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Ruth had been telling him one day, as they were walking together, of her sister's plans for the winter, and that she was sorry to think her time at Slumberleigh was drawing to a close. "I am afraid," he said, "in spite of all you say, my dear, it has been very dull for you here. No little gayeties or enjoyments such as it is right young people should have.
After the glare and the noise, the shrill blasts of penny trumpets, and the sustained beating of penny drums, the silence of the Slumberleigh woods was delightful to Ruth; the comparative silence, that is to say, for where Molly was, absolute silence need never be feared.
"There is a train which leaves Slumberleigh station for London a little after twelve, is not there?" asked Charles, with great distinctness, of the butler as he entered the hall. He had observed as he came in that the dining-room door was ajar. "There is, Sir Charles. Twelve fifteen," replied the man, who recognized him instantly, for everybody knew Charles. "I am here as Mr.
Do not trouble to do so; I am going to Portsmouth by the mid-day train. Brown is at this moment packing my telescope and life-belt." It was the end of August. The little lawn at Slumberleigh Rectory was parched and brown. The glebe beyond was brown; so was the field beyond that. The thirsty road was ash-white between its gray hedge-rows.
All things come to an end, and at last the Slumberleigh church clock struck four, and Ruth could sink giddily onto a bench, and push back the few remaining hair-pins that were left to her, and feebly endeavor, with a pin eagerly extracted by Dare from the back of his neck, to join the gaping ruin of torn gathers in her dress, so daintily fresh two hours ago, so dilapidated now.
As if, she said to herself, she had not known! Really, she had not been born and bred in Slumberleigh, nor had she lived there all her life. She had met men of that kind before. She always liked them.
Eccles and all the other inhabitants of Slumberleigh have seen Dare ride up the little street, taking as much active exercise as his horse, only skyward; the saddle being to him merely a point of rebound. But if the object of his frequent visits was misunderstood by Ruth at first, Dare did not allow it to remain so long. And not only Ruth herself, but Mr. and Mrs.
He began to see that it would not be done without further delays and scandal unless he did it. "She must and shall go at once, even if I have to do it," he said at last, looking at Dare with unconcealed contempt. "It is not my affair, but I will go, and you will be so good as to put off the flying over to Slumberleigh till I come back. I shall not return until she has left the house."
"I think I can guess what you mean," said Charles, gravely. "One does not often meet any one like Mr. Alwynn." "No. I was thinking of him. Until I came to Slumberleigh the lines had not fallen to me in very clerical places, so my experience is limited; but he seems to me to be the only clergyman I have known who does not force on one a form of religion that has been dead and buried for years."
No; in spite of that burning expanse of glebe, I will go to tea at the rectory. I have not seen Uncle John for a week, and who knows? perhaps Aunt Fanny may be out." So the gloves were put on, the crisp white dress shaken out, the parasol put up, and Ruth took the narrow church path across the fields up to Slumberleigh Rectory.
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