For the convenience of the families, a gravel walk had been made through the rectory fields to the little river which divided them from the park. Across this Mr. Hayward had thrown a very elegant rustic bridge, the joint design of Amy and Herbert, to replace a rude yet picturesque one formed of planks with siderails, which had existed previously.

Over this, Herbert rapidly passed onwards into the park; and avoiding the walk, which had been carried by a considerable detour through some beautiful glades, struck at once across the sward, in a direct line for the house.

At any other time, the extreme beauty of the day, and of the park under its influence, would not have failed to attract the attention of the young man, and to have caused him to stop more than once to admire for the hundredth time some noble avenues of beech and oak—some picturesquely-grouped herd of deer or flock of sheep, or some exquisite effect of light and shade as the soft floating clouds transiently caused it. He would perhaps have sauntered gently; but now he hurried on, wrapt in his own reflections, and they were not of the most agreeable or intelligible kind. The flocks of sheep as he passed, fled startled at his quick approach, while the deer raised themselves from their recumbent postures and gazed wonderingly at him, whom they almost knew.

‘By Heaven!’ he exclaimed, as he reached the hall-door and rang for admittance, ‘I hardly know what I am come about, or what to say. But it must be done,—so I will let things take their chance. I can invent no plan of proceeding which will spare them pain or myself either. No,—better leave it to the force of circumstances.’

‘Is any one at home, Edward?’ he said to the footman who answered the bell.

‘Yes, sir, Master and Miss Amy are in the study.’

‘Thank you;’ and he passed on with a beating heart.

‘Well, noble captain, what news?’ ‘Ah, I am so glad you are come, Herbert, I want you so much,’ were the greetings of the father and daughter, in their hearty, unformal, and affectionate manner. ‘Mamma tried to persuade me to go out with her to pay a visit to the Somervilles,’ continued Amy, ‘but I would not, for I felt somehow or other that you would come, and, as I said, I want you. You have been such a truant of late, that I was really beginning to be half angry with you. So ponder well on the escape you have made of my wrath by this opportune appearance.’

Herbert said something about his duties, only half intelligible to himself.

‘Yes,’ continued the light-hearted girl, ‘those duties are horrid things; ever since you have been a soldier, we have seen nothing of you at all, and I am very much disposed to be very angry with your colonel and all your regiment for not giving you perpetual leave of absence. I declare I have no companion now, for you know the boys are both at college. He is very naughty not to come oftener,—is he not, papa?’

‘Perhaps Herbert is right, my love, in not humouring so giddy a girl as yourself. But here he is now, so make the most of him, for there may be another week or fortnight of duty which he has come to tell you of.’

How near he had guessed the truth,—unconsciously—only so far short of its sad reality!

Herbert winced. ‘I am sure if I had but known that I was wanted, I would have come,’ he said hesitatingly; ‘but the truth is, I have been occupied both at home and at the barracks for the last few days by some business which I could not leave.’

‘Well, your being here proves that to be all over, and so you are not to think of going away to-day,’ said Amy. ‘I want you to help me with a drawing I am doing for Lady Somerville; and as she is a great connoisseur, it must be as good as our united heads and fingers can make it; and before we sit down to that, I wish you to run down to the river with me, and sketch a group of rocks, hazel-bushes, and reeds, which I want for the foreground of my picture. Now, no excuses, Herbert, though you look as if you were going to begin some,—I will not hear them. Wait here with papa, till I put on my bonnet and get my sketch-book.

‘Now, don’t let him go, I pray you, papa,’ she continued, looking back from the door she had just opened, ‘for I shall not be five minutes away.’

‘You hear your doom, Herbert,’ said Mr. Hayward gaily; ‘so come, sit down, tell me all about your regiment, and how this exchange of yours prospers. A dashing young fellow like you ought to be in the cavalry, and I hope to hear of your soon exchanging the scarlet for the blue.’

‘That is all off, I am sorry to say, sir,’ replied Herbert.

‘Off! what do you mean? Surely your father told me that he had lodged the money for the exchange, and that the matter had only to pass through the forms of the War Office.’

‘So he had; but an event has happened which has put an end to all our hopes upon the subject.’

‘What, is the man dead?’

‘No, sir, he is well enough, but—’ and Herbert hesitated.

