“I should think that you were the very kindest darling, and I should ask you to breathe it quite into my ear—‘Hilary, Hilary!’—just like that; and then I should answer just like this, ‘Mabel, Mabel, sweetest Mabel, how I love you, Mabel!’ and then what would you say, if you please?”

“I should have to ask my mother,” said the maiden, “what I ought to say. But luckily the whole of this is in your imagination. Mr. Lorraine, you have lost your strawberries by your imagination.”

“What do I care for strawberries?” Hilary cried, as the quick girl wisely beat a swift retreat from him. “You never can enter into my feelings, or you never would run away like that. And I can’t run after you, you know, because of Phyllis and Gregory. There she goes, and she won’t come back. What a fool I was to be in such a hurry! But what could I do to help it? I never know where I am when she turns those deep rich eyes upon me. She never will show them again, I suppose, but keep the black lashes over them. And I was getting on so well—and here are the stalks of the strawberries!”

Of every strawberry she had eaten from his daring fingers he had kept the stalk and calyx, breathed on by her freshly fragrant breath, and slyly laid them in his pocket; and now he fell to at kissing them. Then he lay down in the Carolinas, where her skirt had moved the leaves; and to him, weary with strong heat, and a rush of new emotions, comfort came in the form of sleep. And when he awoke, in his open palm most delicately laid he found a little shell-shaped cabbage-leaf piled with the fruit of the glossy neck.

CHAPTER XVI.
OH, SWEETER THAN THE BERRY!

Martin Lovejoy watched his daughter at supper-time that Sunday; and he felt quite sure that his wife was wrong. Why, the girl scarcely spoke to Lorraine at all, and even neglected his plate so sadly, that her mother was compelled to remind her sharply of her duties. Upon which the Grower despatched to his wife a smile of extreme sagacity, which (being fetched out of cipher and shorthand, by the matrimonial key) contained all this,—“Well you are a silly, as you always are, when you want to advise me. The girl is cold-shouldering that young fellow, the same as she does all the young hop-growers. And well she knows how to do it too. She gets her intellect from her father. Now please not to put in your oar, Mrs. Lovejoy, another time, till it is asked for.”

Moreover, he thought that if Mabel took the smallest delight in Hilary, she could not have answered as she had done, when that pious youth, in the early evening, expressed his sincere desire to attend another performance of Divine service.

“I had no idea,” said the simple Gregory, “that you made a point of going to church at least twice every Sunday. I seldom see you of a Sunday in London. But the very last place I should go to, to find you, would probably be the Temple church.”

“That is quite a different thing, don’t you see? A country church, and a church in London, are as different as a meadow and a market-place.”

“But surely, Mr. Lorraine, you would find the duty of attending just the same.” Thus spoke Mrs. Lovejoy, who seldom missed a chance of discharging her duty towards young people.

“Quite so, of course I do, Mrs. Lovejoy. But then we always perform our duties best, when they are pleasures. And besides that, I have a special reason for feeling bound, as one might say, to go to church well in the country.”

“I suppose one must not venture to ask you what that reason is, sir.”

“Oh, yes, to be sure. It is just this. I have an uncle, my mother’s brother, who is a country clergyman.”

“Well done, Master Lorraine!” said the Grower, while the rest were laughing. “You take a very sensible view, sir, of things. It is too much the fashion nowadays to neglect our trade-connections. But Gregory will go with you, and Phyllis, and Mabel. The old people stay at home to mind the house. For we always let the maid-servants go.”

“Oh father,” cried Mabel; “poor Phyllis is so overcome by the heat, that she must not go. And I must stop at home to read to her.”

So that the good Lorraine took nothing by his sudden religious fervour, except a hot walk with Gregory, and a wearisome doze in a musty pew with nobody to look at.

With fruit-growers, Monday is generally the busiest day of the week, except Friday. After paying all hands on the Saturday night, and stowing away all implements, they rest them well till the Sunday is over, having in the summer-time earned their rest by night-work as well as day-work, through the weary hours of the week. This is not the case with all, of course. Many of them, especially down in Kent, grow their fruit, or let it grow itself, and then sell it by the acre, or the hundred acres, to dealers, who take all the gathering and marketing off their hands altogether. But for those who work off their own crops, the toil of the week begins before the daystar of the Monday. At least for about six weeks it is so, according to the weather and the length of the “busy season.” Before the stars fade out of the sky, the pickers advance through the strawberry quarters, carrying two punnets each, yawning more than chattering even, whisking the grey dew away with their feet, startling the lark from his nest in the row, groping among the crisp leaves for the fruit, and often laying hold of a slug instead.

