three months," said Silver Heels, without embarrassment.
"And – and you never told me!"
She shook her head frankly.
"No, you were but a lad, and you could not understand such things."
For a moment I felt so small that I could have yelled aloud my vexation. What! I too young to be told the secrets of this chit of a child with her ridiculous airs and pretensions!
"But now that you are become a man," she continued, serenely, "I thought to tell you of this, because it tries my patience, yet pleases me, too, sometimes."
Boiling with fury and humiliation, I gave her a piece of my mind. I said that Mr. Butler was a sneak, a bully, and an old fool in his dotage to make love to a baby. I told her it did sicken me to hear of it; that there was no truth in it but vain imaginings, and that she had best confess to Sir William how this gentleman school-teacher did teach her his knowledge withal!
She listened, frowning and digging up moss with her knife.
"He is not old," she said, firmly; "thirty years is but a youth's prime, which you will one day comprehend."
Such condescension wellnigh finished me. I could find neither tongue nor words to speak my passion.
"He is a gentleman of rank and station," she said, primly. "If he chooses to protest his solicitous regard for me, I can but courteously discourage him."
"You little prig!" I exclaimed, grinding my teeth. "I will teach this fellow Butler to abuse Sir William's confidence!"
"I have your promise not to reveal this," said Silver Heels, coolly.
I groaned, then remembering that Mr. Butler had partly promised me a meeting, I caught Silver Heels by both hands and looked at her earnestly.
"I also have a secret," said I. "Promise me silence, and you shall share it."
"Truly?" she asked, a little pale.
"Truly, a secret. Promise. Silver Heels."
"I promise," she whispered.
Then I told her of my defiance, of the meeting which Mr. Butler had half pledged me, and I swore to her that I would kill him, eye to eye and hilt to hilt; not alone for his contempt and insults to me, but for Sir William's honour and for the honour of my kinswoman. Felicity Warren.
"The beast!" I snarled. "That he should come a-suing you without a word to Sir William! Do gentlemen conduct in such a manner towards gentlewomen? Now hear me! Do you swear to me upon your oath and honour never to stay again after school, never to listen to another word from this sneaking fellow until you are sixteen, never to receive his addresses until Sir William speaks to you of him? Swear it! Or I will go straight to Mr. Butler and strike him in the face!"
"Micky, what are you saying? Sir William knows all this."
Taken aback, I dropped her hands, but in a moment seized them again.
"Swear!" I repeated, crushing her hands. "I don't care what Sir William says! Swear it!"
"I swear," she said, faintly. "You are hurting my fingers!"
She drew her hands from mine. Where the fishing-line had cut a single drop of blood had been squeezed out again.
"First you bind my hand, then you tear it," she said, without resentment. "It is like all men – to hurt, to heal, then wound again."
I scarcely heard her, being occupied with my anger and my designs against Mr. Butler. Such hatred as I now felt for him I never had conceived could be cherished towards any living thing. My right hand itched for a sword-hilt; I longed to see him facing me as I never had craved for anything in this world or the next. And to think that Sir William approved it!
Unconsciously we had both risen, and now, side by side, we were moving slowly along the stream, saying nothing, yet in closer communion than we had ever been.
Little by little the hot anger cooled in my veins, leaving a refreshing confidence that all would come right. Such passions are too powerful for young hearts. Anger and grief heal their own wounds quickly when life is yet new.
With my sudden, astonished respect for Silver Heels came another sentiment, a recognition of her rights as an equal, and a strangely solicitous desire to control and direct her enjoyment of these rights. It is the instinct of chivalry, latent in the roughest of us, and which, in extreme youth, first manifests as patronage. Thus, walking with Silver Heels I unburdened my heart, telling her that I too had been in love, that the object of my respectful passion was one Marie Livingston, who would undoubtedly be mine at some distant date. I revealed my desire to see Silver Heels suitably plighted, drawing a pleasing portrait of an imaginary suitor who should fill all requirements.
To this she replied that she, too, had desired a suitor resembling the highly attractive portrait I had painted for her; that she found a likeness between that portrait and her secret ideal, and that she should be very glad to encounter the portrait in the flesh.
It hurt me a little that she had not recognized in me many of the traits I had painted for her so carefully, and presently I disclosed myself as the mysterious original of the portrait.
"You!" she exclaimed, in amazement. Then, not to hurt me, she said it was quite true that I did resemble her ideal, and only lacked years and titles and wealth and reputation to make me desirable for her.
"I believe, also," she said, "that Aunt Molly means that we marry. Betty says so, and she is wiser than a black cat."
"Well," said I, "we can't marry, can we, Silver Heels?"
"Why, no," she said, simply; "there's all those things you lack."
"And all those things which you lack," said I, sharply. "Now, Marie Livingston – "
"She is older than I!" cried Silver Heels.
"And those things I lack come with years!" I retorted.
"That is true," she answered; "you are suitable for me excepting your years, which includes all you ought to be."
"Suppose you wait for me?" I proposed. "If I wed not Marie Livingston, I will wed you, Silver Heels."
I meant to be generous, but she grew very angry and vowed she would rather wed young Bareshanks than me.
"I don't care a fig," said I; "I only meant you to be suitably wed one day, and was even willing to do so myself to save you from Captain Butler. Anyway I'll kill him next year, so I don't care whether you marry me or not."
"A sorry match, pardieu!" she snapped, and fell a-laughing. "Michael, I will warn you now that I mean to wed a gentleman of rank and wealth, and wear jewels which will blind you! And I shall wed a gallant gentleman of years, Michael, and scarred with battles – not so to disfigure a pleasing countenance, but under his clothes where none can see – and I shall be 'my lady!' – mark me! Michael, and shall be well patched and powdered as befits my rank! I shall strive to be very kind to you, Michael."
Her cheeks were aflame, her eyes daring and bright. She picked up her skirt and mocked me in a curtsey, then marched off, nose in the wind, to join Sir William and Mr. Duncan, who were returning along the bank with a few brace of fish.
The sun had dropped low behind the trees ere we were prepared to depart. Bareshanks brought around my horse, and I mounted without difficulty this time.
As the wagon moved off Mr. Duncan started a hymn of Watts, which all joined, the soldiers and young Bareshanks also singing lustily, it being permitted for servants to aid in holy song.
So among the woods and out into the still country, with the sun a red ball sinking through saffron mist and the new moon aslant and dim overhead.
As I rode, the whippoorwill called after me from the darkening woods; the crickets began from every tuft, and far away I heard the solitary hermit at vespers in the still pines.
It was night ere the lights of Johnstown glimmered out against the hill-side where, on the hillock called Mount Johnson, the candles in our windows spun little rings of fire in the evening haze.
As we passed through the village, the good people turned to