The Keepers of the People

CHAPTER I

RALPH FALCON COMES TO QUIVERN COURT

1Ralph Falcon came down an aisle of Quivern Wood, his footfall noiseless in the thick, coarse moss. The air of the summer afternoon was drowsy with the hum of bees, the sun dappled the green carpet with flecks of gold, and the flowers of the rhododendrons, on either side, were clusters of pale pink stars in the dimming shade. He came on a light, swinging step, very swift for the heat of the day, yet no tinge of red flushed the clear, pale skin of his face; indeed, his coolness in that heat, his alert, hunter’s eyes seemed proper rather to the passage of some tropical, dangerous forest. Half-way down the aisle, the faint murmur of a voice on the right caught his quick ear, and he stopped short, with the suddenness of a wild animal, listening. The words, pitched too low, and from too far away for any untrained, civilised ear, came to him plainly enough, clear and musical —

2“Across the hills, and far away Beyond their utmost purple rim, And deep into the dying day The happy Princess followed him.”

3He stood awhile, thoughtful, his eyes on the little by-path that led towards the sound; then giving the rein to his desire to see the possessor of the beautiful, murmuring voice he went down the path on silent feet and came to the edge of a glade.

4On the further side of it a mimic Greek portico reared slender marble columns, and under its roof stood the famous statue of Diana Huntress, brought from Sicily by the third Earl Lisdor. Before the portico was spread a pile of rugs and cushions; half sitting, half lying on them, facing him, was a child of a very fair, frail beauty; and lying, propped on one elbow, with her back to him, was the reader, her great coils of fine red hair shining with so warm a lustre, in a sunbeam that slanted on to them through the serried tree-tops, as seemed to diffuse a subdued glow throughout the glade. Her right arm was thrust forward, the hand holding the book; and her light summer gown left plain the admirable line of her figure from the armpit to the knee; her treacherous skirt had withdrawn above her slender ankles, and from one of her little feet the shoe had fallen.