As she stood hesitating, a young man, with a gun under his arm, leaped over the hedge into the road.
Flick growled as he approached, and Bryda, putting her hand through his collar, said,--
Then, addressing the young man, she said,--
'Please, sir, can you tell me the way to Rock House, Squire Bayfield's?' Then she added demurely, 'I have business with him.'
'Well,' was the reply, 'the Squire is a lucky man, that's all I have to say.'
Bryda's colour rose, for this young man's gaze was a little too openly admiring.
She curtsied, with a grace which was very different from the low bob of the country maiden generally, and said,--
'I beg you, sir, to be so good as to tell me which road I am to take, right or left.'
'It's right ahead,' was the reply; 'I am going the same way. Your dog is not a very pleasant companion; he looks as if he would fly at my throat if he could.'
'He knows his manners, sir,' Bryda said, 'and he will not fly at anyone without reason. Down!' she said, 'quiet, Flick.'
This, with a pat on his shaggy head, was taken as a sign that Bryda's companion was not the foe Flick had at first imagined, and he walked gravely by her side, as if unconscious of a third person's presence.
Bryda volunteered no conversation, and for some minutes there was silence. Presently the man asked,--
'Have you any acquaintance with Squire Bayfield?'
'No, sir; not with the young Squire. He has been in foreign parts for years.'
'Yes, that's true; he came home a week ago to find his father dead and buried, and the old place a ruin for him to build up, and money short to do it.'
Again there was silence, till a pair of large gates came in sight and a long avenue of firs leading up to a house, of which the low front was seen at the end of the drive.
'Yes, and I have business there also, so we will walk up to the door together.'
'I have business with the Squire, sir; but it is of a private nature, and I must see him alone.'
'That I'll warrant you shall do, madam,' and insensibly the man's manner became more respectful.
This was no country maiden to whom he might offer any familiarity, praise her beauty, or rally her on her charms. Bryda had always about her that innate purity and refinement, which acts as a shield against the shafts of impertinent admiration which men of a certain type in the eighteenth century were apt to offer to win favour with the belles of town or country.