The bickerings between her father and mother had a great deal to do with the peculiar features of Barbara’s life in New Zealand. As soon as she saw a cloud rising, she would creep away, mount one of the many horses at her disposal, and race from the house. What the object of their fighting might be, she never asked. It was plain to her that nothing was ever gained by it. Not a sentence was uttered by the one but was furiously felt as a wrong by the other. It is strange that the man who most keenly feels the wrong done him should so often be the most insensible to the wrong he does. So dominant is the unreason of the moment that the injury he inflicts appears absolute justice, and the injury he suffers absolute injustice. Yet such disputes seldom turn upon the main point at issue. War rages between kingdoms for the possession of a broken-down cottage—which, when once possessed, brings the quarrel no nearer being settled than before!

Hence it came that Barbara paid so little heed to her mother’s challenge of the clergyman. Combat of that sort was too recurrent an experience of Barbara’s life to find interesting. She had, indeed, sufficient respect for the forms of religion to regret that her mother should behave as she had, but she scarcely took further interest in the matter.

20. Wingfold and Barbara

— Twenty —

Wingfold and Barbara

One day, having been in the house all afternoon, Barbara went out toward sunset to have a walk with a book. She was sauntering along a grassy public road when she almost ran into a man similarly occupied, for he was also absorbed in the book he carried. Each started back with an apology, then both burst into a modest laugh, and the rector held out his hand.

“I never saw you on your own feet before, Miss Wylder,” said the clergyman.

“Not on anybody else’s, I hope!” she returned.

“Oh yes, indeed! On Miss Brown’s, many a time!”

“You know Miss Brown then? She is my most intimate friend.”

“I am well aware of that. Everything worth knowing in the parish, and a good deal that is not, comes to my ears.”

“May I hope you count Miss Brown’s affairs worth hearing about, then?”

“Of course! I love my animals as much as I’m sure you love Miss Brown, and I count their affairs most interesting. But indeed, I have more to be thankful for than most, for I sometimes drive a pony yet that is over forty.”

“Forty years of age! I should like to see that pony!”

“You shall see her any day you will come to the parsonage. I will gladly introduce her to you, but it is getting rather late to desire her acquaintance—she does not see well and is not so good-tempered as she once was. But she will soon be better.”