"Let us tell nobody," said Lady Clementina, "and set off to-morrow."
"Enchanting!" cried Florimel in full response.
Then her brow clouded. "There is one difficulty, though," she said. "No man could ride Kelpie with a led horse; and if we had to employ another, Liftore would be sure to hear where we had gone."
"That would spoil all," said Clementina. "But how much better it would be to give that poor creature a rest, and bring the other I see him on sometimes!"
"And by the time we came back there would not be a living creature, horse or man, anything bigger than a rat, about the stable. Kelpie herself would be dead of hunger, if she hadn't been shot. No, no; where Malcolm goes Kelpie must go. Besides, she's such fun — you can't think."
"Then I'll tell you what," cried Clementina after a moment's pause of perplexity: "we'll ride down. It's not a hundred miles, and we can take as many days on the road as we please."
"Better and better!" cried Florimel.
"Well run away with each other. But what will dear old Bellair say?"
"Never mind her," rejoined Clementina. "She will have nothing to say. You can write and tell her as much as will keep her from being really alarmed. Order your man to get everything ready, and I will instruct mine. He is such a staid old fellow, you know, he will be quite enough for protection. To-morrow mornning we will set out together for a ride in Richmond Park, that lying in our way. You can leave a letter on the breakfast-table, saying you are gone with me for a little quiet. You're not in chancery, are you?"
"I don't know," answered Florimel.
"I suppose I'm all right. Anyhow, whether I am in chancery or not, here I am, and going with you; and if chancery don't like it, chancery may come and fetch me."
"Send anything you think you may want to my house. I shall get a box ready, and we will write from some town on our way to have it sent there, and then we can write for it from The Gloom. We shall find all mere necessaries there."
So the thing was arranged: they would start quite early the next morning; and that there might be no trouble in the streets, Malcolm should go before with Kelpie and await them in the park.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE JOURNEY.
Malcolm was overjoyed at the prospect of an escape to the country, and yet more to find that his mistress wanted to have him with her — more still to understand that the journey was to be kept a secret. Perhaps now, far from both Caley and Liftore, he might say something to open her eyes; yet how should he avoid the appearance of a tale-bearer?
It was a sweet fresh morning late in the spring — those loveliest of hours that unite the seasons, like the shimmering question of green or blue in the feathers of the peacock. He had set out an hour before the rest, and now, a little way within the park, was coaxing Kelpie to stand, that he might taste the morning in peace. The sun was but a few degrees above the horizon, shining with all his heart, and the earth was taking the shine with all hers. "I too am light," she was saying, "although I can but receive it." The trees were covered with baby leaves half wrapped in their swaddling-clothes, and their breath was a warm aromatic odor in the glittering air. The air and the light seemed one, and Malcolm felt as if his soul were breathing the light into its very depths, while his body was drinking the soft spicy wind. For Kelpie, she was as full of life as if she had been meant for a winged horse, but by some accident of nature the wing-cases had never opened, and the wing-life was forever trying to get out at her feet. The consequent restlessness, where there was plenty of space as here, caused Malcolm no more discomposure than, in his old fishing-days, a gale with plenty of sea-room. And the song of the larks was one with the light and the air. The budding of the trees was their way of singing, but the larks beat them at that. "What a power of joy," thought Malcolm, "there must be in God, to be able to keep so many larks so full of bliss!" He was going to say, "without getting tired;" but he saw that it was the eternal joy itself that bubbled from their little fountains: weariness there would be the silence of all song, would be death, utter vanishment to the gladness of the universe. The sun would go out like a spark upon burnt paper, and the heart of man would forget the sound of laughter. Then he said to himself, "The larks do not make their own singing: do mortals make their own sighing?" And he saw that at least they might open wider the doors of their hearts to the Perseus Joy
