Wych Hazel. Warner Susan
I heard say the woods was all afire. Why there's enough in the house, but it ain't here. We live up the hill a ways. I'll start and fetch something—only say what. O here's this, if she's fainted.'—And producing a very amulet-looking bottle of salts, suspended round her neck by a blue ribband, she at once administered a pretty powerful whiff. With great suddenness Wych Hazel laid hold of the little smelling bottle, opening her brown eyes to their fullest extent and exclaiming:
'What in the world are you all about!'
'Ah!' said Mr. Falkirk. 'Get what you can my good girl; only don't stand about it. Can you give her a glass of milk? or a cup of tea?'
The girl left them and sprang away up the path at a rate that showed her good will, followed by Rollo. Arrived at the miller's house, which proved a poor little affair, the cup of tea was hastily brewed; and Rollo having contrived to find out pretty well the resources of the family in that as well as in other lines of accommodation, and having despatched along with the tea whatever he thought might stand least chance of being refused, left the miller's daughter to convey it, and betook himself to his own amusements.
The meal was not much. But when it was over Wych Hazel found a better refreshment and one even more needed just then. Mrs. Saddler at a little distance nodded and dreamed; Mr. Falkirk also had moved off and at least made believe rest. Then did his ward take the comfort, a rare one to her, of pouring out a mindful to somebody of her own sex and age. It was only to the little miller's daughter; yet the true honest face and rapt attention made amends for all want of conventionalities.
'What did you get that salts for?' she began.
'He said you was faint.'
'Who is "he"?'
'The gentleman—I mean the young one.'
'Ah—Well, but I was holding you down by the blue ribband for ever so long.'
'Yes—because—I had promised not to take it off,' said the girl, blushing.
'What a promise?'
'O, but you know, ma'am—I mean, it was give to me, and so I promised. When folks give you things they always expect you never to take 'em off.'
'Do they?' said Wych Hazel. But then she launched forth into the account of all the day's distress, electrifying her listener with some of the fear and excitement so long pent up. Yet the mill girl's comment was peculiar.
'It does make a person feel very solemn to be so near to death.'
'Solemn!' cried Wych Hazel. 'Is that all you would feel, Phoebe?'
'I'm not much afraid of pain, you know, ma'am—and if the fire took it couldn't last long.'
'But Phoebe;—' she sat straight up on her floury cushions, looking at the girl's quiet face. 'What do you mean, Phoebe?'—She could not have told what checked the expression of her growing wonder.
'O lie down, ma'am, please! Why I only mean,' said Phoebe speaking with perfect simplicity—'You know God calls us all to die somehow—and if he called me to die so, it wouldn't make much difference. I shouldn't think of it when I'd got to heaven.'
Again some undefined feeling sealed Wych Hazel's lips. She lay down as she was desired, and with her hand over her eyes thought, and wondered, and fell asleep.
For some hours thereafter the sunbeams were hardly quieter than the party they lighted on the miller's floor. Wych Hazel slept; Mrs. Saddler was even more profoundly wrapped in forgetfulness; Mr. Falkirk sat by keeping guard. The miller's daughter had run up the hill to her home for a space. As to Rollo, he had not been seen. His gun was his companion, and with that it was usual for him to be in the woods much of the time. He came back from his wanderings however as the day began to fall, and now sat on a stone outside the mill door, very busy. The little lake at his feet still and dark, with the side of the woody glen doubled in its mirror, and the sunlight in the tops of the trees reflected in golden glitter from the middle of the pool, was a picture to tempt the eye: but Rollo's eye, if it glanced, came back again. He was picking the feathers from a bird he had shot, and doing it deftly. Sauntering leisurely up the miller approached him.
'Now that's what I like,' he remarked; 'up to anything, eh? You don't seem so much used up as the rest on 'em. Even the little one talked herself to sleep at last!'
'Have you got a match, Mr. Miller?'
'No—I haven't,' said the man of flour—'I always light my pipe with a burning glass. Won't that serve your turn? So there she sits, asleep, and my Phoebe sits and looks at her.'
'I've something else that will serve my turn,' said the hunter applying to his gun. 'But stay—I do not care to see any more fire to-day than is necessary.'—And drawing his work off to a safe place, he went on to kindle tinder and make a nice little fire.—'Haven't you learned how to make bread yet, Mr. Miller?'
'Not a bit!' said he laughing. 'And when you've got a wife and four daughters you won't do much fancy cookig neither, I guess. But there's Phoebe—'
'A mistake, Mr. Miller,' said the fancy cook. 'Best always to be independent of your wife—and of everything else.'
And impaling his bird on a sharp splinter he stuck it up before the fire, to the great interest and amusement of the miller. Another spectator also wandered out there, and she was presently sent back to the mill.
'Miss Hazel,' said Mrs. Saddler, coming to the 'divan' where the young lady and her guardian were both sitting—'Mr. Rollo says, ma'am, are you ready for him to come in?'
'I am awake, if that is what he means.'
'What do you mean, Mrs. Saddler?'
'If you please, sir, I am sure I don't know what I mean—but that's a very strange gentleman, Miss Kennedy. There he's gone and shot a robin—at least, I suppose it was him for I don't know who else should have done it—and his gun's standing by—and then he's gone and picked it ma'am—picked the feathers off, and they 're lyin' all round; and then he washed it in the lake, and he was hard to suit, for he walked a good way up the lake before he found a place where he would wash it; and now he's made a fire and stuck up the bird and roasted it; and why he didn't get me or Miss Miller to do it I don't comprehend. And he's got plates and things, ma'am, and salt, ma'am, and bread; and that's what he means, sir; and he want's to know if you're ready. The bird's all done.'
Wych Hazel looked anything but ready. She was very young in the world's ways, very new to her own popularity, and somehow Mrs. Saddler's story touched her sensitiveness. The shy, shrinking colour and look told of what at six years old would have made her hide her face under her mother's apron. No such refuge being at hand, however, and she obliged to face the world for herself, as soon as she had despatched a very dignified message to Mr. Rollo, the young lady's feeling sought relief in irritation.
'I suppose I am not to blame this time, for making myself conspicuous, sir! Have you given me up as a bad bargain, Mr. Falkirk?'
'It can't be helped, my dear,'—said her guardian somewhat dryly, and soberly too. 'I think however it is rather somebody else who is making himself conspicuous at this time.'
He became conspicuous to their vision a minute after, appearing in the mill door-way with a little dish in his hand and attended by Phoebe with other appliances; but nothing mortal could less justify Wych Hazel's sensation of shyness. With the coolness of a traveller, the readiness of a hunter, and the business attention of a cook or a courier, both which offices he had been filling, he went about his arrangements. The single chair that was in the mill was taken from Mr. Falkirk and brought up to do duty as a table, with a board laid upon it. On this board was set the bird, hot and savoury, on its blue-edged dish; another plate with bread and salt, and a glass of water; together with a very original knife and fork, that were probably introduced soon after the savages 'left.' Mrs. Saddler's eyes grew big as she looked; but Rollo and the miller's girl understood each other perfectly and wanted none of her help. Well——
'Girls blush sometimes because they are alive'—but seeing it could