Beulah, her pretty face shaded by a large sun-bonnet, was superintending the labours of Jamie Allen, who, finding nothing just then to do as a mason, was acting in the capacity of gardener; his hat was thrown upon the grass, with his white locks bare, and he was delving about some shrubs with the intention of giving them the benefit of a fresh dressing of manure.  Maud, however, without a hat of any sort, her long, luxuriant, silken, golden tresses covering her shoulders, and occasionally veiling her warm, rich cheek, was exercising with a battledore, keeping Little Smash, now increased in size to quite fourteen stone, rather actively employed as an assistant, whenever the exuberance of her own spirits caused her to throw the plaything beyond her reach.  In one of the orchards, near by, two men were employed trimming the trees.  To these the captain next turned all his attention, just as he had encouraged the chaplain to persevere, by exclaiming, “out of all question, my dear sir”—­though he was absolutely ignorant that the other had just advanced a downright scientific heresy.  At this critical moment a cry from Little Smash, that almost equalled a downfall of crockery in its clamour, drew every eye in her direction.

“What is the matter, Desdemona?” asked the chaplain, a little tartly, by no means pleased at having his natural history startled by sounds so inapplicable to the subject.  “How often have I told you that the Lord views with displeasure anything so violent and improper as your outcries?”

“Can’t help him, dominie—­nebber can help him, when he take me sudden.  See, masser, dere come Ole Nick!”

There was Nick, sure enough.  For the first time, in more than two years, the Tuscarora was seen approaching the house, on the long, loping trot that he affected when he wished to seem busy, or honestly earning his money.  He was advancing by the only road that was ever travelled by the stranger as he approached the Hut; or, he came up the valley.  As the woman spoke, he had just made his appearance over the rocks, in the direction of the mills.  At that distance, quite half a mile, he would not have been recognised, but for this gait, which was too familiar to all at the Knoll, however, to be mistaken.

“That is Nick, sure enough!” exclaimed the captain.  “The fellow comes at the pace of a runner; or, as if he were the bearer of some important news!”

“The tricks of Saucy Nick are too well known to deceive any here,” observed Mrs. Willoughby, who, surrounded by her husband and children, always felt so happy as to deprecate every appearance of danger.

“These savages will keep that pace for hours at a time,” observed the chaplain; “a circumstance that has induced some naturalists to fancy a difference in the species, if not in the genus.”

“Is he chub or tom-cod, Woods?” asked the captain, throwing back on the other all he recollected of the previous discourse.