That is the time for the true fruit-lover to try the taste of a strawberry. It should be one that refused to ripen in the gross heat of yesterday, but has been slowly fostering goodness, with the attestation of the stars. And now (if it has been properly managed, properly picked without touch of hand, and not laid down profanely), when the sun comes over the top of the hedge, the look of that strawberry will be this—at least, if it is of a proper sort. The beard of the footstalk will be stiff, the sepals of the calyx moist and crisp, the neck will show a narrow band of varnish, where the dew could find no hold, the belly of the fruit will be sleek and gentle, firm however to accept its fate; but the back that has dealt with the dew, and the sides where the colour of the back slopes downward, upon them such a gloss of cold and diamond chastity will lie, that the human lips get out of patience with the eyes in no time.

Everybody was so busy with the way the work went on, all for their very life pretending scarcely to have time to breathe, whenever the master looked at them, that the “berries” were picked, and packed, and started, long before the sun grew hot—started on the road to London, the cormorant of the universe.

Hilary helped with all his heart; enjoying it, with that triumphant entrance into any novelty, which always truly distinguished him. He carried his punnets, and kept his row (as soon as they had shown him how), as well as the very best of them, dividing his fruit into firsts, and seconds, and keeping the “toppers” separate. Of course he broke off many trusses entire—ripe fruit, green fruit, and barren blossom—until he learned how to “meet his nails,” and how much drag to put on the stalks. A clever fellow learns all that from an hour or two of practice.

But one thing there is which the cleverest fellows can learn by no experience—how to carry the head for hours upside down without hurting it. How to make the brain so hard that it cannot shift; or else so soft that the top is as good as the bottom. The question is one for a great physician; who, to understand it, must keep his row, and pick by the job. Then let him say if he has learned how to explain the well-established fact that a woman can pick twice as fast as a man; for who could assent to the reason assigned by one of themselves magnanimously—that “women was generally always used to keep their heads turned upside down”?

Leaving such speculative inquiries to go on for ever, Hilary (who knew better than to say a word about them) came in for his breakfast at six o’clock, and ate it as thoroughly as he had earned it. The master, a man of true Kentish fibre, obstinate, placable, hearty, and dry, made known to his wife and to everybody else his present opinion of Hilary. Martin Lovejoy never swore. He never went beyond “God knows,” or “The Lord in heaven look down on us,” or some other good exclamation, sanctioned by the parish vicar. As a general rule—proved by many exceptions—the Kentish men seldom swear very hard.

“Heart alive, young sir!” he exclaimed, piling Hilary’s plate, as he spoke, with the jellied delights of cold pigeon pie; “you have been the best man of the morning. Ah! don’t you be in a hurry, good wife. No tea or coffee our way, thank ye. No, nor any cask-wash. We’ve worked a little too hard for that. Mabel, whatever has come to you, that you keep always out of the way so? And I never saw you anigh the baskets. Now don’t pipe your eye, child. I’m not going to scold thee, if thou didst have a little lie-a-bed. Here, take this here key, child. A wink’s as good as a nod—ah, she knows pretty well what to do with it.”

For Mabel was glad to turn away as quickly as possible, after a little well-managed curtsey to Hilary, whom she had not seen for the morning—certainly through no fault of his—and without a word she went to the dresser (for in these busy times they took their breakfast wisely in the kitchen), and from the wooden crook unhung a quaint little jug, with a narrow neck and a silver lip and handle. With this she set off down a quiet passage and some steps to a snug stone cellar, where the choicest of the home-brewed ale was kept. Although it lay well beneath the level of the ground, and no ray of sun pierced the wired lattice, the careful mistress of the house had the barrels swathed closely with wetted sacks. The girl, with her neat frock gathered up—for she always was cleanliness itself—went carefully to the corner cask, and lifted the wet sack back from the head, lest any dirty water should have the chance of dripping upon her sleeve. Then she turned the tap, and a thin bright thread ran out of it sideways, being checked by some hops in the tube perhaps, or want of air at the vent-peg. But Mabel held the jug with all patience, although her hand shook just a little.

“Now,” said the Grower, to Hilary, when she came back and placed the jug at her father’s side without a word, “Master Lorraine, let me pour you a drop, not to be matched in Kent; nor yet in all England, I do believe. Home-grown barley, and home-grown hops, and the soft water out of the brook that has taken the air of the sky for seven mile or more, without a drain anigh it. Ah, those brewers can never do that! They must buy their malt, and their musty hops, and pump up their water, and boil it down, to get the flint-stones out of it. But our brook hath cast the flint-stones and the other pebbles all along. That makes a sight of difference, sir. Every water is full of stones, and if you pump it up from the spring, the stones be all alive in it. But let it run seven miles or eight, and then it is fit to brew with.”

“Ah, to be sure. Now that explains a great many things I never understood.” Hilary would have swallowed a camel, rather than argue, at this moment.

“Young sir, just let me prove it to you. Just see the colour it runs out, and the way the head goes creaming! Lord, ha’ mercy, if she has gived us a glass, or a stag’s horn from the mantelpiece! Why, Mabel, child—Mabel, art thou gone? Why nobody wants to poison thee.”

