long wading boots, a cabbage-leaf inside his hat to keep his head
cool, with a thistle-spud to finish him off. 'He's not going to
church,' said Marian.
'No--I wish he was!' murmured Tess.
Angel, in fact, rightly or wrongly (to adopt the safe phrase of
evasive controversialists), preferred sermons in stones to sermons in
churches and chapels on fine summer days. This morning, moreover,
he had gone out to see if the damage to the hay by the flood was
considerable or not. On his walk he observed the girls from a long
distance, though they had been so occupied with their difficulties of
passage as not to notice him. He knew that the water had risen at
that spot, and that it would quite check their progress. So he had
hastened on, with a dim idea of how he could help them--one of them
in particular.
The rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed quartet looked so charming in their
light summer attire, clinging to the roadside bank like pigeons on a
roof-slope, that he stopped a moment to regard them before coming
close. Their gauzy skirts had brushed up from the grass innumerable
flies and butterflies which, unable to escape, remained caged in
the transparent tissue as in an aviary. Angel's eye at last fell
upon Tess, the hindmost of the four; she, being full of suppressed
laughter at their dilemma, could not help meeting his glance
radiantly.
He came beneath them in the water, which did not rise over his long
boots; and stood looking at the entrapped flies and butterflies.
'Are you trying to get to church?' he said to Marian, who was in
front, including the next two in his remark, but avoiding Tess.
'Yes, sir; and 'tis getting late; and my colour do come up so--'
'I'll carry you through the pool--every Jill of you.'
The whole four flushed as if one heart beat through them.
'I think you can't, sir,' said Marian.
'It is the only way for you to get past. Stand still. Nonsense--you
are not too heavy! I'd carry you all four together. Now, Marian,
attend,' he continued, 'and put your arms round my shoulders, so.
Now! Hold on. That's well done.'
Marian had lowered herself upon his arm and shoulder as directed, and
Angel strode off with her, his slim figure, as viewed from behind,
looking like the mere stem to the great nosegay suggested by hers.
They disappeared round the curve of the road, and only his sousing
footsteps and the top ribbon of Marian's bonnet told where they were.
In a few minutes he reappeared. Izz Huett was the next in order upon
the bank.
'Here he comes,' she murmured, and they could hear that her lips were
dry with emotion. 'And I have to put my arms round his neck and look
into his face as Marian did.'
'There's nothing in that,' said Tess quickly.
'There's a time for everything,' continued Izz, unheeding. 'A time
to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; the first is now
going to be mine.'
