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"You forget I've lost time to make up," replies Blandford, gravely; "and I'm not going to be content if I don't take honours." "Don't knock yourself up, that's all," says Reginald, "especially now cricket's beginning. We ought to turn out a good eleven with four old Wilderhams to give it a backbone, eh?"
A thousand conflicting emotions were rioting through her brain; the old battle of heart against head was being waged. She was so acutely alive to his presence just behind her; so vitally conscious of his nearness. Her whole body was crying aloud for the touch of his hands on her again and then, a vision of Blandford came before her. God! what did it matter Blandford, or her father, or anything?
"Sort of animal, he'd like to say," laughed Horace. "Bland can't get over being beaten for the French prize by Barber, the tailor's son." Blandford flushed up, and was going to answer when Reginald interposed. "Well, and suppose he can't, it's no wonder. I don't see why those fellows shouldn't have a school for themselves.
Yet neither the Colonel nor the Boy had been there since the night of their arrival. On returning from that first triumphant inspection of McGinty's diggings, the Colonel had been handed a sealed envelope without address. "How do you know it's for me?" "She said it was for the Big Chap," answered Blandford Keith.
It was a look of protection, of ownership, of fear, all combined: a look such as a tigress might give if her young were threatened. . . . And suddenly there recurred to his mind that phrase in Margaret's letter about financial trouble at Blandford. It had not impressed him particularly when he read it; now he found himself wondering. . . . "Isn't it glorious?"
The first of the Winterbournes Strickland, lies a long mile beyond Hedgend Farm, where we turn sharp to the left and traverse a very lonely road, sometimes between close woods and rarely in sight of human habitation until the drop to the Stour brings us to Blandford Forum, a pleasant, bright and clean town built within a wide loop of the river that here begins to assume the dignity of a navigable stream, crawling lazily among the water meadows, with back-waters and cuts that bring to mind certain sections of the Upper Thames.
The next letter that came from Blandford Square, dated 9th December, 1861, was also a joint one, the larger portion of which however is from her pen. "DEAR GOOD PEOPLE, If your ears burn as often as you are talked about in this house, there must be an unpleasant amount of aural circulation to endure!
"Howdy, Marse Blandford howdy, suh?" he said, looking midway between the two young men. "Howdy, Uncle Jake?" they both answered pleasantly and in unison. "Sit down. Have you brought the watch?" Uncle Jake chose a hard-bottom chair at a respectful distance, sat on the edge of it, and laid his hat carefully on the floor. The watch in its buckskin case he gripped tightly.
"It's a pity you had to leave Garden Vale," said Blandford, apparently anxious to turn the conversation into a more pacific channel; "such a jolly place it was. What do you do with yourself all day long in town?" Reginald smiled. "I work for my living," said he, keeping his eye steadily fixed on Mr Pillans, as if waiting to catch the first sign of an insult on his part.
At length, near Blandford Square, she came against a crowd so large that nothing short of a fight, or the immediate prospect of one, could have caused it to collect at that late hour. A temporary opening of the crowd enabled her to see into the middle of it, and there, in a small space which had been made for them, two women stood defiantly facing each other.
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