She was still superintending the lading of the cart, when a gentleman entered the yard and approached her ere she was aware of his presence.
‘I hope I see Miss Keeldar well this morning?’ he said, examining with rather significant scrutiny her still flushed face.
She gave him a look, and then again bent to her employment, without reply. A pleasant enough smile played on her lips, but she hid it. The gentleman repeated his salutation, stooping, that it might reach her ear with more facility.
‘Well enough, if she be good enough,’ was the answer; ‘and so is Mr. Moore, too, I dare say. To speak truth, I am not anxious about him; some slight mischance would be only his just due: his conduct has been—we will say strange, just now, till we have time to characterize it by a more exact epithet. Meantime, may I ask what brings him here?’
‘Mr. Helstone and I have just received your message, that everything at Fieldhead was at our service. We judged by the unlimited wording of the gracious intimation that you would be giving yourself too much trouble; I perceive our conjecture was correct. We are not a regiment, remember; only about half-a- dozen soldiers and as many civilians. Allow me to retrench something from these too abundant supplies.’
Miss Keeldar blushed, while she laughed at her own over-eager generosity and most disproportionate calculations. Moore laughed, too—very quietly, though; and as quietly he ordered basket after basket to be taken from the cart, and remanded vessel after vessel to the cellar.
‘The Rector must hear of this,’ he said; ‘he will make a good story of it. What an excellent army contractor Miss Keeldar would have been!’ Again he laughed, adding: ‘It is precisely as I conjectured.’
‘You ought to be thankful,’ said Shirley, ‘and not mock me. What could I do? How could I gauge your appetites, or number your band? For aught I knew, there might have been fifty of you at least to victual. You told me nothing; and then, an application to provision soldiers naturally suggests large ideas.’
‘It appears so,’ remarked Moore, levelling another of his keen quiet glances at the discomfited Shirley. ‘Now,’ he continued, addressing the carter, ‘I think you may take what remains to the Hollow. Your load will be somewhat lighter than the one Miss Keeldar destined you to carry.’
As the vehicle rumbled out of the yard, Shirley, rallying her spirits, demanded what had become of the wounded.
‘There was not a single man hurt on our side,’ was the answer.
‘You were hurt yourself, on the temples,’ interposed a quick, low voice, that of Caroline, who, having withdrawn within the shade of the door, and behind the large person of Mrs. Gill, had till now escaped Moore’s notice; when she spoke his eye searched the obscurity of her retreat.
‘Are you much hurt?’ she inquired.
‘As you might scratch your finger with a needle in sewing.’
‘Lift your hair, and let us see.’
He took his hat off and did as he was bid, disclosing only a narrow slip of court-plaster. Caroline indicated by a slight movement of the head that she was satisfied, and disappeared within the clear obscure of the interior.
‘How did she know I was hurt?’ asked Moore.