Agatha moved angrily from his side, and soon after, though not so soon as to attract notice to him or herself, she quitted the room. Scarcely had she reached her own when she heard a step behind her.

"Are you angry with me, my wife, and for such a little thing?"

Nathanael stood there, holding both her hands, and looking down upon her with a face so kind, so regretful, so grave, that she felt ashamed of the quick storm which had ruffled her own spirit The cause of this did seem now a very "little thing." She hung her head, child-like, and made no answer.

"Why is it," said Mr. Harper, putting his arm round her--"why is it that we are always having these 'little things' rising up to trouble us?

Why cannot we bear with one another, and take the chance-happiness that falls to our lot? It is not much, I fear"--

She looked uneasy.

"Nay, perhaps that is chiefly my fault. I often wish Heaven had given you a better husband, Agatha."

And his countenance was so softened, mournful, and tender, that Agatha's affection returned. There was something childish and foolish in these small wranglings. They wore her patience away. For the twentieth time she vowed not to make herself unhappy, or restless, or cross, but to take Nathanael's goodness as she saw it, believing in it and him. Since according to that wise speech of Harriet--which even Anne Valery smiled at and did not deny--the best of men were very disagreeable at times, and no man's good qualities ever came out thoroughly until he had been married for at least a year.

With a tear in her eye and a quiver on her lip, Agatha held up her young face to her husband. He kissed her, and there was peace.

But though he had made this concession, and made many others in the course of the next hour, to remove from her mind every thought of pain, still he showed not the slightest change of will regarding the cause of dispute. And perhaps in her secret heart this only caused his wife to respect him the more. It is usually the weak and erring who vacillate.

Firmness of purpose, mildly carried out, implies a true motive at the root. Agatha began to think whether her husband might not have some reason for his conduct; probably the very simple one of disliking to see his name or her own paraded in a subscription-list, or mixed up with a political clique.

Nevertheless, he puzzled her. She could not think why, with all his tenderness, he so often put his will in opposition to her own, and prevented her pleasure; why he was so slow in giving her his confidence; why he more than once plainly stated that there was "a reason" for various disagreeable whims, yet had not told her what that reason was.

All these were trivial things--yet in the early sunrise of married life the least molehill throws a long black shadow.

"I will be a wise woman. I will not disquiet myself in vain," said the little wife to herself, as her husband left her, in answer to repeated calls from some feminine voice which had just entered the house, and was immediately audible half over it. Harriet Dugdale's, of course. To her--sharp-sighted and merry-tongued woman that she was--Agatha would not for worlds have betrayed anything; so, dashing cold water on her forehead to hide the very near approach to tears, she quickly descended.

Harrie was in a state of considerable indignation, mixed with laughter.

"I never knew such people as you are! and certainly never was there the like of my Duke there. He set off to fetch you all to Corfe Castle--his own proposition. I waited an hour and a half--then I took the pony to see after you--and lo!--there he is, sitting quite at his ease. Oh, Duke--Duke!"

She shook her riding-whip at him twice before she disturbed him from his book.

"Eh, Missus--what do'ee want, my child?"

"Want? Don't you see what a pa.s.sion we're all in? Abuse him, Anne--Agatha--Nathanael! Do! I've no patience with him. Didn't he say himself that he would take us all to Corfe Castle? Oh, you--you"---- And Harrie looked unutterable things.

Mr. Dugdale gazed round placidly. "Really, now, that's a pity! Never mind, Missus! I only forgot." And patting her hand with ineffable gentleness and good-humour, he opened his book again.

"Oh, you--you"--here she put on a melodramatic scowl--"you inconceivably provoking, misty, oblivious, incomprehensible old darling!"

And springing upon the back of his chair, Harrie hugged him to a degree that compelled the unfortunate philosopher to renounce his book. He took the caresses very patiently, and smiled with superior love upon his merry wife.

"That'll do, Missus! Eh--and before folk, too! Now don't'ee, my child!"

And shaking himself, hair and all, into something like order, he picked up the folio, tucked it under his arm, and wended his way through the window slowly down the lawn.

Agatha glanced at her husband, who stood talking to Miss Valery. She wondered what Nathanael would say if _she_ were to take a leaf out of his sister's book, and treat her own liege lord after the unceremonious fashion of Harrie Dugdale!

"There--off he goes, quite cross, no doubt." (He was smiling as benevolently as if he could embrace the whole world.) "But we must catch him at the stables. I brought White-star galloping after me, and Duke will rouse up when he sees his beloved horse. You shall take my pony, Agatha. Of course you can ride?"

Agatha could--in a London riding-school and London parks. She had her doubts about the country, but felt strongly inclined to try; for Mrs.

Dugdale had entered Kingcombe Holm like a breath of keen fresh air, putting life and spirit into everybody. Nathanael made no opposition, only he insisted on Mary's quiet grey mare being subst.i.tuted for Harrie's skittish pony.

"I shall ride with you part way," said he, "and then leave you in Mr.

