CHAPTER XXXI

THE RIDE ON THE BUS

The Thursday following his great experience, Ernie went as usual to the Redoubt which was the terminus of the bus that ran to Billing's Corner.

He was early; and there was as yet only one passenger on the roof, a young woman simply dressed in black, her bare throat girt about with yellow amber, and wearing a felt hat of terra-cotta colour.

She was sitting on the front seat.

The large and graceful indolence of her pose gave him pause.

He stayed on the last step, regarding her.

Then she turned her face sea-wards and he saw her profile.

Another moment and he stood above her.

"Ruth," he said.

She looked up at him.

"O, it's you, Ernie!" she answered quite simply, and without a thought of coquetry.

His heart moved within him.

"That's a little better!" he muttered, and proceeded to sit down beside her.

She made room for him, friendly and entirely unconscious.

They began to talk, and once she glanced at him from under her hat with tranquil eyes that seemed to pour their soft light into his.

He held them with his own.

The two streams met and mingled in mysterious communion that thrilled him till he trembled faintly.

He was the first to turn away.

"You look just all right," he said.

She was a changed girl. The restraint had left her. A new life danced within her. She was quivering with it, almost communicative.

"I feel it," she answered joyously. "I'm off till ten. I'm going away back home to Dad and Mother. I most in general doos o Sadadays if I gets off."

She was broadening her speech again, as though to throw off the corrupting town, and draw near once more to the country which had bred her.

He heard her with delight; and answered her easily and in kind.

"Auston, aren't it?" he asked.

She eyed him slyly, taking his humour, and nodded.

"You got it," she said. "I just take bus to Billing's Corner; and then 'Lewes coach drops me at Turnpike short o B'rick. Then 'dis but little better'n a mile to traipse down the valley. I was borrun in the River House in the Brooks along o the White Bridge under the church. And where I was borrun there my folks do still live. Pretty well beknown in them paarts my folks be, I rack'n." She was almost chattering now. And as her tongue resumed with joy the habit of babyhood a ripple of deep mirth swam over her face, and spoke of profound inward content.

She became shy and confidential. "Just under the eaves outside the room where I was borrun there's a martin's nest. And in the dark o summer nights they wake and gurgle to emselves. That'll be the little uns snugglin agin their mother's breast and thinkin how cosy. I do just adore to listen to em. Kind o company like." She gurgled in her turn, and then looked away abashed and blushing at the flow of her confidences.

"That's where you was borrun, was it?" mocked Ernie. "No, it warn't then. You was borrun in de corrun one morrun all forlorrun. How do I know it? Cos you're same as I be. You're a country chap."

It was clear that she enjoyed his chaff.

"That's a sure thing, you may depend," she answered in that humming voice of hers that seemed to resound long after she had finished speaking. "It's bred in my blood. See dad's dad and his dad afoor him dey were ox-herds in the home-farm in Ruther Valley. Dad went along o the long-horns on the hill too when he was a lad. There's few teams left now except only Mr. Gorringe's at Exeat. When dad's dad was a lad it was pretty near ox-teams allwheres in Sussex--on the hill and on the Levels. Then it come horrses; and prazendly it'll be machines. The world moves faster nor it used to did one time o day, I expagd. Ya-as. Cerdainly it doos."

The bus ran along the Esplanade to the pier, the sea shining on their left. Then it swung down Cornfield Road, stopped at the Station, and took the Old Road for Lewes. As it lurched under the Chestnuts into Water Lane, the Downs were seen across Saffrons Croft through a screen of elms.

"There they be!" cried Ernie, hailing them. "What d'you think of them now?"

"Eh, but they're like mother and father to you, if you've been bred to em," answered Ruth. "I just couldn't a-bear to be parted from them nohows. They're Sussex--them and the sea. Sussex by the sea, my Miss Caryll used to call it."

They travelled up the hill; and the girl feasted her eyes on the green of Saffrons Croft.

"I allow the brown-birds holloa in them old ellums, dawn and dusk," she murmured, talking more to herself than to her companion. "That's what I misses by the sea more'n all--the song o birds. There's no loo like for em--only the anonymous bushes. Reck'n that's where it is. They like the loo'th, doos birds. But times I see a old jack-yearn flappin along over the Levels like he'd all the time before him. And the wheat-ears come from acrarst the sea and show the white of their tails that carmical about Cuckoo-fair. Hap it'll be their first landing-place. They must be tired. But there's not nigh the numbers there was one time o day. When dad was a lad there was I dunna many all along the Downs from Rottingdean to Friston."

The bus stopped, as always, at the _Star_.

Ernie, who felt the spirit of the show-man strong within him, pointed out the Manor-house with a certain proprietary air.

"That's where Mr. Trupp lives," he explained. "They come from all over the world to see him. He's our doctor. Has been this thirty year. Dad was one of the first in Old Town to have him. Give him his start, as you might say."

"He's a nice gentleman surely," said Ruth.

"Do you know him then?" asked Ernie, a thought jealously.

"I've knaw'd him all my life," answered the other. "He attends the Squire and family. He looked after my Miss Caryll till she died; and then me when I took bad after her death. Eh, but he was a kind gentleman."

"He brought me into the world," said Ernie with an air of finality, the desire to swagger still strong upon him. "He took the inside out of the Tsar of Dobrudja and he brought me into the world. That's what Mr. Trupp done."

She turned a deep brown eye on him.

"He done well," she said quietly.

Then they both laughed.

At Billing's Corner he helped her off the bus and on to the four-horse char-a-banc waiting outside the _Billing Arms_.

"Last char-a-banc home," said Ernie authoritatively. "Half after nine or so. I'll look out."

He stood beneath her in the dust.

With her jet-black hair, her colouring of a ripe peach, and those soft swarthy eyes that streamed down upon him, she perched above him, stately, mocking, mysterious.

He could not make her out. She was at once so simple and so elusive in her royal way. She teased, startled, and exalted him; she calmed and maddened him.

"Thank you, Mr. Caspar," came the quiet voice from on high.

"Call me, Ernie," he ordered, this strange passion to domineer still overmastering him.

She gazed at him with those quiet ironical eyes of hers.

Then the char-a-banc moved on.