Three hundred and sixty-four days of that year Saw-miller Pike, his wife, his four children, and his hired man, one or all of them, were on that spot; their one absence chance decreed should be on this particular August Thursday when Anne Douglas came there to spend the day. She was not afraid; it was a quiet rural neighborhood without beggars or tramps.

Her grandaunt would not return until sunset. She decided to look for the fern, and if she found it within an hour or two, to walk home, and send a boy back on horseback to wait for Miss Vanhorn. If she did not find it before afternoon, she would wait for the carriage, according to agreement. Hanging her basket and shawl on a tree branch near the mill, she entered the ravine, and was soon hidden in its green recesses. Up and down, up and down the steep rocky sides she climbed, her tin case swinging from her shoulder, her trowel in her belt; she neglected no spot, and her track, if it had been visible, would have shown itself almost as regular as the web of the geometric spider. Up and down, up and down, from the head of the ravine to its foot on one side: nothing.

It seemed to her that she had seen the fronds and curled crosiers of a thousand ferns. Her eyes were tired, and she threw herself down on a mossy bank not far from the mill to rest a moment. There was no use in looking at the watch; still, she did it, and decided that it was either half past eleven or half past three. The remaining side of the ravine gazed at her steadily; she knew that she must clamber over every inch of those rocks also. She sighed, bathed her flushed cheeks in the brook, took down her hair, and braided it in two long school-girl braids, which hung down below her waist; then she tied her straw hat to a branch, pinned her neck-tie on the brim, took off her linen cuffs, and laid them within together with her gloves, and leaving the tin plant case and the trowel on the bank, started on her search. Up and down, up and down, peering into every cranny, standing on next to nothing, swinging herself from rock to rock; making acquaintance with several very unpleasant rock spiders, and hastily constructing bridges for them of small twigs, so that they could cross from her skirt to their home ledge in safety; finding a trickling spring, and drinking from it; now half way down the ravine, now three-quarters; and still no walking-leaf. She sat down on a jutting crag to take breath an instant, and watched a bird on a tree branch near by. He was one of those little brown songsters that sing as follows:

[Ill.u.s.tration: Musical notation]

Seeing her watching him, he now chanted his little anthem in his best style.

"Very well," said Anne, aloud.

"Oh no; only so-so," said a voice below. She looked down, startled, It was Ward Heathcote.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SHE BATHED HER FLUSHED CHEEK."]

CHAPTER XIV.

"From beginning to end it was all undeniable nonsense; but not necessarily the worse for that."--NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

Heathcote was sitting under a tree by the brook-side, as though he had never been anywhere else.

"When did you come?" said Anne, looking down from her perch.

"Fifteen minutes or so ago," he answered, looking up from his couch.

"_Why_ did you come?"

"To see you, of course."

"No; I can not believe that. The day is too warm."

"You, at any rate, look cool enough."

"It is cool up here among the rocks; but it must be intense out on the high-road."

"I did not come by the high-road."

"How, then, did you come?"

"Across the fields."

"Why?"

"Miss Douglas, were you born in New Hampshire? As I can not call all this information you require up hill, I shall be obliged to come up myself."

As he rose, Anne saw that he was laden with her dinner basket and shawl, her plant case and trowel, and her straw hat and its contents, which he balanced with exaggerated care. "Oh, leave them all there," she called down, laughingly.

But no, Heathcote would not; he preferred to bring them all with him.

When he reached her rock, he gravely delivered them into her hands, and took a seat beside her, fanning himself with his hat.

"And now, how does it happen that you are here?" repeated Anne, placing her possessions in different niches.

"You insist? Why not let it pa.s.s for chance? No? Well, then, by horseback to Powell's: horse loses shoe; blacksmith's shop. Blacksmith talkative; second customer that morning; old coupe, fat old coachman, and fat brown horse, who also loses shoe. Coachman talkative; tells all about it; blacksmith tells _me_; young lady left at saw-mill to be taken up on return. I, being acquainted with said saw-mill and young lady, come across by lane through the fields. Find a dinner basket; look in; conclude to bring it on. Find a small tin coffin, and bring that too.

Find a hat, ditto. Hat contains--"

"Never mind," said Anne, laughing. "But where is your horse?"

"Tied to a tree."

"And what are you going to do?"

"At present, nothing. By-and-by, if you will permit it, I _may_--smoke a cigar."

"I have no idea what time it is," said Anne, after a pause, while Heathcote, finding a comfortable place with his back against the rocks, seemed disposed to enjoy one of his seasons of silence.

He drew out his watch, and without looking at it held it toward her.

"You need not tell; _I_ do not want to know," he said.

"In spite of that, I feel it to be my duty to announce that it is nearly half past twelve; you may still reach home in time for lunch."

"Thanks. I know what I shall have for lunch."

"What?"

"One small biscuit, three slices of cake, one long corpulent pickle, and an apple."

"You have left nothing for me," said Anne, laughing over this disclosure of the contents of her basket.

"On the contrary, I have brought you something," said Heathcote, gravely producing two potatoes uncooked, a pinch of salt in paper, and a quarter of a loaf of bread, from the pockets of his blue flannel coat.

Anne burst into a peal of laughter, and the last shadow of timidity vanished. Heathcote seemed for the moment as young as Rast himself.

"Where have you been foraging?" she said.

"Foraging? I beg your pardon; nothing of the kind. I bought these supplies regularly from a farmer's wife, and paid for them in the coin of the land. I remarked to her that I should be out all day, and hated hunger; it was so sanguinary."

"But you will not be out all day."

"Until eight minutes of six, precisely; that is the time I have selected for my return." Then, seeing that she looked grave, he dropped into his usual manner, and added, "Of course, Miss Douglas, I shall only remain a little while--until the noon heat is over. You are looking for a rare flower, I believe?"

"A fern."

"What is the color of its flower?"

Anne laughed again. "A fern has no flower," she explained. "See, it is like this." And plucking a slender leaf, she described the wished-for plant minutely. "It stretches out its long tip--so; touches the earth--so; puts down a new little root from the leaf's end--so; and then starts on again--so."