"Thistledown for thoughts," said May Fisher, laughing, as she tried to seize the glossy b.a.l.l.s floating by on the idle air of the lane.

"Thoughts are of little value, then," said Felix St Bees.

"Except to the goldfinches," said Margaret; "see how busy they are."

It was a lovely afternoon: white fleecy clouds lingered in the upper atmosphere, so gauze-like in texture as scarcely to diminish the sun's rays when they pa.s.sed over. The golden mist of ripe September filled the hollows and hung over the distant ridges, softening with haze the outlines of the hills. The fierce stress of midsummer heat was gone, leaving instead a luxurious warmth that lured them into the fields.

Margaret had succeeded in persuading old Andrew Fisher to let May return to Greene Ferne. Rude as he was, Margaret's beauty stirred the expiring spirit of gallantry, and he yielded. Although he would not let May go back at once in her company, he fixed a day for her return. Margaret explained to him that St Bees did not need his money, having plenty; and the old man--prompted too by avarice--sent a gruff kind of apology, and asked Felix to call again. Felix, however, had had his dignity upset by the blackthorn cudgel hurled at his head, and naturally waited awhile before repeating his visit. Geoffrey still stayed at Thorpe Hall, for the shooting now, and Valentine at Hollyock Cottage. They had all started that afternoon to go a-nutting in Thorpe Wood.

The wood was approached by a winding thick-hedged lane. As they slowly advanced a bevy of goldfinches went before them, rising from the thistles, for they love the seeds in the down, with a "fink" of remonstrance, settling again to start up once more, and finally, out of patience at the interruption, taking flight to the tall ash-trees, to wait till the intruders had pa.s.sed on.

"We must have some sticks with crooks to pull the boughs down," said May, "or we shall not reach half the nuts."

So the gentlemen took out their pocket-knives, and searched for suitable sticks. Felix cut one of hazel, twice as long as himself; Valentine another of ash; Geoffrey carelessly slashed off the first willow-bough he came to, and trimmed it.

"Yours will not do," said Margaret to him. "The willow is too weak--it will split."

"Will mine answer?" asked Valentine, showing a stout piece of ash.

"Yes, that is tougher. Why don't you get an ash, Geoffrey?"

"I shall trust in my first choice," said Geoffrey, just a trifle annoyed even by so slight a matter; for when men's minds are strung with love and jealousy the least thing nettles them.

"I think it will do," said May, anxious to smooth it over.

As they went on down the lane the blackbirds every now and then sprang from the bushes with a loud cry; the song-thrushes, less wild, sat on the spray till they came close. Stray blue b.u.t.terflies wandered wonderingly in and out, with a dainty tripping flight--wonderingly, because they had but lately entered to the summer world, and found so much to see they could not stay long in one place. Bryony leaves, shaped like the shields of ancient Norman knights, trailed a pale buff scarf across the bushes. Bryony berries, some red and some a metallic shining green, cl.u.s.tered in grape-like bunches. Blackberries ripening; haws reddening on the thorn; yellow fronds of brake fern on the tall stems rising beside the brambles. No sound save the dry gra.s.shoppers singing in the gra.s.s, and leaping before their footsteps; and the robin's plaintive notes from the ash. So they went on and into the silence of the wood. The soft warmth brooded over it--the winds were still. High up in the beeches spots of red gold were widening slowly, and the acorns showed thickly on the oaks. Then past narrow "drives,"

or tracks going through the woods, bounded on each side with endless walls of ashpoles with branches of pole green; carpeted with dark-green gra.s.s and darker moss luxuriating in the dank shade, and roofed with spreading oak-spray. These vistas seemed to lead into unknown depths of forest. They paused and looked down one, feeling an indefinite desire of exploration; and as they looked in the silence a leaf fell, brown and tanned, with a trembling rustle, and they saw its brown oval dot the rank green gra.s.s, upon whose blades it was upborne. On again, and out into a broad glade, where the rabbits had been at play, and raced to their hiding-places. Here were clumps of beeches, brown with innumerable nuts; straight-grown Spanish chestnuts, with spiny green b.a.l.l.s of fruit; knotted oaks; and tall limes, already yellow and filled by the sunshine with a hazy shimmer of colour. Over the glade a dome of deep-blue sky, and a warm loving sun, whose drowsy shadows lingered and moved slow.

