'Was it a good story?' said young Smith, smiling too.
'Oh yes; but 'tis too bad--too bad! Couldn't tell it to you for the world!'
Stephen went across the lawn, hearing the vicar chuckling privately at the recollection as he withdrew.
They started at three o'clock. The gray morning had resolved itself into an afternoon bright with a pale pervasive sunlight, without the sun itself being visible. Lightly they trotted along--the wheels nearly silent, the horse's hoofs clapping, almost ringing, upon the hard, white, turnpike road as it followed the level ridge in a perfectly straight line, seeming to be absorbed ultimately by the white of the sky.
Targan Bay--which had the merit of being easily got at--was duly visited. They then swept round by innumerable lanes, in which not twenty consecutive yards were either straight or level, to the domain of Lord Luxellian. A woman with a double chin and thick neck, like Queen Anne by Dahl, threw open the lodge gate, a little boy standing behind her.
'I'll give him something, poor little fellow,' said Elfride, pulling out her purse and hastily opening it. From the interior of her purse a host of bits of paper, like a flock of white birds, floated into the air, and were blown about in all directions.
'Well, to be sure!' said Stephen with a slight laugh.
'What the dickens is all that?' said Mr. Swancourt. 'Not halves of bank-notes, Elfride?'
Elfride looked annoyed and guilty. 'They are only something of mine, papa,' she faltered, whilst Stephen leapt out, and, assisted by the lodge-keeper's little boy, crept about round the wheels and horse's hoofs till the papers were all gathered together again. He handed them back to her, and remounted.
'I suppose you are wondering what those scraps were?' she said, as they bowled along up the sycamore avenue. 'And so I may as well tell you. They are notes for a romance I am writing.'
She could not help colouring at the confession, much as she tried to avoid it.
'A story, do you mean?' said Stephen, Mr. Swancourt half listening, and catching a word of the conversation now and then.
'Yes; THE COURT OF KELLYON CASTLE; a romance of the fifteenth century. Such writing is out of date now, I know; but I like doing it.'
'A romance carried in a purse! If a highwayman were to rob you, he would be taken in.'
'Yes; that's my way of carrying manuscript. The real reason is, that I mostly write bits of it on scraps of paper when I am on horseback; and I put them there for convenience.'