“I think, sir, I saw your daughter go round the corner by the warming-pan, this side of where the broom hangs.”

“Then all I can say is, she is daft. She worked very hard last week, poor thing. And yesterday she was a-moving always, when the Lord’s day bids us rest. I must beg your pardon, Master Lorraine. Our Kentish maids always look after our guests. When I was at school, I read in the grammar that the moon always managed the women; but now I do believe it is the comet. Let the comet come, say I. When the markets are so bad, I feel that I am ready to face almost anything. And now we must drink from the jug, I reckon!”

Hilary saw that his host was vexed; but he felt quite certain in his own heart that Mabel could never be so rude, or show such resentment of any little excess of honey on his part, as to go away in that sour earnest, and make the two of them angry. A dozen things might have happened to upset her, or turn her a little askew; and her own father ought to know her better than he seemed to do. And lo, ere the Grower had quite finished grumbling, Mabel reached over his shoulder unseen, and set his own pet glass before him; and then round Hilary’s side she slid, without ever coming too nigh him, and the glass of honour of the house, cut in countless facets, twinkled, like the Pleiads, at him!

“Adorn me!” said the Grower; “now I call that a true good girl! Girls were always made, Master Lorraine, for the good of those around them. If anybody treats them any way else, they come to nothing afterwards. Mabel, dear, give me a kiss. You deserve it; and there it is for you. Now be off, like a good maid, and see what they be at in Vale Orchard, while Master Lorraine and I think a bit over these here two glasses.”

The rest of the day was much too busy, and too much crowded with sharp eyes, for any fair chance of love-making. For they all set to at the cherry-trees, with ladders, crooks, and hanging baskets, and light boys to scale the more difficult antlers, strip them, and drop upon feather-beds. And though the sun broke hot and bright through the dew-cloud of the morning, and quickly drank the beaded freshness off the face of herb and tree, yet they picked, and piled, and packed (according to their sort and size) the long-stalked dancers that fringe the bough, and glance in the sun so ruddily.

“You must have had a deal too much of this,” young Lovejoy said to Hilary, when the noon-day meal had been spread forth, and dealt with, in a patch of fern near a breezy clump: “if I had worked as you have done, my fingers would scarcely have been fit for a quill, this side of next Hilary term.”

“My dear fellow, be not, I pray you, so violently facetious. The brain, when outraged, takes longer to resume its functions than the fingers do. Moreover, I trust that my fingers will hold something nobler than a quill, ere the period of my namesake.”

“Sir Hilary charged at Agincourt; I hope you will do nothing of the sort;” said Gregory, with unwitting and unprecedented poetry.

“Lovejoy, my wits are unequal altogether to this encounter. The brilliancy of your native soil has burst out so upon you, that I must go back to the Southdown hills before I dare point a dart with you. Nevertheless, on your native soil, I beat you at picking cherries.”

“That you do, and strawberries too. And still more so at eating them! But if you please, you must stop a little. My mother begs, as a great favour, to have a little private talk with you.”

Hilary’s bright face lost its radiance, as his conscience pricked him. Was it about Mabel? Of course it must be. And what the dickens was he to say? He could not say a false thing. That was far below his nature. And he must own that he did love Mabel; and far worse than that—had done his utmost to drag that young and innocent Mabel into love with him. And if he were asked about his father—as of course he must be—on the word of a true man he must confess that his father would be sadly bitter if he married below his rank in life: also, that though he was the only son, there were very peculiar provisions in the settlement of the Lorraine estates, which might throw him entirely upon his own wits, if his father turned against him: also, that though his father was one of the very best men in the world, and the kindest and loftiest you could find; still there was about him something of a cold and determined substance. And worst of all (if the whole truth was to be shelled out, as he must unshell it), he knew in his heart that his father loved his sister’s little finger more than all the members put together of his own too lively frame.

CHAPTER XVII.
VERY SHY THINGS.

If he had wanted to vex his hostess—which to his kind nature would have been one of the last things wanted—he scarcely could have hit on a phrase more fitted for his purpose.

“Why, Mr. Lorraine, that is exactly what the monthly nurses say! I hope you can say something a little better than that of Gregory.”

“I assure you, Mrs. Lovejoy, nothing can be finer than the way he is going on. His attention, punctuality, steadiness, and everything else, leave nothing to be desired, as all the wine-merchants always say. Mr. Malahide holds him up as a pattern to be avoided, because he works so hard; and I think that he really ought to have country air, at this time of year, and in such weather, for a week, at the very shortest.”

“Poor boy! Why should he overwork himself? Then you think that three days’ change is scarcely enough to set him up again?”

“He wants at least a fortnight, ma’am. He has a sort of a hacking cough, which he does his best to keep under. And the doctors say that the smell of ink out of a pewter inkstand, and the inhaling of blotting-paper—such as we inhale all day—are almost certain, in hot weather, to root a tussis, or at any rate a pituita, inwards.”

