"'Twill
take us all our time to cure him. He have been bepraising this here
soil, which it is only fit to clean the women's kettles. 'Twouldn't feed
three larks to an acre, I know; no, NOR HALF SO MANY."

"Poor soul! mayhap the flowers have took his eye. Sit here a bit, Dick.
I want to talk to you about a many things."

While these two were conversing, Ucatella, who was very fond of Phoebe,
but abhorred wagons, stepped out and stalked by the side, like an
ostrich, a camelopard, or a Taglioni; nor did the effort with which
she subdued her stride to the pace of the procession appear: it was
the poetry of walking. Christopher admired it a moment; but the noble
expanse tempted him, and he strode forth like a giant, his lungs
inflating in the glorious air, and soon left the wagon far behind.

The consequence was that when they came to a halt, and Dick and Phoebe
got out to release and water the cattle, there was Christopher's figure
retiring into space.

"Hanc rem aegre tulit Phoebe," as my old friend Livy would say. "Oh
dear! oh dear! if he strays so far from us, he will be eaten up at
nightfall by jackals, or lions, or something. One of you must go after
him."

"Me go, missy," said Ucatella zealously, pleased with an excuse for
stretching her magnificent limbs.

"Ay, but mayhap he will not come back with YOU: will he, Dick?"

"That he will, like a lamb." Dick wanted to look after the cattle.

"Yuke, my girl," said Phoebe, "listen. He has been a good friend of ours
in trouble; and now he is not quite right HERE. So be very kind to him,
but be sure and bring him back, or keep him till we come."

"Me bring him back alive, certain sure," said Ucatella, smiling from ear
to ear. She started with a sudden glide, like a boat taking the water,
and appeared almost to saunter away, so easy was the motion; but when
you looked at the ground she was covering, the stride, or glide, or
whatever it was, was amazing.

"She seem'd in walking to devour the way."

Christopher walked fast, but nothing like this; and as he stopped at
times to botanize and gaze at the violet hills, and interrogate the
past, she came up with him about five miles from the halting-place.

She laid her hand quietly on his shoulder, and said, with a broad genial
smile, and a musical chuckle, "Ucatella come for you. Missy want to
speak you."

"Oh! very well;" and he turned back with her, directly; but she took him
by the hand to make sure; and they