CHAPTER XXI.

Polly.

The lodge stood in a very lovely place, upon a slope of ground, which rose still higher to where the colonel’s grand house was situated.  There was a porch before the door, built of rough logs of pines, covered with ivy and honeysuckle, and with seats in it, where you could sit and look out over a wide, rich plain, with little hills and dales in it, stretching far away towards the sky-line, where some distant mountains lay, so like to clouds, that you could scarcely tell which were soft and misty vapours, and which were solid and everlasting hills.  The Severn ran through the beautiful plain with so many windings, sometimes lying in shadow under deep banks, and sometimes glistening and sparkling in the sunlight, that it looked more like many little pools scattered about the meadows than one long, continuous river.  Not very far away, as Raleigh had said, stood the Wrekin, purple in the evening haze, but by day so plain, that one could see the great rock on its summit, which in olden times served as an altar to the god of fire.

Susan was very busy, and had been very busy all day over two things—­preparing the house for the reception of her father, whom she had not seen for so many years, and in teaching her little girl, who was now eighteen months old, to say grand-pa.  The one work was quite finished; everything was ready for old Oliver, and now she was waiting and watching to see the colonel’s spring cart arrive from the station with her husband, who was gone to meet old Oliver and Tony.  For Tony was not on any account to be parted from the old man—­so said the colonel and his lady—­but was to be employed about the garden, and as general errand boy for the house, and to live at the lodge with old Oliver.  Susan’s eyes were red, for as she had been busy about her work, she had several times cried bitterly over her lost little girl; but she had resolved within herself not to shed a single tear after her father was come, lest she should spoil the gladness of his coming home to her.  At last the cart came in sight, and stopped, and Raleigh and Tony sprang out to help Oliver to get down, while Susan put down Polly in the porch, and ran to throw her arms round her dear old father’s neck.

He was very quiet, poor old Oliver.  He had not spoken a word since he left the station, but had gazed about him as they drove along the pleasant lane with almost a troubled look upon his tranquil face.  When his dim eyes caught the first glimpse of the Wrekin he lifted his hat from his white and trembling head, as if to greet it like some great and dear friend, after so many years of absence.  Now he stood still at the wicket, leaning upon Susan’s arm, and looking round him again with a gentle yet sad smile.  The air was so fresh, after the close streets of London, that to him it seemed even full of scents of numberless flowers; and the sun was shining everywhere, upon the blossoms in the garden, and the fine old elm-trees in the park, and the far-off hills.  He grasped Tony’s hand in his, and bade him look well about him.