Urith: A Tale of DartmoorBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
General
Urith: A Tale of Dartmoor
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Dartmoor (England) -- Fiction
"I won't go." Julian looked at Fox with twinkling eyes. "Oh, Fox! I do
love and pity Bess too greatly to bear to see her at thy side. So you
came for me? You came out here on the terrace after me?"
"I have told you so. How long have you been here?"
"But this minute. I took one walk as far as the old pigeon-house and
back, and then--saw you. Did you come up the other way? From the yard?"
"I did."
"Oh! I will not go with you. Return to Bess. Tell her I love her and
wish her well, but I cannot see her; I cannot now, I love her too well.
Get thee gone, Fox."
CHAPTER L.
ANOTHER FLIGHT.
The day was drawing to its decline before Fox returned to Hall. He had
been alarmed at having been seen by his sister in the dove-cote, and he
tried by craft to extract from her whether she had observed what he had
been doing in it. He hung about Kilworthy for several hours, uncertain
what course to pursue. He could draw nothing from Julian to feed his
alarm, and he persuaded, or tried to persuade, himself that she had no
suspicions that he had been in the dove-cote; then he considered what he
had best do with the money-bags concealed there. He could remove them
only at night, and if he removed them, where should he hide them? No
more effectual place of concealment could well be imagined than the
pigeon-house with its many lockers, the depths of which could not be
probed by the eye from below, and only searched by the hand from a
ladder. He puzzled his brain to find some other place, but his ingenuity
failed him. He was angry with Julian for having come on the terrace at
the inopportune moment when he was in the pigeon-house, and he was angry
with himself for having gone there in daylight.
He asked, was it probable that Julian, had she suspected anything, would
not at once have assailed him with inquiries wherefore he had gone to
that deserted structure, and what he was doing within it, on the ladder.
It would be unlike her not immediately to take advantage of an occasion
either against him, or of perplexity to him, and he almost satisfied
himself that she had believed his account, and was void of suspicion
that there was concealment behind it. Even if she did suspect and search
the lockers of the pigeon-cote, he must know it. He would find she had
been there, and he deemed it advisable not to disturb his arrangement,
but leave the money hidden there till he was given fresh cause for
uneasiness relative to its safety, at all events for a few days, till he
could discover another and more secret place for stowing it away.
He remained for some hours, lurking about and watching; for he argued
that, if Julian entertained any thought that he had been in the
dove-cote on private ends, like a woman she would take the earliest
occasion of trying to discover his ends, and would go, as soon as she
thought she was unobserved, to the place and explore its lockers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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