Her voice answered in my very ear, her arm held me as I ceased struggling.

I laughed like a mad thing in the excess of my relief and surprise, and when she sat down, I climbed to her knee for a good look at her disguise.

"Cousin Burwell's clothes!" I said a.n.a.lytically. "And his hat. But your hair is black."

She lifted the hat to show that she had on a black wig.

"It belonged to poor Grandpapa when he was young. He had a fever and his head was shaved. I found it in a box on the top shelf of mother's closet, and tried it on just for fun. I liked myself so well in the gla.s.s that I thought I'd see how I would have looked if Burwell had been the girl, and I the boy. I know now that I ought to have been. I mean to be--just for fun--until they all come home. I'm in exactly the humor to do something outrageous. I'm tired to death of everyday doings and everyday people, and my everyday self. You and I are going to have a real spree, a glorious frolic, and n.o.body else is to know a single thing about it. Flora" (her maid) "helped me on with this rig. She is as close as wax, and you never tell tales,--Oh, yes! I know--" as I opened my mouth eagerly--"you would have your tongue pulled out by the roots before you would get me into trouble. And there would be all sorts of trouble if I were found out."

She tied my sunbonnet, made of the same pink gingham as my frock, under my chin, and we set forward gleefully upon our spree. To begin with, we jumped over the yard palings, so that we should not have to pa.s.s in sight of the house and kitchen, in order to get into the lane leading to the public road. We called it "a lane." Now it would be an avenue, or drive. The finest Lombardy poplars in Powhatan County bordered it; sheep mint, pennyroyal, sweetbrier, and wild thyme grew up close to the wheel-track and gave out a goodly smell as we brushed by and trod upon them. I was in a high gale of spirits, and prattled as fast as my tongue could run, flattered beyond expression by the choice of myself as an accomplice in the frolic.

"It's a pity you _can't_ change places with Cousin Burwell!" I regretted. "You'd be a heap handsomer gentleman than he is. And it must be just fine not to have to hold up your frocks when you want to run fast, and to climb trees and jump fences. Would it be sure-enough wrong--I don't mean not lady-like--but would it be _sinful_ for you to dress that way all the time?"

"People seem to think so, Namesake. They think so so much that it is against the law for a woman to wear a man's clothes, or for a man to wear a woman's. Though why any man with a grain of sense in his head should ever want to put on _skirts_, I can't see. If I were to meet a magistrate while I have on these--_things_,"--flicking her trousers with a switch she had cut from a hickory sapling,--"he would have a right to put me in jail."

"Oh, Cousin Molly Belle!" squeezing her hand hard. "S'pose we should!"

"I'm Cousin Burwell until we get home. No 's'pose,' you little goosie!

If we did, we'd take to the woods, and outrun him. Or, we'd climb a tree."

We were in the highroad, striding the ruts and skipping over stones like two boys on the way home from school. There was pleasanter walking in bridle-paths and wood-roads branching off from the thoroughfare every few rods. I think the madcap chose the rutty and mud-holey route because there was, at least, a chance that we might have to plunge into the bushes to hide, or to brave the scrutiny of strangers and acquaintances.

The sauce of danger made the escapade the more attractive.

Half a mile from home a creek, shallow, but broad, crossed the road. We could not pa.s.s over dry-shod and had to go up the bank into the low grounds to find a long log laid from side to side of a narrower part of the stream. My companion hoisted me upon her back and ran along the uncertain bridge as fleetly as a squirrel.

"How far are we going?" I asked, as she set me down.

"Around by Tom's Hill, and then cut across the field home. It's more than a mile. Can you walk so far?"

"I walked two miles at a time, once!" I boasted.

"You are a brave little lightwood knot!"

She was "fey"--_exaltee_--in the state of lighthearted-and lightheadedness for which sober, literal, decorous English has no synonym. As we went, she danced and sang, and laughed out joyously at everything and at nothing, and talked the most fascinating nonsense--all in the role of "Cousin Burwell." She could imitate him to perfection; her strut and swagger and slang threw me into paroxysms of delight. We picked huckleberries, and dived into the woods to feast upon wild plums that had ten drops of syrupy juice between tough skins and flinty stones encased in the pulp of bitterness, and gathered handfuls of wild flowers because their beauty tempted sight and touch, and with no intention of taking them home with us. Two of Pan's dryads turned loose for a holiday could not have sported more irrationally.

We met neither man nor beast until we had climbed Tom's Hill, a stony eminence from the top of which, as the neighbors were proud of saying, one could see six dwelling-houses, each with its group of outbuildings, representing six fine plantations. A saddle-horse was tied to a persimmon tree a hundred yards or so down the other side. He whinnied at sight of us, and Cousin Molly Belle ran up to him.

"Well done, Snap! old fellow! clothes don't make any difference to you--do they?"

