“These people are nobody’s tenants,” said Wemyss; “and they decorate their houses as they damn please, American fashion; with goats and tomato-cans, if they prefer.” By this time they had entered the forest that clothes the slopes of Breakneck Mountain. The road was none of the best, and the top of the coach careened violently, almost shaking Derwent, who was idly smoking with his face in the sunlight and his eyes half closed, off the back seat. “Come, let’s walk,” said Pussie Duval; and as the coach halted a moment upon one of those ridges across the road imaginatively designated “thank-ye-marms,” she nimbly dropped herself over the side and sprang back into the daisies and buttercups. Arthur, Mrs. Hay, Flossie, Van Kull, and Wemyss followed; Derwent Mrs. Gower ordered to remain upon the coach and play propriety; whereupon that gentleman stretched himself quite lengthwise upon the warm back seat, pulled his cloth hat over his eyes, and to all appearances went to sleep. “We can cut off a mile,” said Van Kull, “by cutting straight through the woods to where the road strikes the river again. Now then! each his own way, and the coach will wait for us there, if it gets in first.” So they disappeared; Van Kull with Mrs. Hay making for a pine grove on the high land, Wemyss and Mrs. Gower going lower, where there seemed evidences of a path, and our hero with Miss Duval taking a middle course through a rocky pasture, sweet-scented with fern and heathery blossoms, and dotted with dwarfed and obsolete apple-trees. This gave Lord Birmingham a chance of devoting himself entirely to his driving and his companion upon the box. For an hour or more the coach lumbered on; its driver talked incessantly, but drove very badly, and Lionel Derwent slumbered in the rear. In the woods, the day was a very warm one. What breeze there was could not be felt. It would take too long to follow the devious ways of every party in all their wanderings; suffice it to say that shortly before noon Arthur, with Pussie Duval, came out upon the road close by the Hudson, where they sat upon a fence and waited. Arthur was getting every day more used to her society; and Mr. De Witt was no longer so continually upon his mind. Here they were met by the other two couples; and finally, when the coach came thundering down the hill with a wheel in a shoe, the whole six were sitting on the fence, _à la mode du pays_; and Wemyss was even whittling. “Well, you _have_ been long,” said Van Kull. “Ah, you can’t make up for lost time with cracking of whips and horn-blowing!” laughed Mrs. Gower. “What have they been doing all this time?--without prejudice, now, Mr. Derwent?” “I don’t know, Mrs. Hay--I’ve been asleep,” said that gentleman. “Come, now, I’d like to know how long all of you have been here--that’s all,” growled his lordship, blushing obviously. “Get aboard there--I’m hungry as a bear. Where do we stop for lunch, Mrs. Gower?”