The Ride Crossjay darted up to her a nose ahead of the colonel.
"I say, Miss Middleton, we're to have the whole day to ourselves, after morning lessons. Will you come and fish with me and see me bird's-nest?"
"Not for the satisfaction of beholding another cracked crown, my son," the colonel interposed: and bowing to Clara: "Miss Middleton is handed over to my exclusive charge for the day, with her consent?"
"I scarcely know," said she, consulting a sensation of languor that seemed to contain some reminiscence. "If I am here. My father's plans are uncertain. I will speak to him. If I am here, perhaps Crossjay would like a ride in the afternoon."
"Oh, yes," cried the boy; "out over Bournden, through Mewsey up to Closharn Beacon, and down on Aspenwell, where there's a common for racing. And ford the stream!"
"An inducement for you," De Craye said to her.
She smiled and squeezed the boy's hand.
"We won't go without you, Crossjay."
"You don't carry a comb, my man, when you bathe?"
At this remark of the colonel's young Crossjay conceived the appearance of his matted locks in the eyes of his adorable lady.
He gave her one dear look through his redness, and fled.
"I like that boy," said De Craye.
"I love him," said Clara.
Crossjay's troubled eyelids in his honest young face became a picture for her.
"After all, Miss Middleton, Willoughby's notions about him are not so bad, if we consider that you will be in the place of a mother to him."
"I think them bad."
"You are disinclined to calculate the good fortune of the boy in having more of you on land than he would have in crown and anchor buttons!"
"You have talked of him with Willoughby,"
"We had a talk last night."
Of how much? thought she.
"Willoughby returns?" she said.
"He dines here, I know; for he holds the key of the inner cellar, and Doctor Middleton does him the honour to applaud his wine.
Willoughby was good enough to tell me that he thought I might contribute to amuse you."
She was brooding in stupefaction on her father and the wine as she requested Colonel De Craye to persuade Willoughby to take the general view of Crossjay's future and act on it.
"He seems fond of the boy, too," said De Craye, musingly.
"You speak in doubt?"
"Not at all. But is he not--men are queer fish!--make allowance for us--a trifle tyrannical, pleasantly, with those he is fond of?"
"If they look right and left?"
It was meant for an interrogation; it was not with the sound of one that the words dropped. "My dear Crossjay!" she sighed. "I would willingly pay for him out of my own purse, and I will do so rather than have him miss his chance. I have not mustered resolution to propose it."
"I may be mistaken, Miss Middleton. He talked of the boy's fondness of him."
"He would."
"I suppose he is hardly peculiar in liking to play Pole-star."
"He may not be."
"For the rest, your influence should be all-powerful."
"it is not."
De Craye looked with a wandering eye at the heavens.
"We are having a spell of weather perfectly superb. And the odd thing is, that whenever we have splendid weather at home we're all for rushing abroad. I'm booked for a Mediterranean cruise--postponed to give place to your ceremony."
"That?" she could not control her accent.
"What worthier?"
She was guilty of a pause.
De Craye saved it from an awkward length. "I have written half an essay on Honeymoons, Miss Middleton."
"Is that the same as a half-written essay, Colonel De Craye?"
"Just the same, with the difference that it's a whole essay written all on one side."
"On which side?"
"The bachelor's."
"Why does he trouble himself with such topics?"
"To warm himself for being left out in the cold."
"Does he feel envy?"
"He has to confess it."
"He has liberty."
"A commodity he can't tell the value of if there's no one to buy."
"Why should he wish to sell?"
"He's bent on completing his essay."
"To make the reading dull."
"There we touch the key of the subject. For what is to rescue the pair from a monotony multiplied by two? And so a bachelor's recommendation, when each has discovered the right sort of person to be dull with, pushes them from the churchdoor on a round of adventures containing a spice of peril, if 'tis to be had. Let them be in danger of their lives the first or second day. A bachelor's loneliness is a private affair of his own; he hasn't to look into a face to be ashamed of feeling it and inflicting it at the same time; 'tis his pillow; he can punch it an he pleases, and turn it over t'other side, if he's for a mighty variation; there's a dream in it. But our poor couple are staring wide awake. All their dreaming's done. They've emptied their bottle of elixir, or broken it; and she has a thirst for the use of the tongue, and he to yawn with a crony; and they may converse, they're not aware of it, more than the desert that has drunk a shower. So as soon as possible she's away to the ladies, and he puts on his Club. That's what your bachelor sees and would like to spare them; and if he didn't see something of the sort he'd be off with a noose round his neck, on his knees in the dew to the morning milkmaid."
"The bachelor is happily warned and on his guard," said Clara, diverted, as he wished her to be. "Sketch me a few of the adventures you propose."
"I have a friend who rowed his bride from the Houses of Parliament up the Thames to the Severn on into North Wales. They shot some pretty weirs and rapids."
"That was nice."
"They had an infinity of adventures, and the best proof of the benefit they derived is, that they forgot everything about them except that the adventures occurred."
"Those two must have returned bright enough to please you.
"They returned, and shone like a wrecker's beacon to the mariner.