"Two Fair Daughters,"

Wairarapa Daily Times, 17 August 1929, Page 7

"Two Fair Daughters,"

Published by Special Arrangement.

CHAPTER I. —Continued,

Her words woke him from his trance of pure admiration. “Whoa!” he said in unnecessary abjuration to his horses, and then he came slowly towards her across the pale gold stubble.

“Will you please cut a stick and drive those cows away? I want to get over—and I daren't.” He did not answer, he did not move, standing rigid a few paces away from her, conscious of nothing but the soft cup of the big-white parasol with its dropping fringe of cornflowers all round it, and that small piquant face gleaming within. To both of them that breathless pause seemed a long one. Probably not three seconds elapsed before Vivi broke it. “Hid you hear what I said?”

There was a new note almost of shyness in her voice. A slow thrill and start, quite perceptible, ran over him as lie answered her. ‘ ‘ Yes. ’’

Nothing but the monosyllable and that came in a breath that was oppressed and difficult. Vivi flashed a look at him and registered, with that accuracy that is so essentially feminine, every detail of his ajjpearanee. A fair face, bronzed and comely, the eyes blue and well opened, the well-cut mouth shaded by a small, fine line of brown, not quite the face one would expect to see above his present costume. A blue shirt of the unlovely material known as “Oxford”, braces unduly in evidence and undeniably of leather, knickerbockers of brown velveteen and ample proportions and boots unmistakably hob-nailed. Vivienne glanced up from that amazing footgear and suddenly felt she was blushing. How much longer would he absorb her through that silent stare! “Will your horses stand all day?” she inquired, a faint touch of milieu behind the demure question. “Probably.” Vivi’s eyelids flickered ever so little. This was no ordinary ploughman, the ordinary ploughman does not say “probably.” She gave him a sudden upward look of which the effect was nicely calculated. ' “Ho you plough always?” “Not always.” “Isn’t this a funny time of the year to plough?” “Not oats.” “Ho I know you?” with sudden horrified suspicion that perhaps she ought. “I don’t think so.” “But you know me?” “You are—the younger Miss Coombe, ’ ’ “And who are you?” “You wouldn’t be any wiser if .1 told you.” “I think I should. Will you tell me?” He turned away abruptly, almost rudely, and, putting a hand on the stile, vaulted lightly over. With an ash wand from the hedge he cleared a passage for her, driving the sleek herd before him with lightest touches on their satin skins. A moment and he sprang back. “It is quite safe now,’.’ he said. Vivi looked :;p with an aggrieved pent. “1 expect you think it was quite safe before.” He smiled, a swift and fleeting smile that altered all his face. “They are all quite harmless, and as gentle as children. ’ ’ “I daresay, but I don’t like them.” Then, pausing with her hand on the bar of the stile. “You won’t tell me who you are?”His* eyes darkened as they rested on her, and slowly the colour drained out of his comely bronzed face. He did not offer his hand to help her over, though Vivi plainly expected it, and his voice, when he spoke, was roughened and low.

“I’m not likely to be a friend of Miss Coombo ; s. I don’t look it, do IV’ The boyish bitterness in his voice touched her a little and amused hci a good deal. She' turned at the othu side of the stile, and lingered a laughing moment. “I shall find out,” she said, and then in a breathless, childish whisper, ”1 shall be friends with you—if I like.” He stood in the path where she had left him, and his patient horses stood in the furrow where lie had loft them, and they stood a long time. By and by he moved sharply. Where AHi had stood lay a blue cornflower. He stooped and picked it up and let it, fall again. “It’s a sham,” he said, hoarsely. Yet what had he expected. Parasols are not trimmed with real cornflowers. Slowly h'e stooped and picked it up again. Opening his watch he laid the little blue counterfeit inside the heavy silver case. “I’ll keep it —in memory of the day I spoke to her,” he told himself, slowly. “Though I’m a fool for my pains—and I know it.” CHAPTER 11.

The “ploughboy” ate his midday meal under the hedge like any other ploughboy. He ploughed steadily all the afternoon, and the rich, moist, chocolate-coloured band broadened across the pale gold of the stubble. ■When the church clock half a mile away struck six he unhitched his horses,‘threw the bars on to their sleek backs and tilted his plough up on end in a half-finished furrow. The horses, the plough-chains, clanking against their glossy sides, plough steadily out of the field, and the ploughboy, in his

BY STELLA 11. DURING. Author of “The Temptation of Carleton Earle,” “Love’s Privilege,” “Tho End of the Jtainbow,” “Through the Eire,” “In Search of Herself,” “Between the Devil and the Deep Sea,” (tc., etc.