Mrs. Lovejoy was much impressed; and tenfold so when she tried to think what those maladies might be.

“Dear me!” she said: “it is dreadful to think of. I know too well what those sad complaints are. My dear grandfather died of them both. Do you think now, Mr. Lorraine, that Mr. Malahide could be persuaded to spare you both for the rest of the week?”

“I scarcely think that he could, Mrs. Lovejoy. We are his right hand, and his left. Your son, of course, his dexter hand; and my poor self the weaker member. Still, if you were to write to him, nicely (as of course you would be sure to write), he might make an effort to get on, with some of his inferior pupils.”

“It shall be done, before the van goes—by the very next mail, I mean. And if they can spare you, do you think that you could put up with your very poor quarters, for a few days longer, Mr. Lorraine?”

“I never was in such quarters before. And I never felt so comfortable,” he answered, with a gush of truth, to expiate much small hypocrisy. And thereby he settled himself for ever in her very best graces. If Mrs. Lovejoy had any pride—and she always told herself she had none—that pride lay in her best feather-beds.

A smile quite worthy of her larger husband, and of her pleasant homestead, spread itself over her thoughtful face; and Hilary, for the first time, saw that her daughter, after all, was born of her. What can be sweeter than a smile, won from a sensible woman like that?

“Then you give us some hope that we may endeavour to keep you a few days more, sir?”

“The endeavour will be on my part,” he answered with his most elegant bow; “as all the temptation falls on me.”

“I do hope that Mr. Malahide will do his best to spare you both. Though to lose both his right hand and his left hand must be very melancholy.”

“To a lawyer, Mrs. Lovejoy, that is nothing. We think nothing of such trifles. We are ready to fight when we have no hands, nor even a leg to stand upon.”

“Yes, to be sure, you live by fighting, as the poor sailors and soldiers do. The general of the attorneys now is my first cousin, once removed. Now can you tell me what opinion he has formed of my Gregory? Of course there must be a number of people trying to keep my poor boy back. Pressing him down, as they always do, with all that narrow jealousy. But his mother’s cousin might be trusted to give him fair play, now, don’t you think?”

“One never can tell,” answered Hilary; “the faster a young fellow goes up the tree, the harder the monkeys pelt him. But if I only had a quarter of your son’s ability, I would defy them all at once, from the Lord Chief-Justice downward.”

“Oh no, now, Mr. Lorraine; that really would be bad advice. He has not been called to the Bar as yet; and he must remember that there are people many years in front of him. No, no; let Gregory wait for his proper time in its proper course, and steadily rise to the top of the tree. With patience, Mr. Lorraine, you know, with patience all things come to pass. But I must go to the house at once, and write to Mr. Malahide. Do you think that he would be offended, if I asked him to accept a basket of our choicest cherries and strawberries?”

“I scarcely think that he would regard it as a mortal injury; especially if you were to put it as a tribute from his grateful pupil, Hilary Lorraine.”

“How kind of you to let me use your name! And you have such influence with him, Gregory is always telling me. No doubt he will accept them so.”

However, when she came to consider the matter, Mrs. Lovejoy, with shameful treachery, sent them as a little offering from that grateful pupil her own son: while she laid upon Hilary all the burden of this lengthened mitching-time; as in the main perhaps was just. Moreover, she took good care that Shorne should have no chance of appearing in chambers, as he was only too eager to do; for her shrewd sense told her that the sharp wits there would find him a joy for ever, and an enduring joke against Gregory.

It is scarcely needful to say, perhaps, that throughout the rest of the week, Lorraine did his utmost to bring about snug little interviews with Mabel. And she, having made up her mind to keep him henceforth at his distance, felt herself bound by that resolution to afford him a glimpse or two, once in a way. For she really had a great deal to do; and it would have been cruel to deny her even the right to talk of it. And Hilary carried a basket so much better than anybody else, and his touch was so light, and he stepped here and there so obediently and so cleverly, and he always looked away so nicely, if any briery troubles befell—as now and then of course must be—that Mabel began every day to think how dreadfully she would miss him.

And then, as if it were not enough to please her ears, and eyes, and mind, he even contrived to conciliate the most grateful part of the human system, as well as the most intelligent. For on the Tuesday afternoon, the turn of the work, and the courses of fruit, led them near a bushy corner, where the crafty brook stole through. As clever and snug a dingle as need be, for a pair of young people to drop accidentally out of sight and ear-shot. For here, the corner of the orchard fell away, as a quarry does, yet was banked with grass, and ridges, so that children might take hands and run. But if they did so, they would be certain to come to grief at the bottom, unless they could clear at a jump three yards, which would puzzle most of them. For here the brook, without any noise, came under a bank of good brown loam, with a gentle shallow slide, and a bottom content to be run over.

