'I am ready to go,' said Anne, as soon as he arrived.
He paused as if taken aback by her readiness, and replied with much uncertainty, 'Would it--wouldn't it be better to put it off till there is less sun?'
The very slightest symptom of surprise arose in her as she rejoined, 'But the weather may change; or had we better not go at all?'
'O no!--it was only a thought. We will start at once.'
And along the vale they went, John keeping himself about a yard from her right hand. When the third field had been crossed they came upon half-a-dozen little boys at play.
'Why don't he clasp her to his side, like a man?' said the biggest and rudest boy.
'Why don't he clasp her to his side, like a man?' echoed all the rude smaller boys in a chorus.
The trumpet-major turned, and, after some running, succeeded in smacking two of them with his switch, returning to Anne breathless.
'I am ashamed they should have insulted you so,' he said, blushing for her.
'They said no harm, poor boys,' she replied reproachfully.
Poor John was dumb with perception. The gentle hint upon which he would have eagerly spoken only one short day ago was now like fire to his wound.
They presently came to some stepping-stones across a brook. John crossed first without turning his head, and Anne, just lifting the skirt of her dress, crossed behind him. When they had reached the other side a village girl and a young shepherd approached the brink to cross. Anne stopped and watched them. The shepherd took a hand of the young girl in each of his own, and walked backward over the stones, facing her, and keeping her upright by his grasp, both of them laughing as they went.
'What are you staying for, Miss Garland?' asked John.
'I was only thinking how happy they are,' she said quietly; and withdrawing her eyes from the tender pair, she turned and followed him, not knowing that the seeming sound of a passing bumble-bee was a suppressed groan from John.
When they reached the hill they found forty navvies at work removing the dark sod so as to lay bare the chalk beneath. The equestrian figure that their shovels were forming was scarcely intelligible to John and Anne now they were close, and after pacing from the horse's head down his breast to his hoof, back by way of the king's bridle-arm, past the bridge of his nose, and into his cocked-hat, Anne said that she had had enough of it, and stepped out of the chalk clearing upon the grass. The trumpet-major had remained all the time in a melancholy attitude within the rowel of his Majesty's right spur.
'My shoes are caked with chalk,' she said as they walked downwards again; and she drew back her dress to look at them. 'How can I get some of it cleared off?'
'If you was to wipe them in the long grass there,' said John, pointing to a spot where the blades were rank and dense, 'some of it would come off.. Having said this, he walked on with religious firmness.
Anne raked her little feet on the right side, on the left side, over the toe, and behind the heel; but the tenacious chalk held its own.
Panting with her exertion, she gave it up, and at length overtook him.
'I hope it is right now?' he said, looking gingerly over his shoulder.
'No, indeed!' said she. 'I wanted some assistance--some one to steady me. It is so hard to stand on one foot and wipe the other without support. I was in danger of toppling over, and so gave it up.'
'Merciful stars, what an opportunity!' thought the poor fellow while she waited for him to offer help. But his lips remained closed, and she went on with a pouting smile--'You seem in such a hurry. Why are you in such a hurry. After all the fine things you have said about--about caring so much for me, and all that, you won't stop for anything!'
It was too much for John. 'Upon my heart and life, my dea--' he began. Here Bob's letter crackled warningly in his waistcoat pocket as he laid his hand asseveratingly upon his breast, and he became suddenly scaled up to dumbness and gloom as before.
When they reached home Anne sank upon a stool outside the door, fatigued with her excursion. Her first act was to try to pull off her shoe--it was a difficult matter; but John stood beating with his switch the leaves of the creeper on the wall.
'Mother--David--Molly, or somebody--do come and help me pull off these dirty shoes!' she cried aloud at last. 'Nobody helps me in anything!'
'I am very sorry,' said John, coming towards her with incredible slowness and an air of unutterable depression.
'O, I can do without YOU. David is best,' she returned, as the old man approached and removed the obnoxious shoes in a trice.
Anne was amazed at this sudden change from devotion to crass indifference. On entering her room she flew to the glass, almost expecting to learn that some extraordinary change had come over her pretty countenance, rendering her intolerable for evermore. But it was, if anything, fresher than usual, on account of the exercise.
'Well!' she said retrospectively. For the first time since their acqaintance she had this week encouraged him; and for the first time he had shown that encouragement was useless. 'But perhaps he does not clearly understand,' she added serenely.
When he next came it was, to her surprise, to bring her newspapers, now for some time discontinued. As soon as she saw them she said, 'I do not care for newspapers.'
'The shipping news is very full and long to-day, though the print is rather small.'
'I take no further interest in the shipping news,' she replied with cold dignity.
She was sitting by the window, inside the table, and hence when, in spite of her negations, he deliberately unfolded the paper and began to read about the Royal Navy she could hardly rise and go away.
With a stoical mien he read on to the end of the report, bringing out the name of Bob's ship with tremendous force.
'No,' she said at last, 'I'll hear no more. Let me read to you.'
The trumpet-major sat down. Anne turned to the military news, delivering every detail with much apparent enthusiasm. 'That's the subject _I_ like!' she said fervently.
