CHAPTER II
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THE SWINGING OPEN OF A great gate at the further end of the field disturbed the momentary silence which followed his words. The returning haymakers appeared on the scene, leading Roger at their head, and Innocent jumped up eagerly, glad of the interruption.
“Here comes old Roger!” she cried,—"bless his heart! Now, Robin, you must try to look very stately! Are you going to ride home standing or sitting?”
He was visibly annoyed at her light indifference.
“Unless I may sit beside you with my arm round your waist, in the Pettigrew fashion, I’d rather stand!” he retorted. “You said Pettigrew’s hands were always dirty—so are mine. I’d better keep my distance from you. One can’t make hay and remain altogether as clean as a new pin!”
She gave an impatient gesture.
“You always take things up in the wrong way,” she said—"I never thought you a bit like Pettigrew! Your hands are not really dirty!”
“They are!” he answered, obstinately. “Besides, you don’t want my arm round your waist, do you?”
“Certainly not!” she replied, quickly.
“Then I’ll stand,” he said;—"You shall be enthroned like a queen and
I’ll be your bodyguard. Here, wait a minute!”
He piled up the hay in the middle of the load till it made a high cushion where, in obedience to his gesture, Innocent seated herself. The men leading the horse were now close about the waggon, and one of them, grinning sheepishly at the girl, offered her a daintily-made wreath of wild roses, from which all the thorns had been carefully removed.
“Looks prutty, don’t it?” he said.
She accepted it with a smile.
“Is it for me? Oh, Larry, how nice of you! Am I to wear it?”
“If ye loike!” This with another grin.
She set it on her uncovered head and became at once a model for a Romney; the wild roses with their delicate pink and white against her brown hair suited the hues of her complexion and the tender grey of her eyes;—and when, thus adorned, she looked up at her companion, he was fain to turn away quickly lest his admiration should be too plainly made manifest before profane witnesses.
Roger, meanwhile, was being harnessed to the waggon. He was a handsome creature of his kind, and he knew it. As he turned his bright soft glance from side to side with a conscious pride in himself and his surroundings, he seemed to be perfectly aware that the knots of bright red ribbon tied in his long and heavy mane meant some sort of festival. When all was done the haymakers gathered round.
“Good luck to the last load, Mr. Clifford!” they shouted.
“Good luck to you all!” answered Robin, cheerily.
“Good luck t’ye, Miss!” and they raised their sun-browned faces to the girl as she looked down upon them. “As fine a crop and as fair a load next year!”
“Good luck to you!” she responded—then suddenly bending a little forward she said almost breathlessly: “Please wish luck to Dad! He’s not well—and he isn’t here! Oh, please don’t forget him!”
They all stared at her for a moment, as if startled or surprised, then they all joined in a stentorian shout.
“That’s right, Miss! Good luck to the master! Many good years of life to him, and better crops every year!”
She drew back, smiling her thanks, but there were tears in her eyes. And then they all started in a pretty procession—the men leading Roger, who paced along the meadow with equine dignity, shaking his ribbons now and again as if he were fully conscious of carrying something more valuable than mere hay,—and above them all smiled the girl’s young face, framed in its soft brown hair and crowned with the wild roses, while at her side stood the very type of a model Englishman, with all the promise of splendid life and vigour in the build of his form, the set of his shoulders and the poise of his handsome head. It was a picture of youth and beauty and lovely nature set against the warm evening tint of the sky,—one of those pictures which, though drawn for the moment only on the minds of those who see it, is yet never forgotten.
Arriving presently at a vast enclosure, in which already two loads of hay were being stacked, they were hailed with a cheery shout by several other labourers at work, and very soon a strong smell of beer began to mingle with the odour of the hay and the dewy scent of the elder flowers and sweet briar in the hedges close by.
“Have a drop, Mr. Clifford!” said one tall, powerful-looking man who seemed to be a leader among the others, holding out a pewter tankard full and frothing over.
Robin Clifford smiled and put his lips to it.
“Just to your health, Landon!” he said—"I’m not a drinking man.”
“Haymaking’s thirsty work,” commented the other. “Will Miss Jocelyn do us the honour?”
The girl made a wry little face.
“I don’t like beer, Mr. Landon,” she said—"It’s horrid stuff, even when it’s home-brewed! I help to make it, you see!”
She laughed gaily—they all laughed with her, and then there was a little altercation which ended in her putting her lips to the tankard just offered to Robin and sipping the merest fleck of its foam. Landon watched her,—and as she returned the cup, put his own mouth to the place hers had touched and drank the whole draught off greedily. Robin did not see his action, but the girl did, and a deep blush of offence suffused her cheeks. She rose, a little nervously.
“I’ll go in now,” she said—"Dad must be alone by this time.”
“All right!” And Robin jumped lightly from the top of the load to the ground and put the ladder up for her to descend. She came down daintily, turning her back to him so that the hem of her neat white skirt fell like a little snowflake over each rung of the ladder, veiling not only her slim ankles but the very heels of her shoes. When she was nearly at the bottom, he caught her up and set her lightly on the ground.
“There you are!” he said, with a laugh—"When you get into the house you can tell Uncle that you are a Rose Queen, a Hay Queen, and Queen of everything and everyone on Briar Farm, including your very humble servant, Robin Clifford!”
“And your humblest of slaves, Ned Landon!” added Landon, with a quick glance, doffing his cap. “Mr. Clifford mustn’t expect to have it all his own way!”
“What the devil are you talking about?” demanded Robin, turning upon him with a sudden fierceness.
Innocent gave him an appealing look.
“Don’t!—Oh, don’t quarrel!” she whispered,—and with a parting nod to the whole party of workers she hurried away.
With her disappearance came a brief pause among the men. Then Robin, turning away from Landon, proceeded to give various orders. He was a person in authority, and as everyone knew, was likely to be the owner of the farm when his uncle was dead. Landon went close up to him.
“Mr. Clifford,” he said, somewhat thickly, “you heard what I said just now? You mustn’t expect to have it all your own way! There’s other men after the girl as well as you!”
Clifford glanced him up and down.
“Yourself, I suppose?” he retorted.
“And why not?” sneered Landon.
“Only because there are two sides to every question,” said Clifford, carelessly, with a laugh. “And no decision can be arrived at till both are heard!”
He climbed up among the other men and set to work, stacking steadily, and singing in a fine soft baritone the old fifteenth-century song:
“Yonder comes a courteous knight,
Lustily raking over the hay,
He was well aware of a bonny lass,
As she came wandering over the way.
Then she sang Downe a downe, hey downe derry!
“Jove you speed, fair ladye, he said,
Among the leaves that be so greene,
If I were a king and wore a crown,
Full soon faire Ladye shouldst thou be queene.
Then she sang Downe a downe, hey downe derry!”
Landon looked up at him with a dark smile.
“Those laugh best who laugh last!” he muttered, “And a whistling throstle has had its neck wrung before now!”
Meanwhile Innocent had entered the farmhouse. Passing through the hall, which,—unaltered since the days of its original building,—was vaulted high and heavily timbered, she went first...
