door Rollo presented himself, looking as if sunshine
agreed with him. He shook hands with Mr. Falkirk, but gave
Wych Hazel his old stately salutation.
'I could not come sooner,' he said. 'I did my best; but it is
thirty miles instead of twenty-five. How was the night?'
'Sadly oblivious and uneventful!'
'Mine wasn't! for I was getting dinner for you in my dreams
all night long. Being dependent on other people's resources,
you see--However, I had a good little friend to help me!'
'What carriage have you brought for us, Rollo?'
'Dr. Maryland's rockaway, sir; and the miller's wagon for the
trunks. To get anything else would have made much more delay.
Is my friend Phoebe here?'
'She will be soon. It is dinner-time in the mill. What do you
want, Mr. Rollo?'
'Three words and a little assistance.'
He went off, and in a little while was back again, accompanied
by Phoebe and plates and glasses; and the two went on to set
forth the dinner, which he drew from a great basket that had
come in the rockaway. All this was done, and order given at
the same time to other matters, with the light-handed
promptitude and readiness of the bird-roasting of yesterday;
Rollo assuring Wych Hazel between whiles that travelling was a
very good thing, if you took enough of it.
'Thirty miles this morning, and thirty last night; and how
many yesterday morning?--A hundred, I should say, by my
measurement.'
'Rollo!--What a dinner you have brought us!' said Mr. Falkirk,
who maintained a quiet and passive behaviour.
'You cannot set off for some hours yet, sir--the horses must
have rest. I believe--but am not sure--that somebody got up very
early this morning to make that pie. I told them I had left
some friends in distress; and Primrose and I--did what we
could. I realized this morning what must be the position of a
Commissary General on a rapid march.'
The provision on the board called for no excuses. Rollo served
everybody, even Mrs. Saddler, and afterwards dispensed
strawberries of much larger growth than those of the day
before. He was the impersonation of gay activity as long as
there was anything to do; and then he subsided into ease-
taking. The smoke of a cigar did not indeed offend Miss
Kennedy's mill-door; but in a luxurious position under a tree
at some distance the sometime smoker settled himself with his
sketch-book, and seemed to be comfortably busy at play, till
it was time for moving.
Wych Hazel had been in an altogether quiet mood since the
arrival of the rockaway. In that mood she had watched the
unpacking of the basket, in that mood she had eaten her
dinner. It was strange, even to herself, the sort of quietus
Mr. Rollo was to her. Not feeling free to play with him, by no
means disposed to play before him, she had ventured to offer
her services no further than by asking him what he wanted;
then left him to himself; oddly conscious all the while, that
if it had been any other one of her new feline friends, she
would have put her little hand into the business and the
basket with pleasant effect. So she sat still and watched
him,--giving a bit of a smile now and then indeed to his direct
remarks, but as often only a fuller look of the brown eyes.
Since the gentleman had been under the tree she had been idly
busy with her own thoughts, having sketched herself tired in
the morning. "Prim" she recognized at once--Dr. Maryland's
sister,--she had heard him speak of her. Would she be a friend?
any one to whom these many thoughts might come out? So Wych
Hazel sat, gazing out upon the lengthening shadows, leaning
her head somewhat wearily in her hand, wishing the journey
over and herself on her own vantage ground at Chickaree. It
would be such a help to be mistress of the house!--for these
last two days she had been nothing but a brown parcel, marked
"fragile"--"with care."