The boy made no reply, but sat with down-bent head and flushing face, wishing again, as when this dreadful visit was appointed him, that Katharine Maitland had never set foot in Marsden village. Longing, too, with a longing unspeakable, to retort upon her with a volubility and sharpness exceeding even her own. But all unconsciously his pride had received just the sting needed, and his angry thought, in which there was no halting stammer, was this:

"I'll show her! I'll let her see a Sturtevant is as good as a Maitland any day! I ain't vain. She sha'n't say it. I have got nice eyes, folks all say so, and it's easier to talk with them than with my crooked old tongue. But I'll conquer it. I will. Then I'll show her what kind of a girl she is to dare--"

To dare what?

In all his previous ignominy there was naught compared with this. For here was Kate, remorseful, warm-hearted Kate, who never meant to give a single creature pain, yet was forever doing it, Kate--down upon her knees clasping Monty's neck with her arms, kissing and beseeching him "not to mind," exactly as she would have kissed the smallest of all the s...o...b..a.l.l.s, and not resenting it in the least because he did not instantly respond to her entreaties.

Respond?

For the s.p.a.ce of several seconds it seemed to the lad that his head was whirling on his shoulders like a top. Then, with all the rudeness of his greater strength, he flung the demonstrative girl aside and rushed from the house. One idea alone was clear in his troubled brain: that he must get away from everything feminine and go where there were "men."

The fishing-pool. Uncle Moses and the boys. The thought of them was refreshment, and put all other thoughts, of disobedience and its like, far from him. Striking out boldly, yet half-blindly through the dim light, he crossed Miss Maitland's orchard, took a short cut by way of the great forest--which he nor no other Marsden lad would ordinarily have entered alone after nightfall--on past the "deserted cottage" in the very heart of the wood, and then--oblivion.

CHAPTER IV.

FOXES' GULLY

When next Montgomery opened his eyes his head lay on something soft, and he confusedly tried to understand what and where it was. But thought seemed difficult, and he closed his lids again, wondering what made him feel so weak, and drowsily deciding that he must be in his own bed and this the middle of the night.

In one thing he was correct--it was the middle of the night; a later hour than the boy had ever been absent from home, even upon the most prolonged of fishing-trips. Yet the softness beneath his head was not that of a pillow in its case, but the lap of a white-frocked girl, who was holding him tenderly and sobbing as if her heart would break.

"W-w-wh-where 'm I a-at? Who's a-c-c-cr-cry--in'?"

"Oh, you darling boy! you didn't die, did you, after all! Oh, I'm so glad, so glad, so glad! And I thought I had killed you. I'd never killed anybody before, though stepmother said I'd tried. I mean I--I suppose I scared you some way, I don't see how, for the minute I was good to you and sorry, you ran away."

Montgomery moved uneasily. He began to remember events distinctly; quite too distinctly, in fact. He had run away from that horrid girl, and he had forgotten the ravine beyond "deserted cottage." He had fallen down it and hit his head. He could recall the dreadful sensation of pitching forward into a seemingly bottomless pit, and shivered afresh at the memory.

Feeling him shiver thus, Katharine drew her white skirts around his shoulders, and cossetted him as if he had been a baby. He tried to wriggle away from her on to the ground beyond, but this she st.u.r.dily prevented, and the late-rising moon cast its light just then upon a face, oddly set and determined for that of so young a girl.

Finding himself helpless in that strange weakness, Monty ceased to wriggle, and demanded: "How y-y-y-you get here, a-a-a-nyway?"

"Oh! I just followed. When you ran away I ran after."

"A-a-a-aunt Eu-Eu-nice let you?"

"I didn't stop to ask her permission. I saw I'd hurt your feelings, and I couldn't let you go without telling you I was sorry. But, you see, I never before knew anybody who stammered, and I didn't think how rude I was to mention it. Not till Aunt Eunice pointed it out. I do beg your pardon, sincerely. Will you forgive me?"

It was not in the spirit of any Sturtevant, past or present, to decline an apology so sweetly and earnestly offered. Besides, that was as it should be. Humility was the correct att.i.tude for insignificant girls toward such superior creatures as boys, and Monty waxed magnanimous, replying:

"Oh, y-y-es! I'll f-f-forgive you. But I don't see. G-g-gir-ls can't run like boys."

"Can't they, indeed? Well, you ran like a hare, and I just as fast.

There was mighty little s.p.a.ce between us, honey, and you may believe it.

How else should I have known the way? I had to keep you in sight, of course. It was so fearfully dark in that forest that I nearly lost you once, but I could hear if I couldn't see; and it wasn't so bad when we got outside again. Yet whatever should make you, a boy--a boy!--go and hurl yourself over a precipice, when you knew all the time it was there, while I, a girl--a girl, if you please! who didn't know a thing about it--stopped short on the brink, amazes me. Explain it, won't you?"

"Oh, f-f-f-fudge! Must be aw-aw-awful late. Moon don't rise now t-t-till 'most m-m-morning," observed Montgomery, declining explanations, and wondering how she had perceived his distaste for girls. Besides, he was rapidly regaining strength, and now when he raised himself an inspiration came to him. The inspiration found voice in the words:

"M-m-m-might's well be hung for a s-s-s-sheep as a l-l-l-lamb."

The observation was apparently so senseless and Katharine's love of mimicry so strong that she couldn't help replying and laughing: "J-j-j-just as w-w-well. But where's the s-s-s-s-sheep and l-l-lamb in the case?"

