It was true that Rachel heartily enjoyed these rides. Hitherto she had
been only allowed to go out under the escort of her tyrant the coachman,
who kept her in very strict discipline. She had not anticipated anything
much more lively with Fanny, her boys, and ponies; but Colonel Keith
had impressed on Conrade and Francis that they were their mother's prime
protectors, and they regarded her bridle-rein as their post, keeping
watch over her as if her safety depended on them, and ready to quarrel
with each other if the roads were too narrow for all three to go
abreast. And as soon as the colonel had ascertained that she and they
were quite sufficient to themselves, and well guarded by Coombe in the
rear, he ceased to regard himself as bound to their company, but he and
Rachel extended their rides in search of objects of interest. She liked
doing the honours of the county, and achieved expeditions which her
coachman had hitherto never permitted to her, in search of ruins, camps,
churches, and towers. The colonel had a turn for geology, though a
wandering life even with an Indian baggage-train had saved him from
incurring her contempt for collectors; but he knew by sight the
character of the conformations of rocks, and when they had mounted one
of the hills that surrounded Avonmouth, discerned by the outline whether
granite, gneiss, limestone, or slate formed the grander height beyond,
thus leading to schemes of more distant rides to verify the conjectures,
which Rachel accepted with the less argument, because sententious
dogmatism was not always possible on the back of a skittish black mare.
There was no concealing from herself that she was more interested by
this frivolous military society than by any she had ever previously met.
The want of comprehension of her pursuits in her mother's limited range
of acquaintance had greatly conduced both to her over-weening manner and
to her general dissatisfaction with the world, and for the first time
she was neither succumbed to, giggled at, avoided, nor put down with a
grave, prosy reproof. Certainly Alick Keith, as every one called him,
nettled her extremely by his murmured irony, but the acuteness of it was
diverting in such a mere lad, and showed that if he could only once be
roused, he might be capable of better things. There was an excitement
in his unexpected manner of seeing things that was engaging as well
as provoking; and Rachel never felt content if he were at Myrtlewood
without her seeing him, if only because she began to consider him as
more dangerous than his elder namesake, and so assured of his position
that he did not take any pains to assert it, or to cultivate Lady
Temple's good graces; he was simply at home and perfectly at ease with
her.