He requested the butler to turn over the telegram to Mr. and Mrs.
Cresap, and to explain to them that he would be back at Sandywood before
dinner. On the plea that he vastly preferred a walk, he managed to evade
the man's suggestion that the car be brought round to take him to
Sandywood Station.
Precisely at ten o'clock he was cooling his heels on the stone wall at
the foot of the lane.
In that shaded hollow the sun had not yet pierced to dry the dew from
the wild myrtle. Now and then the clambering creepers rustled where a
field-mouse ran shyly through them. An oriole flashed from a sycamore,
like an orange tossed deftly skyward. Spring was a living
presence--Fessenden was stirred by its exuberance as he had not been
these ten years.
By and by a rattle of wheels came to his ears. Presently a serene gray
mare hove in sight, escorting, rather than pulling, a low-swung landau
with an ancient calash-top. So capacious was the hood that at first he
could descry no one in its depths. Then the mare came to a condescending
halt, and a laughing face leaned into view.
[Illustration: "GOOD-MORNING, PATIENCE-ON-A-MONUMENT"]
"Good-morning, Patience-on-a-Monument."
"Good-morning, Grief. Grief, that's the fluffiest hat I ever saw."
"Have you been waiting long?"
"Hours and hours."
"Then, come, get in. We're going driving 'over the hills and far away.'"
She clucked to her steed, and the old mare, disdainfully obedient,
conveyed them straight through the brook--the water rising to the
hub--and up the windings of a wood-road beyond.
"The first thing a man wants to know on a picnic," affirmed Betty
sagely, "is whether or not there's enough to eat. There isn't, but there
will be."
"I rest content. Betty, who taught you to dress like that?"
"Do you like me--my clothes, I mean?"
"I like both, profoundly."
She was all in white--fluffy hat, linen shirt-waist, duck skirt, and low
shoes. Her hair was done into some sort of knot on her neck--Fessenden
was rather weak at deciphering a girl's coiffure. Her eyes shone
wonderfully clear, and her smiles were frequent but uncertain, as if she
bubbled with jokes too ethereal to share even with him.
"Betty," he said, "do you mind my remarking that you look adorable
to-day?"
"Only to-day?"
"Always, you witch! Betty, don't tell me that any mere district school
made half of _you_."
"Why not?"
"Well, it sounds a bit impertinent of me, but your voice--your
talk--your dress! And, above all, you have the air--ah----"
"Of a lady, Mr. Critic?"
"Exactly. One doesn't expect to find _l'air distingué_ in a farmer's
daughter."
"A farmer's niece."
"Of course. Perhaps that makes all the difference. Do you mind my asking
who your mother was, Betty?"
"My mother was related to the first families of Maryland."
He could hardly forbear a smile at the pride manifest in her tone. "I
see. She has a right to be proud of her daughter."
"Really? Bob White, that's the very nicest thing you could say to me if
you'd tried a hundred years. Mother died when I was quite a little
girl."
Fessenden was silent. For a while, the girl guided the gray mare from
wood-road to rambling lane, from lane to turnpike, and from turnpike
back to lane. As they rounded a low hill, Fessenden felt the salt breath
of the bay upon his face.
"Where are we bound?" he asked.
"To Jim George's. It's a sort of inn--a very rustic inn. He cooks
delicious things. People come here for dinners from as far as Baltimore,
but I think it's too early in the season yet for anybody to be here but
us."
"I hope so with all my heart."
They ascended a sandy track through a little forest of pine, and emerged
upon an open space. At the foot of a bluff the bay stretched to the
horizon. On the forest side stood a log-cabin, amplified on all sides by
a veranda of unbarked pine.
From this structure promptly hobbled a white-haired darky.
"Mawnin', lady. Mawnin', gemman, sah. A day o' glory fo' the time o'
year. Yas, sah, yas, ma'am, a real day o' glory. Won't you 'light down,
ma'am?"
"Of course we will, Jim George, and we want some of your best shad."
"Ah d'clar to gracious! Is that yo'all, Miss Betty? Good Lan'! it's been
a coon's age since I seen yo' purty face round hyah. It does me proud to
see a----"
"Shad and corn-pone, Jim George," she interrupted. "I want you to show
this gentleman we can still cook in the South."
"Ah'll show him. Ah'll show him, Miss Betty. Rufe! Rufe! Come hyah and
take Miss Betty's hoss."
A boy led the mare away, and Fessenden and the girl established
themselves in a hammock under a solitary oak at the bluff's edge.
He drew a long breath of the salt air and smiled at his companion. "This
is Paradise, and not even a serpent to mar it."
In an incredibly short time Jim George appeared, bearing a tray piled
high with eatables, and proceeded to spread the cloth on a table under
the oak.
"Miss Betty," he said, "and, gemman, sah, there's a shad-roe as _is_ a
shad-roe. Jes' yo' eat it with all the buttah yo' kin spread on it. This
hyah co'n-pone needs a _spoon_ for _it_. Them baked 'taters growed
theirselfs right hyah in the patch behint the house. They's as sweet as
honey. And hyah's some milk. Yo' 'member Jersey Molly, Miss Betty?
Yas'm, this is _her_ milk. None o' yo' _pastorilized_ stuff
neither--this is jes' plain _milk_."
"Betty," said Fessenden, when Jim George had left them to themselves,
"allow me to drink your health in Jersey Molly wine."
[Illustration: "BETTY, ALLOW ME TO DRINK YOUR HEALTH IN JERSEY MOLLY
WINE"]
She touched her tumbler laughingly to his. "Skoal! Bob White, do you
know it was only the day before yesterday you picked me out of the
brook?"
"I was just thinking of that. At any rate, we're better acquainted than
people ordinarily are in months."
"In three days?"
"Certainly," he maintained.
"You're a very funny man."
"I'm perfectly serious."
"I was wondering why you should care to come on a picnic with me. I'm
only a country girl, after all, and you--you're different."
"I care to come because _you_ are _you_, and that's plenty reason
enough."
"Hum-m."
"Can you say as much?"
"I'm not sure."
"Cruel child!"
"I didn't say no--I only said I wasn't sure."
The afternoon slipped away, and at last they ordered their equipage for
the homeward drive. Old Jim George bowed them off.
"Good-by, Miss Betty. Good-by, gemman, sah. Ah hope yo' bofe come hyah
agin right soon--yas, indeedy, and I hope yo' come togedder, too. Yah
ha!" He screened his mouth behind his hand and added in a stage whisper:
"Miss Betty, that's a mighty fine gemman yo's got, he is so, mighty
fine."
They pursued the even tenor of their way homeward. The early butterflies
flicked the gray mare's nose. Blackbirds pilfered a meal from the plowed
fields beside the road. Once a thrush--to Betty's infinite
delight--perched on the dashboard and sang a hasty trill.
"Spring is lovely," declared Betty.
"Lovely," agreed Fessenden with enthusiasm, and did not feel guilty of a
commonplace.
Into the calm of their content came the clatter of distant hoofs.
"There's some one riding down that crossroad there," said Betty. "A
woman. Is she waving at us, do you think?"
They peered out from the calash-top, and made out a horsewoman galloping
down a side-path toward them. Her whip was going on her horse's flank,
and now and then she brandished it as if to signal the two in the
landau.