Montgomery did not now resent her imitation of his very tone. He even condescended to laugh back; then ungallantly remarked: "I wish y-y-you'd go h-h-home."

"Meaning to Aunt Eunice's. That's exactly what I want to do. So let's be off."

"I s-s-said y-you," corrected Master Sturtevant, rising and taking a few cautious steps to test the state of his legs. He found them usable, though rather wobbly about the knees, and would have started off across the ravine's bottom had not Katharine caught and held him. She was herself shivering violently, but only from the cold of an autumn midnight, against which her light summer dress was small protection. She ached from long sitting on the stony ground, and from holding the heavy shoulders of her companion. She was frightened by the lateness of the hour and the intense loneliness of the place; and she felt that she had sacrificed herself for just the very meanest boy who ever lived. Though she was not a girl who often cried, tears came then, and that worst of all feelings--homesickness--seized her and turned her faint.

Poor Monty! Here was a situation, indeed, for a boy who despised girls!

Yet also a boy who was a gentleman by birth; so that, while his first impulse was to run away, his second was to offer such comfort as he could.

"W-w-what you cryin' for, a-a-anyway? I-I-I'm all right, I guess."

"Well, if you are, I'm not. I'm just as anxious to go home as you are, only how can I? I don't know the way, and I'm afraid. I'm afraid of everything! Of that terrible forest, of Aunt Eunice's anger, of her refusing to keep me and sending me off to that boarding-school, of--Oh, dear! I wish I was back in Baltimore!"

Never had the cold countenance of the second Mrs. John or those of the round little s...o...b..a.l.l.s seemed so humanly lovable to Katharine as they did at that moment, remembering them in her banishment.

"F-f-fudge! Q-q-quit it! If we're goin' to get scolded for part, might's well b-b-be for the w-w-w-whole. 'Tain't far to the pool. We can go f-f-fishin', after all, if you behave. I th-th-thought you was good as a boy, an'--Will you?"

Kate dried her eyes. She didn't enjoy grief, and the prospect of any novelty was delightful. She forgot that she was cold, that it was late and she was where she should not have been at such an hour, and exclaimed, with an eagerness equal to Montgomery's own:

"Oh, let's! I never went fishing in my life!"

"Come on, t-th-then!" cried the relieved lad, now readily taking her cold hand and setting off with all the speed he could attain.

The moon was shining brilliantly, making every object as distinct as day, and to the city-reared girl the scene was like fairy-land. Her spirits rose to the highest, and none the less, it may be, because all the time she was conscious of a certain daring and danger in their escapade; and her pace more than outstripped Monty's as they crossed the short distance to the river, warming themselves by their own speed, and listening intently for the sound of voices which should have reached them long before.

"Oh, I'm so delightfully goose-fleshy! This is the most thrilling adventure of my life! I begin to feel as if I were part of a story-book myself, like all the rest of Marsden!" said Kate, half-breathless with running, when her mate came to a sudden halt among the shadows of the trees beside the famous pool.

"S-s-s-sh!" warned the other, leaning forward at the risk of a tumble into the still, deep water, listening and peering up and down the stream. Then, with disappointment depicted in every line of his suddenly weary body, he gloomily stammered: "Th-th-th-they've gone home!"

There was nothing left but for themselves to follow; but surely, there were never fields so wide and rough as these over which Master Sturtevant now guided Katharine; herself, also, so tired from her day of travel and her night of adventure; and finally, feeling as if the stubble pierced every inch of her thin shoes, and that she could endure the discomfort no longer, she begged:

"Oh! please do go by some road, and not on this gra.s.s any longer."

"Huh! 'T-t-tain't gra.s.s. Oat-st-st-stubble," he explained, doggedly keeping on his way, which he knew was shorter, and for the further reason that he could rid himself of her at Miss Maitland's back garden fence. From there he meant to make his own rapid transit to his grandmother's low kitchen roof and through a window to his bed, as he fondly hoped, forgotten and un.o.bserved. He didn't intend that any strange girl should throw all his plans agley, for she had done more than mischief enough already. Yet even as he spoke, he looked furtively around and was dismayed to see how white she was, and how big and troubled her dark eyes were. Fudge! They were even larger and finer than his own blue ones, yet she had not once seemed conscious of the fact.

It was the Madam's opinion that "blood would tell," and the good blood of many past Sturtevants stirred now in their descendant's veins, rousing his unselfishness, and making him say:

"F-f-fudge! You look b-b-beat out. I'll go the road, all right. I don't m-m-m-mind it--m-m-much, not much;" for even chivalry could not prevent this last truthful word of regret.

So by the road they went; and by the road--retribution came. Nemesis in the form of Moses Jones; no longer in a mood to be "uncled" by any boy, not even Montgomery, and in his sternness grown almost unfamiliar. He was not alone. Two neighbors were with him, and, despite the fact that the moon was shining, all three men carried lighted lanterns. They were overcoated and m.u.f.fled to a degree, and Moses' first action was to unfold a great shawl which he had carried on his shoulder, and wrap Kate in it. He did this in silence, not so much as asking "by your leave,"

and not observing that he was smothering her at the same time. Then he took hold of her arm through the folds of the shawl, and, facing about, started back along the route he had come.

They were well outside the village limits, and a weary tramp yet lay before them, the longer strides of the men taxing the fatigue of the children, till it seemed to them both as if they must fall by the way.

That terrible silence, too, and the firm grip of her arm, made Kate wonder if Mr. Jones had suddenly become a constable in fact, and if she were the first victim to be arrested. Once she wriggled herself free from her captor's hand, only to find herself again secured and even more rigidly.