Part 39 (1/2)
”After all, Jim is not our sort”
”Rot!” exclaimed dick ”Bernard is satisfied and I'd sooner trust hie than anybody in Hodson's stodgy lot”
Mordaunt shrugged, but was glad the rattle of the engine covered his silence and the driver looked up as if to see if he were coot into the car and pondered as he drove back to Dryholm dick's manner was curious and his annoyance was plain Mordaunt wondered whether he suspected so Still, except perhaps for Herries, the hunt cohten dick
CHAPTER X
BERNARD PONDERS
It was getting dark in the hall at Langrigg and Jim, who had just returned fro fireplace Rain beat upon the s, outside which the trees tossed their naked branches against the lowering sky, and a cold ailed about the ancient walls Oak logs snapped in the grate and Carrie sat on the rug in the flickering light She was toasting muffins, and a silver teapot and some cups stood on the low table in front of Mrs Winter Now the days were getting cold and short, tea by the hearth was a popular function Carrie buttered a ave it Jim on the end of the fork
”Jake h for him,” she said ”They're quite nice if you eat them hot, but they're not like the flapjacks I ood times on the new line; hadn't we, Jim? Mother doesn't know; she wasn't there”
”I was not,” said Mrs Winter ”If you had taken , I wouldn't be with you now A roof that keeps out the rain, a warh forsince Looks as if ere all getting English,” Carrie replied ”Jiainst all the other things If I was Jihed He had sent to London for the A-chair that clashed with the old oak in the hall, but it was a pattern Mrs Winter liked and he was satisfied He ate his muffin silently, for he was tired, and Carrie's re the tall straight trunks in the Canadian wilds; he thought he could hear the snow-fed river brawl, and smell the smoke that drifted in blue wreaths about the lonely cahed and bantered him then and he had been happy He was happy now and hoped to be happier yet, but Carrie was often quiet and he had a puzzling feeling that he had lost so he could not recapture
Presently she picked up a local newspaper and lighted a candle with a shade The light only spread a yard or two, but it touched the page she folded back and sparkled in her hair
”They have got a master for the otter-hounds!” she exclaimed, and then her color rose and her eyes went hard ”I don't know the committee, but if the others are like Hodson, they're solemn old fools”
”I'd rather have liked the post, but it doesn't matter much,” said Jim, and added, with a smile: ”Now you're like the Carrie ent North with us”
”Bernard h some stupid people are afraid of him,” Carrie went on ”He'd certainly have fixed it if he hadn't got la and wasabout Lance Mordaunt--now I begin to see!”
”I don't think it's worth while your bothering about the thing”
”Don't interrupt!” said Carrie ”I'ine dick doesn't trust him dick is smart sometimes and knows Lance is mean He is mean; he has a yellow streak----”
She stopped, for she saw Jim's frown He was not vexed with her, but her stateot up and made him a formal curtsy
”I'm sorry, Jim That was the Carrie you knew in the woods If you don't want her, you oughtn't to burn logs and sit by the fire when it's getting dark, as we used to do But she has gone back to the shadows that creep aain”
She pulled up an easy-chair, and when she sat down and shi+elded her face from the fire with her hand Jake's eyes twinkled He wondered whether Jiuidness After a fewand old furniture
”That's your proper background, Ji When you fought the Scots and hunted wolves I expect you often looked like you looked just now”
”But I didn't fight the Scots,” Jim objected