Page:Stevenson and Quiller-Couch - St Ives .djvu/88

 her arms stretched out, her face incarnadined for the one moment with heavenly blushes, the next pale as death.

"Monsiear de Saint-Yves!" she said.

"My dear young lady," I said, "this is the damnedest liberty— I know it! But what else was I to do?"

"You have escaped?" said she.

"If you call this escape," I replied.

"But you cannot possibly stop there!" she cried.

"I know it," said I. "And where am I to go?" She struck her hands together. "I have it!" she exclaimed. "Come down by the beech trunk—you must leave no footprint in the border—quickly, before Robie can get back! I am the hen-wife here; I keep the key; you must go into the hen-house—for the moment."

I was by her side at once. Both cast a hasty glance at the blank windows of the cottage and so much as was visible of the garden alleys; it seemed there was none to observe us. She caught me by the sleeve and ran. It was no time for compliments; hurry breathed upon our necks; and I ran along with her to the next corner of the garden, where a wired court and a board hovel standing in a grove of trees advertised my place of refuge. She thrust me in without a word; the bulk of the fowls were at the same time emitted; and I found myself the next moment locked in alone with half a dozen sitting hens. In the twilight of the place all fixed their eyes on me severely, and seemed to upbraid me with some crying impropriety. Doubtless the hen has always a puritanic appearance, although (in its own behaviour) I could never observe it to be more particular than its neighbours. But conceive a British hen!