It was Mr. Frank Morton's riding horse, and the fence by which he stood bounded an extensive tobacco field belonging to Mr. Frank Morton's brother. About the middle of the field was a tobacco barn, and by climbing upon the top rail of the fence so as to overlook a row of sa.s.safras saplings, I could see a group of men about the door. Their backs were toward us, and if they had looked our way they could not have seen us, when I got down.

Cousin Molly Belle's eyes were two dancing stars. She clapped her hands in riotous glee. Without a word she untied the bridle from the tree, vaulted into the saddle, drew me up in front of her, and before I could put a question we were pacing briskly down the hill. At the bottom we struck into a cross-road leading to Uncle Carter's plantation. Cousin Molly Belle was laughing too heartily to speak distinctly, and I joined in with all my heart, with a very imperfect appreciation of the extent of the practical joke. Mr. Frank Morton would not have to walk home. He had only to go to his brother's house when he missed Snap and borrow a horse, and Snap would be sent back safely to him in good time.

"What d'you s'pose he'll say when he comes to the fence and Snap isn't there?" queried I, at length.

"Oh, _don't_ I wish I were hiding somewhere near enough to hear and see him!" another and yet more infectious outburst. "That would be the best part of the joke. I'm going to turn Snap loose when we get to our outer gate, and hit him a crack with my switch and start him toward home.

He'll not tell tales out of school--will you, old boy?" slapping his neck affectionately. "Mr. Frank Morton will never guess why the horse thief let such a fine animal get away from him, when once he had got him. I can hear him now, telling me the story, and I'll look as grave as a dozen judges, and wonder as hard as he does--and--_Hark!_"

We were, perhaps, half a mile from the place where we had found Snap, but, as I have said, Tom's Hill was a stony ledge, running like a sharp backbone between fertile fields, and we heard from afar off the clattering hoofs of a horse pressed to his utmost speed.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Chapter VIII

My First Lie, and What Came of It.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"He is after us!" exclaimed Cousin Molly Belle, and brought down her switch stingingly upon Snap's flanks.

Tightening her arm about me, she urged him from canter to gallop, from a gallop to a run. The trees swept by us like lightning; the wind tore the breath from our lungs, but I had no thought of fear. My cousin was a fearless rider, and the perfectly broken hunter under us flew as steadily and as straight as a blue martin. Against the back of my head Cousin Molly Belle's heart was pounding like an unbalanced trip-hammer.

I wondered if it were possible that she was frightened, and twisted my face around to get a glimpse of hers. It was as white as a sheet, and her teeth were set hard upon her lower lip. Within a stone's throw of Uncle Carter's outer gate she brought the horse down to a walk, then to a full stop, and slipped to the ground. Her face was so pale and rigid as she set me upon my feet that I began to tremble.

"Are you scared?" I faltered.

"Scared to death, child! Hush!"

She turned Snap's head in the direction from which we had come, and struck him smartly with her switch, in letting go of the bridle.

"Go home, sir! Go!"

He galloped off, stirrups and mane flying, and she drew a deep, agitated breath.

"If ever I get into such a sc.r.a.pe again!"

She bent low and listened; the scared look settled again upon her face.

Through the stillness of the summer afternoon, we heard a sharp "Whoa!"

faint but clear, when, as we judged, Snap neared our pursuer. The pause of a second ensued, and the hoofs, doubled in number and resonance, sounded nearer and nearer, thundering over the soft ground, clicking against the stones, like a charge of cavalry. Cousin Molly Belle was so white that a few freckles, never seen through her usually brilliant complexion, made a line of sallow dots across her cheek bones and the bridge of her nose. Clutching me more roughly than she had ever touched me before, she thrust me well into the heart of a tall cedar whose lowest boughs grew out horizontally and swept the earth.

"Don't move or speak!" she whispered fiercely and forced her way to the hole of the tree.

I heard the grating of the bark under her feet, and felt the branches shake, then grow quiet. She was well up the tree, and hidden by the bushy foliage. The tumultuous beat of the charging hoofs echoed more and more loudly. The rider would be upon us in another minute. Escape through the gate and down the avenue to the house was out of the question. We would have been in sight from the road for several hundred yards, and a few seconds would be lost in opening the gate.

On my part, the adventure was, thus far, pure fun, and the excitement delicious. I giggled in my sleeve in the antic.i.p.ation of hearing the furious hoofs sweep past and lose themselves in the distance on the false scent. I had not had time to speculate as to why my companion was "scared to death."

The clatter was abreast of, and behind me in the road when the imperative "Whoa!" again arrested it. I knew the voice now. A man leaped to the ground; hasty footsteps struck across the turf edging the highway; dry sticks cracked, my bushy covert was jarred, and Mr. Frank Morton stood before me, parting the branches to get a good look at me.

My pink gingham had betrayed me.

"Molly Burwell! what are you doing here?"

As if prompted by a telepathic despatch from the fugitive overhead, I began to pick the bluish white berries studding the twigs and to cram them into my mouth.

"Picking cedar-berries!" I retorted coolly, c.o.c.king a saucy eye at him.

"Who came with you?"