ad arisen, half-scandalised, on the point of calling for
silence; but his eyes fell on Tilda, and he too dropped back into his
chair. The child had raised both arms, and was bending her body
back--back--until her fingers touched the hem of her skirt behind her.
Her throat even sank out of view behind her childish bust. The
shepherd's pipe dropped, and was smashed on the hearthstone. There was
a silence, while still Godolphus continued to rotate. Someone broke it,
suddenly gasping "Hallelujah!"
"Amen! Tis working--'tis working!"
In despite of the Minister, voice after voice took up the clamour.
Farmer Tossell's louder than any. And in the height of the fervour
Tilda bent her head yet lower, twisted her neck sideways, and stared up
at the ring of faces from between her ankles!
CHAPTER XXI.
THE HUNTED STAG.
"_Three hundred gentlemen, able to ride,
Three hundred horses as gallant and free,
Beheld him escape on the evening tide
Far out till he sank in the Severn Sea . . .
The stag, the runnable stag._"--JOHN DAVIDSON.
Early next morning the two children awoke in clean beds that smelt
deliciously of lavender. The feeling was so new to them and so
pleasant, that for a while they lay in luxurious ease, gazing out upon
so much of the world as could be seen beyond the window--a green
hillside scattered with gorse-bushes, sheeted with yellowing brake-fern
and crossed by drifting veils of mist: all golden in the young sunshine,
and all framed in a tangle of white-flowered solanum that clambered
around the open casement. Arthur Miles lay and drank in the mere beauty
of it. How should he not? Back at the Orphanage, life--such as it
was--and the day's routine had always taken care of themselves; he had
accepted, suffered them, since to change them at all lay out of his
power. But Tilda, after a minute, sat upright in her bed, with knees
drawn up beneath the bedclothes and hands clasped over them.
"This is a good place," she announced, and paused. "_An'_ decent
people, though rummy." Then, as the boy did not answer, "The best thing
we can do is stay 'ere, if they'll let us."
"Stay here?" he echoed. There was surprise in the echo and dismay.
"But why should we stay here?"
"W'y not?"
She had yet to break it to him that Sir Miles Chandon was abroad, and
would (so Miss Chrissy had told her) almost certainly remain abroad for
months to come. She must soften the blow.
"W'y not?" s
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