.
'I could not come sooner,' he said. 'I did my best; but it is
thirty miles instead of twenty-five. How was the night?'
'Sadly oblivious and uneventful!'
'Mine wasn't! for I was getting dinner for you in my dreams
all night long. Being dependent on other people's resources,
you see--However, I had a good little friend to help me!'
'What carriage have you brought for us, Rollo?'
'Dr. Maryland's rockaway, sir; and the miller's wagon for the
trunks. To get anything else would have made much more delay.
Is my friend Phoebe here?'
'She will be soon. It is dinner-time in the mill. What do you
want, Mr. Rollo?'
'Three words and a little assistance.'
He went off, and in a little while was back again, accompanied
by Phoebe and plates and glasses; and the two went on to set
forth the dinner, which he drew from a great basket that had
come in the rockaway. All this was done, and order given at
the same time to other matters, with the light-handed
promptitude and readiness of the bird-roasting of yesterday;
Rollo assuring Wych Hazel between whiles that travelling was a
very good thing, if you took enough of it.
'Thirty miles this morning, and thirty last night; and how
many yesterday morning?--A hundred, I should say, by my
measurement.'
'Rollo!--What a dinner you have brought us!' said Mr. Falkirk,
who maintained a quiet and passive behaviour.
'You cannot set off for some hours yet, sir--the horses must
have rest. I believe--but am not sure--that somebody got up very
early this morning to make that pie. I told them I had left
some friends in distress; and Primrose and I--did what we
could. I realized this morning what must be the position of a
Commissary General on a rapid march.'
The provision on the board called for no excuses. Rollo served
everybody, even Mrs. Saddler, and afterwards dispensed
strawberries of much larger growth than those of the day
before. He was the impersonation of gay activity as long as
there was anything to do; and then he subsided into ease-
taking. The smoke of a cigar did not indeed offend Miss
Kennedy's mill-door; but in a luxurious position under a tree
at some distance the sometime smoker settled himself with his
sketch-book, and seemed to be comfortably busy at play, till
it was time for moving.
Wych Hazel had been in an altogether quiet mood since the
arrival of the rockaway. In that mood she had watched the
unpacking of the basket, in that mood she had eaten her
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