Part 12 (1/2)
”I can't reach--what is it?”
”Your hand, then; I'll tell it to your hand.”
She hesitated a moment, and then dropped her hand over the window-sill, and he clutched at it and kissed it, and pushed back the white sleeve and ran up the arm with his lips as far as he could climb.
”Another, my girl; take your time, one more--half a one, then.”
She drew her arm back until her hand got up to his hand, and then she said, ”What's this? The mole on your finger still, Pete? You called me a witch--now see me charm it away. Listen!--'Ping, ping, prash, Cur yn cadley-jiargan a.s.s my cha.s.s.'”
She was uttering the Manx charm in a mock-solemn ululation when a bough snapped in the orchard, and she cried, ”What's that?”
”It's Philip. He's waiting under the apple-tree,” said Pete.
”My goodness me!” said Kate, and down went the window-sash.
A moment later it rose again, and there was the beautiful young face in its frame as before, but with the rosy light of the dawn on it.
”Has he been there all the while?” she whispered.
”What matter? It's only Phil.”
”Good-bye! Good luck!” and then the window went down for good.
”Time to go,” said Philip, still in his tall silk hat and his knickerbockers. He had been standing alone among the dead brown fern, the withering gorse, and the hanging brambles, gripping the apple-tree and swallowing the cry that was bubbling up to his throat, but forcing himself to look upon Pete's happiness, which was his own calamity, though it was tearing his heart out, and he could hardly bear it.
The birds were singing by this time, and Pete, going back, sang and whistled with the best of them.
X.
In the mists of morning, Grannie had awakened in her bed with the turfy scraas of the thatch just visible above her, and the window-blind like a hazy moon floating on the wall at her side. And, fixing her nightcap, she had sighed and said, ”I can't close my eyes for dreaming that the poor lad has come to his end untimeously.”
Caesar yawned, and asked, ”What lad?”
”Young Pete, of course,” said Grannie.
Caesar _umpht_ and grunted.
”We were poor ourselves when we began, father.”
Grannie felt the glare of the old man's eye on her in the darkness.
”'Deed, we were; but people forget things. We had to borrow to buy our big overshot wheel; we had, though. And when ould Parson Harrison sent us the first boll of oats, we couldn't grind it for want of----”
Caesar tugged at the counterpane and said, ”Will you lie quiet, woman, and let a hard-working man sleep?”
”Then don't be the young man's destruction, Caesar.”
Caesar made a contemptuous snort, and pulled the bedclothes about his head.
”Aw, 'deed, father, but the girl might do worse. A fine, strapping lad.