255 CHAPTER X. THREE weeks later Lady Flora and Hugh were riding with slack reins over the great downs which sweep from Musuru to the north. Their caravan was visible some miles in the rear, a small dot in the interminable expanse of green. The riders were facing south, and far away appeared the dark line which told of the forests which surrounded the house. It was a windless afternoon, but at that height the air had the freshness of a mountain - top. The world slept in the still and golden weather -only the sound of their horses' hoofs, and now and then the cry of a bird, broke in upon the warm, scented silence. The bent, green with springtide in the near distance, mellowed in the farther spaces to a pale gold, which stood out with entrancing clearness against the crystalline blue of the sky. It was a plateau on which they rode, for to the west the tops of little hills showed up on the horizon, foreshortened like the masts of ships at sea. This sight, and the diamond air and the westering sun, gave the riders the sensation of moving in some cloudbuilt world raised far above the levels of man. The three weeks had worked changes in their appearance. In spite of veils Lady Flora had become sunburnt, and she had exchanged her prim English seat for the easy pose of the backwoods. Hugh, tanned like an Indian, wore clothes so stained and ragged that he looked like some swagman who had stolen a good horse. He caught the girl's amused eye and laughed. "I know I'm pretty bad, but I'm not so bad as Teddy. I wish his wife could see him at this moment. And I wish the whole round earth could behold Lady Amysfort. Who could have guessed that the wilds would have wrought such a change?" "You don't know Caroline as well as I do, or you would wonder more. I was afraid she would be bored, or have a headache or something, for she is so accustomed to being served and worshipped that I did not think she would see any fun in roughing it. I suppose Mr Carey knew her better. But when I saw her making pancakes the first night, I knew it would be all right. Before we started, she was the last woman I would have chosen to travel with, and now she is the first. And that is a pretty high recommendation, I think." "Like Charles Lamb's praise-'What a lass to go a-gipsying through the world with!' I think so too. Well, it's all over now, Lady Flora. Have you enjoyed yourself?" "Shall I ever forget it-those magical weeks? We are not going back to anything half as good as we are leaving behind. I know now what Mr Astbury meant by Nirwana, for I have been living in it. Do you remember when we camped in the little ravine above Asinyo? When you and Sir Edward were away hunting all day, Charlotte and I used to climb up to the top of the rocks among the whortleberries, and watch the shadows running over the plain, and get blown on by the cool winds from the Back of Beyond. I never knew one could be so happy alone. And then the evenings, with the big fire and the natives' chatter, and Sir Edward's stories and Caroline's singing! Do you remember one night we argued for hours about what could be done to make Ascot more amusing? And then we suddenly remembered where we were, and burst out laughing. What fun it was, too, to lie awake in bed, quite warm and comfortable, and see the stars twinkling R through the door of one's tent, and hear the wolves howling to each other! I hate coming back-even to Musuru. "And in all that huge, heavenly country," the girl went on, “there was not one white man. I shall soon be as fanatical about settlement as Lady Warcliff. Only I am going to preach a different creed. Think of the numbers of young men of our class who have sufficient money to live on and nothing to do. They somehow fall out of the professions, and hang about at a loose end. But there is excellent stuff in them if they found the kind of life to suit them. They would have made good eldest sons, though they are very unsatisfactory younger ones. But out here they could all be eldest sons. They would have a Christian life, plenty of shooting, plenty of hard work of the kind they could really do well; and then they could marry and found a new aristocracy. I don't suppose Mr Carey wants the new countries to be without their gentry. What a delightful society it would be! I can picture country-houses-simple places, not palaces like Musuru, — and pretty gardens, and packs of hounds, and-oh, all that makes England nice, without any of the things that bore us. There would be no Season, because there would be no towns, and everybody would remain young, be cause there would be nothing to make them grow old." "Would you be one of the citizens of your Utopia?" Hugh asked. "I think I should. At least my Better Self would. At this moment I look on the complicated world with disgust. My tastes are half pagan and half early Christian. I want to have all the things that really matter in life, and nothing else. I want to be able to look out on everything with clear eyes and without any sentimentality or second-hand emotion. Do you know, if I spent many weeks like the last three I should become very like a man. I have caught Sir Edward's slang, and I have almost fallen into his way of regarding things. What was that odd poem he was always quoting, something about the wind in his teeth'?" 'May I stand in the mist and the clear and the chill,'” Hugh repeated "In the cycle of wars, In the brown of the moss and the grey of the hill, Gift this guerdon and grant this grace, That I bid good-e'en, The sword in my hand and my foot to the race, |