Dugdale's charge, while I stay at Kingcombe."

"Why so?"

"I have business there."

Still the same weary "business" which he never explained or talked about, yet which always seemed to rise up like a bugbear on their pleasures, until Agatha was sick of the sound of the word!

She turned away, and put herself altogether under Mrs. Dugdale's care to be equipped for the ride.

Anne Valery, coming in with her quiet common sense, succeeded in making up the party, which, with one exception, Harrie had left to make itself up according to its own discretion. When Mrs. Harper descended, she found all settled for the spending of a day at Corfe Castle, in picnic style--glorious and free--with a moonlight canter home in the evening.

No one was omitted except the Squire, who with considerable dignity declined such _al fresco_ amus.e.m.e.nts; and Anne Valery, who promised to peep in upon them as she pa.s.sed the Castle on her way to her own house, after spending a few hours with Elizabeth.

Agatha had never been on horseback since she was married. It made her feel like a girl again, and brought back all the wild spirits of her youth, now repressed in propriety by her changed life--until sometimes she hardly knew herself, or fancied she was growing into that object of her former scorn, an ordinary young lady. She cast the subdued and meek "Mrs. Locke Harper" to the winds, and dashed wildly back for this day at least into "Agatha Bowen."

Her husband, putting her on her horse, with many injunctions, was surprised to see her give him a careless nod and dart off delightedly, as if she and the grey mare had wings. The Dugdales followed, a wild pair, for Marmaduke was quite another being on horseback.

"Look at him, Agatha,"--and Harrie's laugh ringing on the wind caused the mild grey mare to seem rather restless in her mind. "Did you think my Duke could ride as he does? He never looks so well as on horseback.

He is a perfect Thessalian!"

Agatha was amused to find cla.s.sic lore in Harrie Dugdale, and she gave most cordial admiration to Duke. "He is a magnificent rider; he sits the horse just as if he were born to it."

"Bless him! so he was. He rode his father's horses at four years old, and went hunting at fourteen. And he has such a beautiful temper, and such a firm will besides--that he could manage the wildest brute in the county. See there!"

White-star had become rather obstreperous, showing his spirit; his master carelessly lent down, giving him a box on each ear, just as if the stately blood horse had been a naughty child; then composedly rode him back to the two ladies.

"Harrie! Missus! do'ee come on! Nathanael is behind, all right. Come along!"

He gave his wife's pony a switch, and off they dashed, she laughing merrily, and he galloping away with such ease and grace that Agatha could not take her eyes off him.

She looked after them with a vague sense of envy,--this odd married pair, in whose union so many things appeared unequal and peculiar, except for one thing--the love which hallowed and perfected all. When her own husband came up, she, unwilling to talk, and dreading above all that his quick eye should detect anything amiss in her, pushed her horse forward, and calling to Nathanael to follow, rode on after the Dugdales.

Ere they had ridden far, all her wild spirits came back again, and all her wifely feelings too, for her husband seemed as happy as herself, and entered into all her frolics. They swept along like two children, across the breezy moors, purple and fragrant, down by the hilly sheep-paths, lying bare in autumn sunshine. Nathanael proved himself almost as good a horseman as Duke Dugdale: a great pleasure to Agatha, for of all things women do like a man to be manly. Nay, once, in the descent of a hill so steep, that a c.o.c.kney equestrian would have been frightened out of his seven senses, Nathanael's prudent daring stood out in such bold relief that Agatha was perforce reminded of the day when he s.n.a.t.c.hed little Jemmie from the bear, the first day when her liking and respect had been awakened towards him. She hinted this, and said how pleasant it was to feel that one's husband was, as she expressed it, "a man that could take care of one."

"And how very foolish and helpless townfolk--drawing-room gentlemen, appear in the country! I wonder," and she could not help telling him the comical idea, though not very complimentary to her husband's brother--"I wonder how Major Harper would look on horseback?"

"What did you say? The wind blew that sentence away."

She hardly liked to repeat it exactly, but said something about Major Harper and his coming down to Dorset.

Nathanael spurred his horse forward without replying. A minute afterwards he returned to his wife's side, bringing her a great bunch of heather, with yellow gorse mixed, and made jokes about the Dorsetshire saying, "When gorse is out of bloom kissing's out of season." And evermore he looked secretly at her, to notice if she laughed and was happy, had roses on her cheeks, and pleasure in her eyes. Seeing this, the husband appeared contented and at ease.

They and the Dugdales rode merrily into Kingcombe, much to that good town's astonishment. The equestrian quartette at Marmaduke's door was a sight that the worthy inhabitants of that sleepy street would not get over for a week. Everybody gathered at doors and windows, and a small group of farmers at the market quadrangle stared with all their eyes.

The sensation created was enormous, and likewise the crowd,--almost as dense as a wandering juggler gathers in a quiet suburban London street!

Agatha, pa.s.sing through it, laughed till she could laugh no longer.

Her husband, pleased at her gaiety, came to lift her off her horse.