“Trout, as I’m a living sinner!” cried Hilary with a fierce delight, as he fetched up suddenly on the brink, and a dozen streaks darted up the stream, like the throw of a threaded shuttle. “My prophetic soul, if I didn’t guess it! But I seem to forget almost everything. Why Miss Lovejoy, Miss Mabel Lovejoy, Mabel Miss Lovejoy (or any other form, insisting on the prefix despotically), have I known you for a century or more, and you never told me there were trout in the brook!”

“Oh, do let me see them; please to show me where,” cried Mabel, coming carefully down the steep, lest her slender feet should slip: “they are such dears, I do assure you. My mother and I are so fond of them. But my father says they are all bones and tail.”

“I will show them to you with the greatest pleasure, only you must do just what I order you. They are very shy things, you know, almost as shy as somebody——”

“Mabel, Mabel, Mab, where are you?” came a loud shout over the crest; and then Gregory’s square shoulders appeared—a most unwelcome spectacle.

“Why, here I am to be sure,” she answered; “where else do you suppose I should be? The people must be looked after, I suppose. And if you won’t do it, of course I must.”

“I don’t see any people to look after here, except indeed—however, you seem to have looked so hard, it has made you quite red in the face, I declare!”

“Now Greg, my boy,” cried Hilary, suddenly coming to the rescue; “I called your sister down here on purpose to tell me what those things in the water are. They look almost like some sort of fish!”

“Why trout, Lorraine! Didn’t you know that? I thought that you were a great fisherman. If you like to have a try at them I can fit you out. Though I don’t suppose you could do much in this weather.”

“Miss Lovejoy, did you ever taste a trout?” Hilary asked this question, as if not a word had yet passed on the subject.

“Oh, yes,” answered Mabel, no less oblivious; “my brother Charles used to catch a good many. They are such a treat to my dear mother, and so good for her constitution. But I don’t think my father appreciates them.”

“Allow me to help you up this steep rise. It was most inconsiderate of me to call you down, Miss Lovejoy.”

“Pray do not mention it, Mr. Lorraine. Gregory, how rude you are to give Mr. Lorraine all this trouble! But you never were famous for good manners.”

“If I meddle with them again,” thought Gregory, “may I be ‘adorned,’ as my father says! However, I must keep a sharp look-out. The girl is getting quite independent; and I,—oh, I am to be nobody! I’ll just go and see what Phyllis thinks of it.”

But Mabel, who had not forgiven him yet for his insolent remark about her cheeks, deprived him of even that comfort.

“Now Gregory dear, you have done nothing all day but wander about with cousin Phyllis. Just stay here for a couple of hours; if you can’t work yourself, your looking on will make the other people work. I am quite ashamed of my inattention to Mr. Lorraine all the afternoon. I am sure he must want a glass of ale, after all he has gone through. And while he takes it, I may be finding Charlie’s tackle for him. I know where it is, and you do not. And Charlie left it especially under my charge, you remember.”

“That is the first I have heard of it. However, if Lorraine wants beer, why so do I. Send Phyllis out with a jug for me.”

“Yes, to be sure, dear. To be sure. How delighted she will be to come!”

“As delighted as you are to go,” he replied; but she was already out of hearing; and all he took for his answer was an indignant look from Hilary.

An excellent and most patient fisherman used to say that the greatest pleasure of the gentle art was found in the preparation to fish. In the making of flies, and the knotting of gut, and the softening of collars that have caught fish, and the choosing of what to try this time, and how to treat the river. The treasures of memory glow again, and the sparkling stores of hope awake to a lively emulation.

Hilary’s mind had securely landed every fish in the brook at least, and laid it at the feet of Mabel, ere ever his tackle was put to rights, and everything else made ready. At last he was at the very point of starting, with his ever high spirits at their highest pitch, when Mabel (scarcely a whit behind him in the excitement of this great matter) ran in for the fiftieth time at least, but this time wearing her evening frock. That frock was of a delicate buff, and she had a suspicion that it enhanced the clearness of her complexion, and the kind and deep loveliness of her eyes.

“You must be quite tired of seeing me, I am as sure as sure can be. But I am not come now to tie knots, or untie: and you quite understand all I know about trout, and all that my dear brother Charlie said. Ah, Mr. Lorraine, you should see him. Gregory is a genius, of course. But Charlie is not; and that makes him so nice. And his uniform, when he went to church with us—but to understand such things, you must see them. Still, you can understand this now, perhaps.”

“I can understand nothing, when I look at you. My intellect seems to be quite absorbed in—in—I can’t tell you in what.”

“Then go, and absorb it in catching trout. Though I don’t believe you will ever catch one. It requires the greatest skill and patience, when the water is bright, and the weather dry. So Charlie always said, when he could not catch them. Unless you take to a worm, at least, or something a great deal nastier.”

“A worm! I would sooner lime them almost. Now you know me better than that, I am sure.”

“How should I know all the different degrees of cruelty men have established? But I came to beg you just to take a little bit of food with you. Because you must be away some hours, and you are sure to lose your way.”

