seriously.
"Well, you are. Then, I should think, whatever you do would be military."
But at this giving of judgment, after a minute of, perhaps, endeavour for self-control, Mr. Knowlton broke down and laughed furiously. Mrs. Starling looked stern. Diana was in a state of indecision, whether to laugh with her friend or frown with her mother; but the infection of fun was too much for her – the pretty lips gave way. Maybe that was encouragement for the offender; for he did not show any embarrassment or express any contrition.
"You do me too much honour," he said as soon as he could make his voice steady; "you do me too much honour, Mrs. Starling. I assure you, I have been most unmilitary this afternoon; but really I am no better than a boy when the temptation takes me; and the temptation of your meadow and those long windrows was too much for me. I enjoyed it hugely. I am coming again, may I?"
"You'll have to be quick about it, then," said Mrs Starling, not much mollified; "there ain't much more haying to do on the home lot, I guess. Ain't you 'most done, Josiah?"
"How?" said that worthy from the other end of the table. Mrs. Starling had raised her voice, but Josiah's wits always wanted a knock at the door before they would come forth to action.
"Hain't you 'most got through haying?"
"Not nigh."
"Why, what's to do?" inquired the mistress, with a new interest.
"There's all this here lot to finish, and all of Savin hill."
"Savin hill ain't but half in grass."
"Jes' so. There ain't a lock of it cut, though."
"If I was a man," said Mrs. Starling, "I believe I could get the better o' twenty acres o' hay in less time than you take for it. However, I ain't. Mr. Knowlton, do take one o' those cucumbers. I think there ain't a green pickle equal to a cucumber – when it's tender and sharp, as it had ought to be."
"I am sure everything under your hands is as it ought to be," said the young officer, taking the cucumber. "I know these are. Your haymakers have a good time," he added as the men rose, and there was a heavy clangour of boots and grating chairs at the lower end of the table.
"They calculate to have it," said Mrs. Starling. "And all through Pleasant Valley they do have it. There are no poor folks in the place; and there ain't many that calls themselves rich; they all expect to be comfortable; and I guess most of 'em be."
"Just the state of society in which – There's a sweet little stream running through your meadow, Miss Diana," said the young officer with a sudden change of subject. "Where does it go to?"
"It makes a great many turns, through different farms, and then joins your river – the Yellow River – that runs round Elmfield."
"That's a river; this brook is just what I like. I got tired with my labours this afternoon, and then I threw myself down by the side of the water to look at it. I lay there till I had almost forgotten what I was about."
"Not in your shirt sleeves, just as you was?" inquired Mrs. Starling. The inquiry drew another laugh from her guest; and he then asked Diana where the brook came from. If it was pretty, followed up?
"Very pretty!" Diana said. "As soon as you get among the hills and in the woods with it, it is as pretty as it can be; not a bit like what it is here; full of rocks and pools and waterfalls; lovely!"
"Any fish?"
"Beautiful trout."
"Miss Diana, can you fish?"
"No. I never tried."
"Well, trout fishing is not exactly a thing that comes by nature. I must go up that brook. I wish you would go and show me the way. When I see anything pretty, I always want some one to point it out to, or I can't half enjoy it."
"I think it would be the other way," said Diana. "I should be the one to show the brook to you."
"You see if I don't make you find more pretty things than you ever knew were there. Come! is it a bargain? I'll take my line and bring Mrs. Starling some trout."
"When?" said Diana.
"Seems to me," said Mrs. Starling, "I could keep along a brook if I could once get hold of it."
"Ah," said Mr. Knowlton, laughing, "you are a great deal cleverer than I am. You have no idea how fast I can lose myself. Miss Diana, the sooner the better, while this lovely weather lasts. Shall we say to-morrow?"
"I'll be ready," said Diana.
"This weather ain't goin' to change in a hurry," remarked Mrs. Starling.
But the remark did not seem to be to the purpose. The appointment was made for the following day at three o'clock; and Mr. Knowlton's visit having come to an end, he mounted and galloped away.
"Three o'clock!" said Mrs. Starling. "Just the heat o' the day. And trout, indeed! Don't you be a silly fish yourself, Diana."
"Mother!" said Diana. "I couldn't help going, when he asked me."
"You could ha' helped it if you'd wanted to, I s'pose."
Which was no doubt true, and Diana made no response; for she wanted to go. She watched the golden promise of dawn the next morning; she watched the cloudless vault of the sky, and secretly rejoiced within herself that she would be ready.
CHAPTER VI.
MR. KNOWLTON'S FISH
Doubtless they were ready, those two, for the brook and the afternoon. The young officer came at half-past three; not in regimentals this time, but in an easy grey undress and straw hat. He came in a waggon, and he brought his fishing-rod and carried a basket. Diana had been ready ever since three. They lost no time; they went out into the meadow and struck the brook.
Now the brook, during its passage through the valley field, was remarkable for nothing but a rare infirmity of purpose, which would never let it keep one course for many rods together. It twisted and curled about, making many little meadow promontories on one side and the other; hurrying along with a soft, sweet gurgle that sounded fresh, even under the heat of the summer sun. It was a hot afternoon, as Mrs. Starling had said; and the two excursionists were fain to take it gently and to make as straight a course across the fields as keeping on one side of the brook left possible. They could not cross it. The stream was not large, yet quite too broad for a jump; and not deep, yet deep enough to cover its stony bed and leave no crossing stones. So sometimes along the border of the brook, where a fringe of long grass had been left by the mowers' scythes, rank and tangled; sometimes striking across from bend to bend over the meadow, where no kindly trees stood to shade them, the two went – on a hunt, as Mr. Knowlton said, after pretty things.
After a mile or more of this walking, the scenery changed. Mown fields, hot and fragrant, were left behind; almost suddenly they entered the hills, where the brook issued from them; and then they began a slower tracking of its course back among the rocks and woods of a dell which soon grew close and wild. The sides of the dell became higher; the bed of the stream more steep and rough; the canopy of trees closed in overhead, and showed the blue through only in broken patches. The clothing of the hill-sides was elegant and exquisite; oaks, and firs, and hemlocks, with slender birches and maples, lining the ravine; and under them a free growth of ferns, and fresh beds of moss, and lovely lichens covered the rocks and dressed the ground. The stream rattled along
