The Rebellion of Margaret | Page 2

ever went with Miss
Bidwell--and we will have tea at the inn down by the river and come
home by moonlight. We shall be quite safe, for Reginald and Lionel
will be with us, and they will take care of us."
The part of the grounds in which this so far one-sided conversation was
taking place was at some considerable distance from the house, in fact
it was right on the confines of the wood and as far from the house as
possible. Beyond the wood flat, green fields stretched on all sides
undiversified by as much as a copse or a hill. Even a bare, ploughed
field would have been a welcome relief to the landscape, while a
yellow cornfield would have imparted a positively gay appearance to it;
but year in year out those green fields wore always the same aspect.
But dull though the view might be, it was at least a wide one, and there
were the sheep and the cows that grazed in them to look at.
Occasionally, too, a stray passer-by, under the erroneous impression
that in crossing them he was taking a short cut, would venture into
them, only to turn back discomfited when confronted with padlocked
gates and hedges threaded with barbed wire, to say nothing of notice
boards warning trespassers to beware.
For the man who owned Greystones and those densely wooded grounds
also owned the fields that surrounded them, and his hatred of intruders
was well known in the immediate neighbourhood. It was a brave child
who crept through his hedges or climbed over his gates to pick
primroses or blackberries, and the urchin that was unlucky enough to
encounter old Mr. Anstruther while so engaged never ventured to
trespass on his property again.
"Margaret Anstruther! Margaret Anstruther! are you going to sit under
that tree all the afternoon? If you are too lazy to play tennis or to come
for a ride, will you come with me to Lady Barchester's garden party?
She has invited two hundred guests, and you must wear that lovely
white muslin dress with the little frills all up the skirt, and the big white

hat with the pink roses, and do not forget to take the pink chiffon
parasol that was sent you from Paris last week. We have been asked to
remain to dinner there, you may remember, for there will be a dance
afterwards. And the moon will be shining, and will it not be very
pleasant to sit out in the garden between the dances! Will you come,
Margaret Anstruther?"
That proposal was surely one that ought to have been tempting enough
to have called forth an answer of some sort from the girl to whom it
was addressed, but it was met by the same dead silence that had
followed the other suggestions.
Then somewhere near at hand a gate creaked loudly, there was the
sound of a key being turned in a padlock, and with his back towards the
sunlit fields from which he had come some ten minutes previously, the
tall, thin figure of an old man with a flowing white beard and with an
Inverness cloak hanging from his spare shoulders strode over the grass
in the direction of the thick clump of trees from which the unseen voice
had proceeded.
Though he took no pains to render them inaudible, his footsteps made
no sound on the grass, and as he approached the same voice spoke
again, unconscious of his near presence.
"Margaret Anstruther," it went on, "do you not then wish to do any of
the nice things I have told you about? Do you like sitting here by
yourself, when outside in the world real things are happening, and there
are real people to whom you might be talking, and whom you might
know? Are you happy? Tell me that."
The old man came to a pause, as abrupt as it was involuntary. Had any
one been there to see his face at that moment they would have
perceived that he was finding it difficult to believe the evidence of his
ears. Almost against his will it seemed he waited to hear the answer to
that question, for his obvious impulse had been to stride on and
confront the speaker, on whom his cold blue eyes, lightened now with a
gleam of anger, rested. She was sitting at the foot of a big elm-tree,
with her back resting against its trunk and her hands loosely clasped

round her knees. She was very young, and the forlorn droop of her
figure and the pathetic expression that was at that moment depicted
upon her face made her look even younger than her years, which
numbered barely eighteen.
"Oh, Eleanor Humphreys!" she said, and her clear hazel eyes brimmed
over