“How wonderfully kind you are, Mabel!—you must be Mabel now.”

“Well, I suppose I have been Mabel ever since they christened me. But that has nothing at all to do with it. Only I came to make you put this half of cold duck into your basket, and this pinch of salt, and the barley-cake, and a drop of our ale in this stone bottle. To drink it, you must do like this.”

“Do you know what I shall be wanting, every bit of the time, and for ever?”

“Oh, the mustard—how stupid of me! But I hoped that the stuffing would do instead.”

“Instead of the cold half duck, I shall want every atom of the whole duck, warm.”

“Well, there they are, Mr. Lorraine, in the yard. Fourteen of them now coming up from the pond. Take one of them, if you can eat it raw. But my mother will make you pay for it.”

“I will pay for my duck,” he said, lifting his hat; “if it costs me every farthing I have, or shall ever have, in this world, or another.”

And so he went fishing; and she ran upstairs, and softly cried, as she watched him going; and then lay down, with her hand on her heart.

CHAPTER XVIII.
THE KEY OF THE GATE.

He was lucky enough to escape the weight of such horrible poaching upon his conscience. For suddenly to his ears was borne the most melodious of all sounds, the flop of a heavy fish sweetly jumping after some excellent fly or grub.

“Ha, my friend!” cried Hilary; “so you are up for your supper, are you? I myself will awake right early. Still I behold the ring you made. If my right hand forget not his cunning, you shall form your next ring in the frying-pan.”

He gave that fish a little time to think of the beauty of that mouthful, and get ready for another; the while he was putting a white moth on, in lieu of his blue-upright. He kept the grizzled palmer still for tail-fly, and he tried his knots, for he knew that this trout was a Triton.

Then, with a delicate sidling and stooping, known only to them that fish for trout in very bright water of the summer-time—compared with which art, the coarse work of the salmon-fisher is as that of a scene-painter to Mr. Holman Hunt’s—with, or in, and by a careful manner, not to be described to those who have never studied it, Hilary won access of the water, without any doubt in the mind of the fish concerning the prudence of appetite. Then he flipped his short collar in, not with a cast, but a spring of the rod, and let his flies go quietly down a sharpish run into that good trout’s hover. The worthy trout looked at them both, and thought; for he had his own favourite spot for watching the world go by, as the rest of us have. So he let the grizzled palmer pass, within an inch of his upper lip; for it struck him that the tail turned up in a manner not wholly natural, or at any rate unwholesome. He looked at the white moth also, and thought that he had never seen one at all like it. So he drew back under his root again, hugging himself upon his wisdom, never moving a fin, but oaring and helming his plump spotted sides with his tail.

“Upon my word, it is too bad!” said Hilary, after three beautiful throws, and exquisite management down stream; “everything Kentish beats me hollow. Now, if that had been one of our trout, I would have laid my life upon catching him. One more throw, however. How would it be if I sunk my flies? That fellow is worth some patience.”

While he was speaking, his flies alit on the glassy ripple, like gnats in their love-dance; and then by a turn of the wrist he played them just below the surface, and let them go gliding down the stickle, into the shelfy nook of shadow, where the big trout hovered. Under the surface, floating thus, with the check of ductile influence, the two flies spread their wings, and quivered, like a centiplume moth in a spider’s web. Still the old trout, calmly oaring, looked at them both suspiciously. Why should the same flies come so often, and why should they have such crooked tails, and could he be sure that he did not spy the shadow of a human hat about twelve yards up the water? Revolving these things he might have lived to a venerable age—but for that noble ambition to teach, which is fatal to even the wisest. A young fish, an insolent whipper-snapper jumped in his babyish way at the palmer, and missed it through over-eagerness. “I’ll show you the way to catch a fly,” said the big trout to him: “open your mouth like this, my son.”

With that he bolted the palmer, and threw up his tail, and turned to go home again. Alas! his sweet home now shall know him no more. For suddenly he was surprised by a most disagreeable sense of grittiness, and then a keen stab in the roof of his mouth. He jumped in his wrath a foot out of the water, and then heavily plunged to the depths of his hole.

“You’ve got it, my friend.” cried Hilary, in a tingle of fine emotions; “I hope the sailor’s knots are tied with professional skill and care. You are a big one, and a clever one too. It is much if I ever land you. No net, or gaff, or anything. I only hope there are no stakes here. Ah, there you go! Now comes the tug.”

Away went the big trout down the stream, at a pace very hard to exaggerate, and after him rushed Hilary, knowing that his line was rather short, and if it ran out, all was over. Keeping his eyes on the water only, and the headlong speed of the fugitive, headlong over a stake he fell, and took a deep wound from another stake. Scarcely feeling it, up he jumped, lifting his rod, which had fallen flat, and fearing to find no strain on it. “Aha! he is not gone yet!” he cried as the rod bowed like a springle-bow.

