day when we strolled about together, that underneath
this stack had been her hermitage, her sanctuary,
when she was a child; how she used to bring her book
to study there, or her work, when she was not wanted
in the house; and she had now evidently gone back
to this quiet retreat of her childhood, forgetful
of the clue given me by her footmarks on the new-fallen
snow. The stack was built up very high; but through
the interstices of the sticks I could see her figure,
although I did not all at once perceive how I could
get to her. She was sitting on a log of wood,
Rover by her. She had laid her cheek on Rover’s
head, and had her arm round his neck, partly for a
pillow, partly from an instinctive craving for warmth
on that bitter cold day. She was making a low
moan, like an animal in pain, or perhaps more like
the sobbing of the wind. Rover, highly flattered
by her caress, and also, perhaps, touched by sympathy,
was flapping his heavy tail against the ground, but
not otherwise moving a hair, until he heard my approach
with his quick erected ears. Then, with a short,
abrupt bark of distrust, he sprang up as if to leave
his mistress. Both he and I were immovably still
for a moment. I was not sure if what I longed
to do was wise: and yet I could not bear to see
the sweet serenity of my dear cousin’s life
so disturbed by a suffering which I thought I could
assuage. But Rover’s ears were sharper than
my breathing was noiseless: he heard me, and
sprang out from under Phillis’s restraining
hand.
‘Oh, Rover, don’t you leave me, too,’
she plained out.
‘Phillis!’ said I, seeing by Rover’s
exit that the entrance to where she sate was to be
found on the other side of the stack. ’Phillis,
come out! You have got a cold already; and it
is not fit for you to sit there on such a day as this.
You know how displeased and anxious it would make
them all.’
She sighed, but obeyed; stooping a little, she came
out, and stood upright, opposite to me in the lonely,
leafless orchard. Her face looked so meek and
so sad that I felt as if I ought to beg her pardon
for my necessarily authoritative words.
‘Sometimes I feel the house so close,’
she said; ’and I used to sit under the wood-stack
when I was a child. It was very kind of you,
but there was no need to come after me. I don’t
catch cold easily.’
’Come with me into this cow-house, Phillis.
I have got something to say to you; and I can’t
stand this cold, if you can.
I think she would have fain run away again; but her
fit of energy was all spent. She followed me
unwillingly enough that I could see. The place
to which I took her was full of the fragrant breath
of the cows, and was a little warmer than the outer
air. I put her inside, and stood myself in the
doorway, thinking how I could best begin. At
last I plunged into it.
’I must see that you don’t get cold for
more reasons than one; if you are ill, Holdsworth
will be so anxious and miserable out there’
(by which I meant Canada)—