impatiently in the saddle, breaking her vagrant thoughts away from the solitary man, secretly angry that she had thought of him at all. Her glance fell on a mass of blossoming wild honeysuckle, and the loveliness of its rose tintings drew her;[39] she slipped to the ground and patting her horse, left the bridle loose on his neck. She had to gather up her skirts and thread her way through a bracken of ferns before she reached the tempting flowers and began to gather them. She broke off a few sprays and clustered them in her hands, pausing to look out across the newly plowed fields to her right; they had been sown to oats, and it seemed to her that she saw the first faint drift of green on the crests of the furrows. The next moment a crash of thunder shook the air, the trees overhead cracked and bent low before the onrush of the sudden gust. Her horse, a restive creature, shied violently and stood shivering with fear. Diana, grasping her flowers, started through the ferns, calling to him, but a blinding flash followed by more thunder forestalled her; the horse rose on his haunches and stood an instant, quivering, a beautiful untamed creature, his mane flying in the wind, and then plunged forward and galloped down the trail. [39] Diana called to him again helplessly and foolishly, for her voice was lost in the crackling of boughs and the boom of thunder; she was alone in the lonely spot, with the wind whistling in her ears. It ripped the leaves from the trees overhead and she stood in a hail of green buds. The fury of the gale increased, the black clouds advanced across the heavens with long streamers flying ahead of them, the light in the upper sky went out, darkness increased; suddenly the woods were twilight and she heard no sound but the[40] mighty rush of the wind. As yet no rain fell, only leaves, broken twigs, and, at last, great branches crashed. The lightning tore the clouds apart in fearful rents. [40] It was a long way home, seven and a half miles, and already big drops spattered through the trees. Strangely enough, a thought of Caleb’s walk with the six cents flashed in upon her and she resented it. Yet the nearest shelter was the little shop at the Cross-Roads. It made no difference, she would face the storm; and she started boldly down the trail though the bushes whipped against her skirt and the boughs threatened her. Once a rolling stone nearly threw her down, but she kept resolutely on. If the horse went home riderless, what would they think? She could only dimly conjecture Colonel Royall’s distress, but she would not go to the little shop to telephone; she would walk home!
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