He was now a good hundred yards down the brook, from the corner where the fight began. Through his swiftness of foot, and good management, the fish had never been able to tighten the line beyond yield of endurance. The bank had been free from bushes, or haply no skill could have saved him; but now they were come to a corner where a nutbush quite overhung the stream.

“I am done for now,” said the fisherman; “the villain knows too well what he is about. Here ends this adventure.”

Full though he was of despair, he jumped anyhow into the water, lowered the point of his rod to pass, reeled up a little (as the fish felt weaker), and just cleared the drop of the hazel-boughs. The water flapped into the pockets of his coat, and he saw red streaks flow downward. And then he plunged out to an open reach of shallow water and gravel slope.

“I ought to have you now,” he cried; “though nobody knows what a rogue you are; and a pretty dance you have led me!”

Doubting the strength of his tackle to lift even the dead weight of the fish, and much more to meet his despairing rally, he happily saw a little shallow gut, or backwater, where a small spring ran out. Into this, by a dexterous turn, he rather led than pulled the fish, who was ready to rest for a minute or two; then he stuck his rod into the bank, ran down stream, and with his hat in both hands appeared at the only exit from the gut. It was all up now with the monarch of the brook. As he skipped and jumped, with his rich yellow belly, and chaste silver sides, in the green of the grass, joy and glory of the highest merit, and gratitude, glowed in the heart of Lorraine. “Two and three quarters you must weigh. And at your very best you are! How small your head is! And how bright your spots are!” he cried, as he gave him the stroke of grace. “You really have been a brave and fine fellow. I hope they will know how to fry you.”

While he cut his fly out of this grand trout’s mouth, he felt for the first time a pain in his knee, where the point of the stake had entered it. Under the buckle of his breeches, blood was soaking away inside his gaiters; and then he saw how he had dyed the water. After washing the wound, and binding it with dock-leaves and a handkerchief, he followed the stream through a few more meadows, for the fish began to sport pretty well as the gloom of the evening deepened; so that by the time the gables of the old farm-house appeared (by the light of a young moon and the comet), Lorraine had a dozen more trout in his basket, silvery-sided and handsome fellows, though none of them over a pound, perhaps, except his first and redoubtable captive.

Herewith he resolved to be content; for his knee was now very sore and stiff, and the growing darkness baffled him; while having forgotten his food, as behoved him, he was conscious of an agreeable fitness for the supper-table. Here, of course, he had to tell, at least thrice over, his fight with the Triton; who turned the scale at three pounds and a quarter, and was recognized as an old friend and twice conqueror of the absent Charlie. Mrs. Lovejoy (as was to be expected) made a great ado about the gash in the knee—which really was no trifle—while Mabel said nothing, but blamed herself deeply for having equipped him to such misfortune.

For the next few days, Master Hilary was compelled to keep his active frame in rest, and quiet, and cosseting. Even the Grower, a man of strong manhood, accustomed to scythe-cuts, and chopper-hits, and pole-springs, admitted that this was a case for broth, and low feeding, and things that the women do. For if inflammation set up, the boy might have only one leg left for life. It was high time, however, for the son of the house to return to his beloved law-books; so that he tore himself away from Phyllis, and started in the van, about noon on Friday, having promised to send back by John Shorne all that his fellow-pupil wanted.

Lorraine soon found that his kind and quick hostess loved few things better than a cheerful, dutiful, and wholesome-blooded patient; and therefore he rejected with scorn all suggestions as to his need of a “proper doctor.” And herein the Grower backed him up.

“Adorn me, if any one of them ever lays finger on me, any more than on my good father before me! They handle us when we are born, of course, and come to no manner of judgment: but if we let them handle us afterwards, we deserve to go out of the world before them.”

This sound discretion (combined with the plentiful use of cold water and healing herbs) set Hilary on his legs again, in about eight or ten days’ time. Meanwhile, he had seen very little of Mabel, whether through her fault or that of others he could not tell—only so it was. Whenever his hostess was out of the way, Phyllis Catherow, and the housemaid, did their best to supply her place; and very often the Grower dropped in, to enjoy his pipe, and to cheer his guest. By means of simple truth, they showed him that he was no burden to them, even at this busy time.

After all this, it was only natural that Hilary should become much attached, as well as grateful, to his entertainers. Common formality was dropped, and caste entirely sunk in hearty liking and loving-kindness. And young Lorraine was delighted to find how many pleasant virtues flourished under the thatch of that old house, uncoveted and undisturbed; inasmuch as their absence was not felt in the mansions of great people.

This affection for virtue doubtless made him feel sadly depressed and lonely, when the time at length arrived for quitting so much excellence.

“In the van he came, and in the van he would go,” he replied to all remonstrance; and the Grower liked him all the better for his loyalty to the fruit-coach. So it was settled when Crusty John was “going up light” for a Thursday morning, that Hilary should have a mattress laid in the body of the vehicle, and a horse-cloth to throw over him, if the night should prove a cold one. For now a good drop of rain had fallen, and the weather seemed on the change awhile.