(Copyright).

He cantered off across the field, and the ploughboy stood looking down at that little, shining disc of silver, the healthy colour leaving his face for the se ond time that day. Then quielty, and without any sign of anger or excitement, ho set his iron-shod heel on the coin and ground it into the sandy soil. For a moment he held his heel upon it, as though it were alive and he feared the power to rise and sting were not yet out of it. Then he raised a sombre face, whistled to his horses, and the three plodded home. His tea was ready for him in the farm kitchen. The cloth Avas coarse, but clean; the service, of heaAy oarthemvare, banded with blue, Avas chipped; the fork Avas of steel. He did not remember that he had eA r er noticed these little details before, but he noticed them to-night. They did not, however, spoil his appetite. The pile of bread and butter, the savoury dish of bacon and mushrooms his mother lifted hissing from the oven were as inviting as usual. In the middle of the table was a broAvn jug holding three red roses from his favourite tree. He ate his meal, silently regarding them. His mother laid a firm hand on his shoulder. “Tired, lad?” “Yes, Mother. Ezra can finish that bit of ploughing. I’m sick of it.” Mrs Halliford looked doubtful. “Ezra’s rare an busy,” she said slowly. “He’s the best thatchcr anyAvhcre round, lie won’t have a minnit the next two days. An’ there’s that oat-stack! I doubt it’ll rain by Friday. ’ ’ “Then Fred can do it.”

“Fred’s sprained his arm, stacking. There’s no one but you, you said so yourself yesterday. Why, lad, Avhat’s Avrong Avi’ the ploughing? You never minded it before.”

hob-nailed boots, plodded after them. They had walked some way when a scuffling and stamping ahead made him look up, A horseman was vainly endeavouring to open a gate with his riding-crop, but his horse, a pretty, nervous creature, objected. It had taken it into its head to' pretend an exaggerated terror of the innocent white gate, and with pricked ears and frightened snorts, danced away from the imaginary goblin behind it after a fashion that must have tried its rider’s patience. As the ploughboy came up, lie ceased his efforts to coax his skittish mount within negotiable distance of the gate, and turned. “Here, you fellow, open the gate for me, will you?”

There was in his voice the same note of good-humoured, unconscious command that had been in Vivienne's earlier in the day when she had called “Ploughboy!” across the sunny held. The fellow in question stood quite still a moment. Then he laid his hand on the gate-spring and threw it open. “Thanks,” said the rider, and threw him a shilling.

“Ay, but he does now. Our Roger's a gentleman!” A girl’s face, laughing and mischievous, her shingled hair as brown and curly as Roger’s own, peeped from a doorway across-the kitchen. “Plougliing’s not for the likes of him. lie’s getting too big for his boots is our Roger. I told you that, Mother, a while back.” “Did you?” said her mother drily. Then her firm and stately walk carried her across the kitchen. “You mind your words, my girl, and don’t vex your brother,” she finished i na lower tone. Roger flushed angrily, pushed his chair back and went up to his own room. When he came down his mother looked sharply at him. “’Tis his second best suit,” she told herself under her breath, and then, “Going out, lad?” “Xay,” said Roger shortly. His sister’s eye danced, they had by no means missed his change of raiment. “Our Roger’s courtin’,” she said in a stage whisper that did not fail to reach Roger ’s cars. “Hold you saucy tongue, Jcanie,” admonished her mother sharply. She followed her boy outside some minutes later. The words had left a sting in her anxious mother-heart. She knew of no girl, so far, likely to have taken Roger’s fancy, but he was twen-ty-four. One could not be certain. She found him leaning, listless and idle, over the farm gate that opened into the lane, his briar pipe, unlightcd and forgotten, on the post beside him. He started a little as she joined him and the two stood in silence, a sympathetic silence that carried a -vague comfort to the soreness of his soul. By and by a horseman cantered past on that odd compound of high courage and nervous fears, a trained thoroughbred. It was the same rider who had thrown Roger the shilling. As the rhythmic beat of hoofs died away he spoke. “Mothei;, where's the difference ’twixt him an’ me? (To be Continued).