After a while they reached the hazel bushes, acres upon acres of them; tall straight rods, with tapering upturned branches, whose leaves fell in a shower when the stem was shaken. Nuts are the cunningest of fruit in their manner of growth; outwardly they show a few cl.u.s.ters fairly enough, especially bunches at an almost inaccessible height; when these are gathered, those who are not aware of the ways of the hazel naturally pa.s.s on, leaving at least twice as many unseen. The nuts grow under the bough in such a position that, in pulling it down to reach a visible bunch, the very motion of the bough as it bends hides the rest beneath it. These will stay till they drop from the hoods, till, turning to a dark and polished brown, they fall ratling from branch to branch to the earth. There again the dead brown leaves hide them by similarity of colour. So that, to thoroughly strip a hazel bush requires a knowledge of the likely places and the keenest of eyes.

As for May, restless and ever in movement, glinting hither and thither like a sunbeam when the shadows of the branches dance in the breeze, she could never stay long enough to really search the boughs. She went from thicket to thicket, constantly finding one that bore more than that she had just left. This b.u.t.terfly flight soon carried her away and hid her among the bushes, though her merry laugh came back in answer to Margaret's call. Felix of course was with her.

Like money-getting, nut-gathering grows upon the searcher. When pockets are full and baskets running over, and a heap on the handkerchief spread upon the ground, though the palate is weary with eating, and the arms with working held high above the head, yet still the avarice increases.

So Margaret gathered and gathered, and laughed and chatted, and stood on tiptoe, and enjoyed the gipsying. Her hat had fallen back almost upon her shoulder, the impudent s.n.a.t.c.hes of the branches loosened her hair, and the fierce caress of the briars tore her skirt. Her cheek was flushed with the bloom of pure young blood put swiftly in motion by the labour. The grey eyes sparkled, and as she raised her hand the sleeve dropped and gave a glimpse of the white polished wrist glowing among the leaves. The excitement, the _abandon_ of the moment, gave another charm to her beauty. It is where the river ripples that the sunbeams glisten, not on the smooth still flow. She felt along the boughs for the cl.u.s.ter, for what the eyes may miss the hand will often discover; she let the boughs spring up a little way without quite releasing them, to look a second time underneath before quitting hold. The heap of nuts grew larger every moment.

Valentine and Geoffrey were there, helping to pull the boughs within reach for her. Without a thought of evil, the very brightness, the carelessness of her enjoyment, raised to a bitter height the smouldering jealousy between them. The smile upon her face when turned towards Geoffrey had the inspiration of love behind it, which he in his rising anger could not see. Towards Valentine it was a smile only, though seemingly as bright; yet he, eager for a sign, interpreted it as something more. She knew that they had been the dearest friends, and in her innocence never dreamed that a smile or a glance could play such havoc with that friendship. Her heart she knew was Geoffrey's--it was the very knowledge of his love that made her so happy that day. But under the nut-tree, and the laugh, and the sunshine, fierce pa.s.sions were stirring in their hearts. Both were watching eagerly for a chance of speaking to her privately; Valentine, to say words that had long been as it were upon his lips, to ask her to accept him; Geoffrey, full of reproaches, and yet with a guilty sense of lacking trust. When the great bush was stripped to the uttermost as it seemed, Margaret stood back a little distance to view it the better, and see that not one nut had escaped.

"Ah," she cried, pointing to the topmost bough, "I can see a splendid cl.u.s.ter. Look, Valentine, there must be five or six nuts in one bunch."

There was a fine and tempting cl.u.s.ter where she pointed, the sunlight shining on it, and one side of the nuts rosy, as if ripened more towards the beams. Geoffrey ran to the bush and seized the strong hazel high up with his willow crook. It was an exceptionally large nut-tree stick, stiff and tall, and scarcely yielded to his first attempt.

"Pull gently," said Margaret, all intent, "or you will shake them out, and perhaps lose them."