‘But what, Herbert? If there is anything that I can do,—you know there can be no ceremony between us.’

‘No, no, sir, I well know that; and—’

‘Why what is the matter with the boy?’ cried Mr. Hayward, observing that Herbert seemed to be struggling with some strong emotion; ‘has anything happened?’

‘You may as well know it at once,’ replied Herbert, mastering his feelings. ‘I am come on purpose to tell it to you, lest you should hear it in some out-of-the-way manner. My regiment is ordered abroad, and I am to go, of course.’

‘Well, I am glad to hear it,’ said Mr. Hayward; ‘you will have a pleasant continental frolic, and see something of the world;—and sorry too, since we shall lose you for a time.’

‘But our destination is not the continent, but India,’ said Herbert sadly.

‘Good God! you don’t mean that,’ exclaimed Mr. Hayward, rising. ‘Pardon me, my dear boy, that I should have spoken lightly on a subject which is so distressing. India! that indeed is a sad word: can nothing be done to prevent this? cannot you exchange? cannot—’

‘I would not if I were able, dear sir,’ said Herbert. ‘I feel this to be my duty; I could not in any honour leave the regiment at such a time, without a suspicion of the basest motives being attached to my character.’

‘Tut, tut, Herbert! the thing is done every day, so let not that distress or prevent you.’

Herbert shook his head.

‘I say it is, I could tell you a dozen instances.’

‘Perhaps you might, where the only enemy was the climate; but our possessions in the East are menaced, and the service will be active. I learned this when the news came to the regiment; and as none of the officers have attempted an exchange, except one or two whose characters are not high, I feel that I cannot.’

‘And you are right, Herbert,’ said Mr. Hayward, after a pause, ‘you are right. God help your parents! your poor mother—this will be a sad blow to her!’ and he paused, as a tear glistened in his eyes.

‘It was at first, certainly, sir; but they are already more composed, and are beginning to bear to talk of it.’

‘And how soon are you to go? The Government will give you some time, surely, for preparation.’

‘Very little, I am sorry to say. We march for Dover on Monday, and sail, we hear, in ten days or a fortnight.’

‘Monday! Bless me, and to-day is Thursday; this is the worse news of all. Poor Amy, what will she say?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Herbert, ‘I want your advice, whether to mention it to her myself or not. I cannot refuse to accompany her now; indeed, you saw she would take no denial. I will do exactly as you please.’

‘Why, it is an unpleasant matter to any of us to think or speak of, and I really do not know what to say. But as you are the person concerned, and can give her every information yourself,’ continued Mr. Hayward, after a pause, ‘perhaps you had better talk it over with her. Break it as gently as you can, however, for it would be useless to deny to you that she will be very sorry to hear it.’

‘Come, Herbert!’ cried Amy, opening the door; ‘I have been longer away than I thought. Come, here are books and paper, and my stool for you to carry; so make haste.’

‘You will be discreet with her, Herbert,’ said Mr. Hayward gently, giving his hand.

Herbert could only press it in acknowledgment. In a moment afterwards they were gone.

Mr. Hayward turned to the window involuntarily, to watch them as they descended the gentle slope of the lawn. There was a vague thought in his mind that they had better not have gone; but as he could find no reason for the idea, he dismissed it. He was a benevolent, simple-hearted man; he had had neither the necessity nor the inclination to study character, and could not at once estimate the effect such a communication as his daughter was about to receive would have upon her; nor did it at once strike him that the long and intimate association she had held with Herbert could have produced any tenderer feeling than she had ever expressed or appeared to entertain. Her mother, had she been there, might have judged differently; but, as Mr. Hayward soliloquised, as their retreating figures were lost to his view behind a low shrubbery, ‘Matters must take their own course now; it is too late to recall them.’

Onwards they went; leaving the broad walk which led by the side of the lawn and shrubberies, they at once struck across the park, down one of the noble glades of beech-trees from whence the place took its name. The day was bright and warm—one of those blessed days of June, when all nature seems to put forward her choicest productions for the gratification and admiration of man—when cowslip and daisy, buttercup and wild anemone, with a thousand other flowers of lowly pretensions yet of exquisite beauty, have opened their bright blossoms to the sunlight, and are wooing it in silent thankfulness.