“I must catch you another dish of trout,” said Hilary to Mrs. Lovejoy; “when shall I have such a chance again? The brook is in beautiful order now; and thanks to your wonderful skill and kindness, I can walk again quite grandly.”

“Yes, for a little way you can. But you must be sure not to overdo it. You may fish one meadow, and one only. Let me see. You may fish the long meadow, Hilary; then you will have neither stile nor hedge. The gate at this end unlatches, mind. And I will send Phyllis to let you out at the lower end, and to see that you dare not go one step further. She shall be there at half-past six. The van goes at eight, you know, and we must sit down to supper at seven exactly.”

Upon this understanding he set forth, about five o’clock in the afternoon, and meeting Miss Catherow in the lane, he begged her, as an especial favour, to keep out of Mrs. Lovejoy’s way for the next two hours only. Phyllis, a good-natured girl on the whole (though a little too proud of her beauty perhaps), readily promised what he asked, and retired to a seat in the little ash coppice, to read a poem, and meditate upon the absent Gregory.

Lorraine was certainly in luck to-day, for he caught a nice basket of fish down the meadow; and towards the last stickle near the corner, where silver threads of water crossed, and the slanting sunshine cast a plaid of softest gold upon them, light footsteps came by the side of the hedge, and a pretty shadow fell near him.

“Miss Lovejoy!” cried Hilary; “how you amaze me! Why, I thought it was Phyllis who was coming to fetch me. I may call her Phyllis,—oh yes, she allows me. She is not so very ceremonious. But some people are all dignity.”

“Now you want to vex me the very last thing. And they call you so sweet-tempered! I am so sorry for your disappointment about your dear friend Phyllis. But I am sure I looked for her everywhere, before I was obliged to come myself. Now I hope you have not found the poor little trout quite so hard to please as you are.”

“At any rate, not so shy of me, as somebody has been for a fortnight. Because I was in trouble, I suppose, and pain, and supposed to be groaning.”

“How can you say such bitter things? It shows how very little you care—at least, that is not what I mean at all.”

“Then, if you please, what is it that you do mean?”

“I mean that here is the key of the gate. And my father will expect you at seven o’clock.”

“But surely you will have a look at my trout? They cannot bite, if I can.”

He laid his fishing-creel down on the grass, and Mabel stooped over it to hide her eyes; which (in spite of all pride and prudence) were not exactly as she could have wished. But they happened to be exactly as Hilary wished, and catching a glimpse of them unawares, he lost all ideas except of them; and basely compelled them to look at him.

“Now, Mabel Lovejoy,” he said, slowly, and with some dread of his own voice; “can you look me in the face, and tell me you do not care twopence for me?”

“I am not in the habit of being rude,” she answered, with a sly glance from under her hat; “that I leave for other people.”

“Well, do you like me, or do you not?”

“You do ask the most extraordinary questions. We are bound to like our visitors.”

“I will ask a still more extraordinary question. Do you love me, Mabel?”

For a very long time he got no answer, except a little smothered sob, and two great tears that would have their way. “Darling Mabel, look up and tell me. Why should you be ashamed to say? I am very proud of loving you. Lovely Mabel, do you love me?”

“I—I—I am—very—much afraid—I almost do.”

She shrank away from his arms and eyes, and longed to be left to herself for a little. And then she thought what a mean thing it was to be taking advantage of his bad leg. With that she came back, and to change his thoughts, said, “Show me a trout in the brook now, Hilary.”

“You deserve to see fifty, for being so good. There, you must help me along, you know. Now just stand here and let me hold you, carefully and most steadily. No, not like that. That will never do. I must at least have one arm round you, or in you go, and I have to answer for your being ‘drownded’!”

“Drowned! You take advantage now to make me so ridiculous. The water is scarcely six inches deep. But where are the little troutsies?”

“There! There! Do you see that white stone? Now look at it most steadfastly, and then you are sure not to see them. Now turn your head like that, a little,—not too much, whatever you do. Now what do you see, most clearly?”

“Why, I see nothing but you and me, in the shadow of that oak-tree, standing over the water as if we had nothing better in the world to do!”

“We are standing together, though. Don’t you think so?”

“Well, even the water seems to think so. And what can be more changeable?”

“Now look at me, and not at the water. Mabel, you know what I am.”

“Hilary, I wish I did. That is the very thing that takes such a long time to find out.”

“Now, did I treat you in such a spirit? Did I look at you, and think,‘here is a rogue I must find out’?”

“No, of course you never did. That is not in your nature. At the same time, perhaps, it might not matter so long to you, as it must to me.”

She met his glad eyes with a look so wistful, yet of such innocent trust (to assuage the harm of words), that Hilary might be well excused for keeping the Grower’s supper waiting, as he did that evening.