"Can you reach them now?" he asked; for as the bough came down he could not see well, being under it.

"Yes; I've got them. O!" For, as the tips of her fingers touched the nuts, there was the sound of splitting wood, and the cl.u.s.ter flew up to its original height. Geoffrey's willow crook had broken, as she had said it would.

"Here are some," said Valentine, just behind; secretly glad at Geoffrey's failure. He had gone to an adjacent bush and crooked a laden bough down with his tough ash stick. Margaret turned to go there.

Instantly Geoffrey, angry and jealous, sprang at the hazel pole that had baffled him, seized it as far up as possible, and hung with all his weight. It bent; he put his foot against the stole, and with all his great strength wrenched the bough from its juncture. With a loud crack it parted and fell at her feet.

"Now take them," he said savagely. But the force of the fall had shaken the nuts out and scattered them afar, lost among the gra.s.s and leaves.

"What a pity! The bough is spoilt too," said Margaret. "Why don't you cut a crook like Valentine's?" She went towards Valentine's bush, somewhat surprised at the vehemence of Geoffrey's manner.

Geoffrey took his knife and ran into the bushes to cut another crook.

Hardly had he disappeared in the thickets when he called to her.

"Margaret, Margaret! I have found your glove--you dropped it."

She went towards the voice; the moment she came near he grasped both her hands tightly. There was no glove, it was a _ruse_ to speak to her.

"You seem to prefer _his_ society to mine," he said, in a low, hard tone.

"What _do_ you mean?" Her glance and surprised expression reproached him for his harshness. He hated himself for his next words, and yet he uttered them; jealousy is cruel, and drove him on even against his better mind.

"I mean that you play double--first with me and then with _him_."

Now this was not only positively untrue, but in the worst possible taste; had he been cool he would never have said it; as it was he instantly repented. She stood before him silent, all the blood gone from her cheek in the extremity of her indignation, unable to speak.

Then she drew her hands away, and her breath came in short quick sobs.

"No, no, I did not mean it." He tried to take her hand again, but she fled swiftly among the brake fern and the thickets seeking May. He stood bewildered at his own folly; then his anger was redoubled against Valentine instead of against himself. A minute or two afterwards he heard a slight cry, as if caused by pain, and immediately went towards it, but in a dazed kind of way. Valentine was swifter.

As Margaret ran between the bramble bushes and the nut-tree stoles, winding round the tangled ma.s.ses of fern, and increasing her pace as the full significance of Geoffrey's insinuation became apparent to her, she was heedless of her footsteps, and so caught her foot in a trailing bine of honeysuckle, and fell on one knee. In falling she instinctively grasped at the nearest bough, and thereby did the mischief; for a briar was twisted round it, and a great hooked thorn ran deep into her thumb.

The sharp sudden pain caused her cry. Valentine was at her side in a moment. He saw the thorn, which had broken away from the briar and was fixed in the wound.

"I am so sorry," he said. "Let me take it out."

A tiny red globule of blood oozed from the white and polished skin, contrasting so sweetly in colour that he actually paused half a second to admire before he drew it.

"Quick, please," she said.

He drew it tenderly, and another larger crimson drop welled up, and stood on the delicate white thumb. "It is out."

"You are sure the point is not left in?" He bent over to examine more carefully. The sunbeams lit up her beautiful hand; temptation overcame him and he kissed it, and the crimson drop stained his lip.

"Sir!" She angrily s.n.a.t.c.hed it away. At the same moment she saw Geoffrey looking through the parted bushes behind Valentine, who did not know he was so near.

"A moment!" cried Valentine, in the flood of his pa.s.sion. "Listen. I love--"

But she rushed from him. Valentine followed her. Geoffrey let the bushes come together, and Valentine did not see him. Margaret went towards May's merry laugh, which she could hear not far off.

"May! May!"

"Here I am--by the oak."

Then Felix, knowing his _tete-a-tete_ with May was almost at an end, s.n.a.t.c.hed a kiss.

"I will go up to the mill again," said he. "I will succeed this time."

"Beware of the blackthorn," laughed May, and was very innocently engaged looking at a sprig of oak with three young acorns on it when Margaret came.