The verdant carpet beneath them was full of these, glowing in their freshest bloom; the sheep and lambs, dotted here and there upon every slope, lazily cropped the short, soft herbage; and the tinkling of their bells and the faint bleating of the lambs, now distant, now near, mingled with the hum of the many bees which busily drew their loads of sweets, roaming from flower to flower. Butterflies of many hues, their gorgeous wings glaring in the bright light, fluttered swiftly along, coquetting as it were with the flowers, and enjoying in their full vigour the sunny brightness of their short lives.

There was no wind, and yet a freshness in the air which tempered the heat of the sun; the beech-trees, with their shining leaves, appeared sleeping in the sunlight, and as if resting, during the short period there might be allowed them, from their almost ceaseless waving. Far around them the park stretched away into broad glades, some ended by woods, others presenting peeps of blue and dim distance; while through all there was a vapour floating, sufficient only to take off the harshness from every outline, whether of tree or distance, and to blend the whole harmoniously into that soft dreamy appearance, so exquisite and so soothing to behold.

‘How lovely the park is to-day, Herbert!’ said Amy, ‘is it not? Every step we take seems to present a new picture which ought to be drawn. Look now at that group of sheep and deer almost intermixed; the deer have chosen the fern which is partly under that magnificent beech, the sheep are all among them, and their young lambs enjoying their merry gambols; the light is falling in that beautiful chequered manner which I strive in vain to represent; and yet how great are the masses, how perfect the unstudied composition, how exquisite the colour! The brightest and warmest green, spangled with flowers, is before us; this is broken by the shadows: beyond the tree there is a delicious grey, melting imperceptibly into the most tender blue. Is it not a picture now, Herbert?’

‘A lovely one indeed, Amy; a study worthy of Berghem or Cuyp. What exquisite perceptions of nature must they have had! their pictures, and those of many of the same class, how simple! and yet painted with the most consummate art and nicest finish. Scarcely a flower escapes them, yet there is not one too many represented, nor one in any way interfering with the harmony of their colouring. I often long for such power; for we only can appreciate their skill and genius, by our own awkward attempts to imitate them. Indeed, when I look on the works of any of these great masters, my own appear so contemptible in my eyes, that I am tempted to forswear the gentle craft altogether.’

‘Indeed, you are to do no such thing, Herbert, but help me to sketch, and to blunder on through many a drawing yet, I have no idea of being put out of conceit of my own performances, for which I have a high respect, I assure you. But come, if we stay loitering by every old beech-tree and group of sheep or deer, I shall get no sketch done in time for you to copy on my drawing, and shall be obliged perhaps to listen to some terrible excuses of duty or business. So come, we have yet a good way to walk.’

Beguiling the way, little more than a quarter of a mile, by gentle converse upon familiar, yet to them interesting subjects, they reached the busy, murmuring river,—now stealing quietly under a bank,—now chafed in its passage over a few stones,—here eddying past a rock and covered with white foam,—there widening out into a little pool, partly natural, partly artificial, the glassy surface of which was broken into circles by the rapid rising of the trout, which eagerly leaped after the flies that sported upon it.

There was a small pathway beside the stream which had been the work of all the boys some years ago; in some places it wound through thickets of alder and hazel, which met above it, forming a green alcove impervious to the sun; again, under some mossy bank or wide-spreading ash, where a rustic seat had been erected. Further as it advanced, it led round a projecting bank to a little open bay surrounded by rocks, one of which jutted out boldly into the stream that brawled noisily past it; and the open space, once a level spot of greensward, had been laid out irregularly in a little garden, which now bloomed with many sweet and beautiful flowers, of kinds despised perhaps nowadays, but not the less lovely for all that. Tall hollyhocks there were, and roses; and honeysuckles had been trained up against the rocks, with jessamine, clematis, and other creepers, which poured forth their fragrance on the air.

Many a time had the little circles of Beechwood and Alston united here, and many a joyous pic-nic and dance had occupied hours which could never be forgotten by any.

It was a lovely spot indeed; the rocky bank around the little circle was, as we have said, covered with creepers; festoons of ivy hung from above, and over all nodded some ash or other forest-trees, mingled with underwood and fern. On the opposite side of the river, worn away by the water which had run past it for countless years, the bank was high and steep, covered with ivy and drooping fern; all sorts of little peering wild flowers lurked among its recesses, with mosses whose colours glistened like emerald and gold; above it grew two or three noble ashes and beeches, whose feathery foliage descended in minute and graceful sprays down to the bank, and waved with every breath of wind.

