The belt of crags did not run completely around the
hill. At the back of it, after a scramble out
of the gully, they came on a slope of good turf, and
so cantered easily to the summit.
Ruth gave a little cry of delight, and followed it
up with a yet smaller one of disappointment.
The country lay spread at her feet like a vast amphitheatre,
ringed with wooded hills. Across the plain they
encircled a river ran in loops, and from the crag
at the edge of which she stood a streamlet emerged
and took a brave leap down the hill to join it.
“But where is the sea?”
“That small hill yonder must hide it.
You see it, with its line of elms? If those
trees were down, we should see the Atlantic for a
certainty. If you like the spot otherwise, I
will have them removed.”
He said it seriously; but of course she took it for
granted that he spoke in jest, albeit the jest puzzled
her a little. Indeed when she glanced up at
him he was smiling, with his eyes on the distant landscape.
“The mountain too,” he added, “if
the trees will not suffice. Though not by faith,
it shall be removed.”
THREE LADIES.
“You may smoke,” said Dicky politely,
setting down his glass.
“Thank you,” answered Mr. Hanmer.
“But are you sure? In my experience of
houses there’s always some one that objects.”
Dicky lifted his chin. “We call this the
nursery because it has always been the nursery.
But I do what I like here.”
Mr. Hanmer had accepted the boy’s invitation
to pay him a visit ashore and help him to rig a model
cutter—a birthday gift from his father;
and the pair had spent an afternoon upon it, seated
upon the floor with the toy between them and a litter
of twine everywhere, Dicky deep in the mysteries of
knots and splices, the lieutenant whittling out miniature
blocks and belaying-pins with a knife that seemed capable
of anything.
They had been interrupted by Manasseh, bearing a tray
of refreshments— bread and honey and cakes,
with a jug of milk for the one; for the other a decanter
of brown sherry with a dish of ratafia biscuits.
The repast was finished now, and Dicky, eager to
fall to work again, feared that his friend might make
an excuse for departing.
Mr. Hanmer put a hand in his pocket and drew out his
pipe.
“Your father would call it setting a bad example,
I doubt?”
To this the boy, had he been less loyal, might have
answered that his father took no great stock in examples,
bad or good. He said: “Papa smokes.
He says it is cleaner than taking snuff; and so it
is, if you have ever seen Mr. Silk’s waistcoat.”
So Mr. Hanmer filled and lit his pipe, doing wonders
with a pocket tinder-box. Dicky watched the
process gravely through every detail, laying up hints
for manhood.
“I ought to have asked you before,” he
said. “Nobody comes here ever, except
Mr. Silk and the servants.”
