r, he expressed much natural
reluctance to drag a young and inexperienced female so far from her home,
leaving her afterwards to return as she might. But he perceived that her
presence gave courage to his kinswoman; he felt that her acquaintance
with the path was more to be relied upon than his own sagacity; and he
knew not, if he even rejected her offered services altogether, how he
could with any grace communicate the refusal, and leave her abandoned to
her own discretion in the forest. He felt a little inclined, at first, to
wonder at the interest she seemed to have taken in his cousin's welfare;
but, by and by, he reflected that perhaps, after all, her motive lay in
no better or deeper feeling than a mere girlish desire to make her way
to the neighbouring station (twenty miles make but a neighbourly distance
in the wilderness), to enjoy a frolic among her gadding acquaintance.
This reflection ended the struggle in his mind; and turning to her with a
smiling countenance, he said, "If you are so sure of getting home, my
pretty maid, you may be as certain we will be glad of your company and
guidance. But let us delay no longer."

The girl, starting at these words with alacrity, switched her pony and
darted to the head of the little party, as if addressing herself to her
duty in a business-like way; and there she maintained her position with
great zeal, although Roland and Edith endeavoured, for kindness' sake, to
make her sensible they desired her to ride with them as a companion, and
not at a distance, like a pioneer. The faster they spurred, however, the
more zealously she applied her switch, and her pony being both spirited
and fresh, while their own horses were both not a little the worse for
their long journey, she managed to keep in front, maintaining a gait that
promised in a short time to bring them to the banks of the river.

They had ridden perhaps a mile in this manner, when a sudden opening in
the cane-brake on the right hand, at a place where stood a beech-tree,
riven by a thunderbolt in former years, but still spreading its shattered
ruins in the air, convinced Roland that he had at last reached the road
to the Lower Ford, which Bruce had so strictly cautioned him to avoid.
What, therefore, was his surprise, when Telie, having reached the tree,
turned at once into the by-road, leaving the direct path which they had
so long pursued, and which still swept away before them, as spacious and
uninterrupted, sav