A tiny summer-house, or hermitage as they had called it, made of pine-logs and thatched with heath, stood in the corner formed by the projection round which they were passing; and thither they directed their steps, for it commanded a view of the whole of the little amphitheatre, the rock, the river, and the bank beyond. Though there was a kind of garden, yet there was nothing artificial in its appearance; the few flowers looked almost like the spontaneous growth of the spot, and did not interfere with the perfectly wild yet beautiful character of the scene, which otherwise was as nature in one of her bountiful moods had fashioned and left it,—a nook wherein man might worship her the more devoutly. The whole glowed under the bright beams of the noonday sun, and there was not a breath of wind to disturb the complete serenity and dreamy effect of the place.

‘Now sit down here, Herbert,’ said Amy, ‘and begin yonder by that ivy. You are to draw me all the jutting rock, the water eddying round it, the reeds here by the brink, and give me a bit of distance beyond; and I do not think,’ she added with enthusiasm, ‘that the world could show a lovelier spot to-day than our little hermitage. I only wish I could grasp it all, and put it upon my paper as I see it: do not you often feel so?’

‘Indeed I do, Amy, and am vexed at my own clumsy attempts to imitate nature; but I will do my best for you to-day. I may not soon again have such an opportunity’.

‘You mean there will not be such another delicious day, Herbert; but I do not despair now of the weather.’

Herbert was silent; he had thought his remark might have led to the subject he did not know how to break. He looked at his companion, and he felt how hard it would be to leave one so beautiful, nay, so loved as she was. He had never spoken to her of love; but now the hour approached when he was to leave her, and there were feelings within him struggling for expression which he could ill restrain; his thoughts oppressed him, and though he continued to sketch he was silent.

‘You are very dull and absent to-day, Herbert,’ she said at length, as she continued looking over his shoulder; ‘but you are drawing that foliage and the old rock very nicely, so I must not scold you;’ and again she continued to converse. She tried many topics, she spoke eloquently and feelingly of her boundless love of nature, she told him what she had been reading, asked him a thousand questions about his duties, his regiment, his companions,—all of which he answered mechanically; for his heart was too busy for him to heed the replies his tongue gave.

‘Upon my word, I do not know what to make of you to-day, Herbert,’ she cried, laughing, as he had given some absurd reply to one of her questions or sallies which was not in any way relative to it. ‘You draw most meritoriously, and better than ever I saw you before, but my words fall on heedless ears; for I am sure you have neither heard nor understood a word of what I have been saying this hour past. Now make haste,—a few touches will finish that, and you can add figures afterwards if you like. I am sure you are unwell. If you are so, I insist on your giving up the drawing.’

‘I shall never again have such an opportunity, dear Amy,’ he said; ‘not at least for a long time, so I had better do all I can now.’ There was much sadness in his tone.

‘What do you mean by that? this is the second time I have heard you say it,’ she replied anxiously; ‘you surely cannot be going to leave us again; the regiment has only been here two months, and—tell me, I beseech you, Herbert,’ she continued as he looked up from the drawing, and distress was very visible upon his countenance; ‘tell me what you have to say. Why do you look so sad?’

‘Because, dear Amy, I have news which will pain you,—that is, I think it will,—for we have ever been so linked together: you have guessed the truth,—I am indeed to leave,—and that so soon that my own brain is confused by the sudden orders we have received.’

She turned as pale as death, and her lips quivered; all the misery and danger she had ever heard of foreign service rushed at once overwhelmingly into her thoughts. She tried to speak, but could not.

‘It must be told sooner or later,’ he thought, laying down the sketch and drawing towards her; he continued, though with much difficulty in preserving his composure,—

‘The regiment is ordered upon service, Amy, and after many thoughts I find I have no alternative but to accompany it. We march for Dover in a few days; the transports, we hear, will meet us there; and after we have embarked, the convoy fleet for India will join us at Portsmouth or Plymouth.’

‘For India!’ were the only words the poor girl could utter, as she sunk helpless and fainting upon the seat.