Part 16 (1/2)
The invalid shi+vered, then said land, it makes me sad; but Selincourt is a pretty name-a very pretty name indeed!”
CHAPTER XV
Mr Selincourt is Indiscreet
When Katherine reached hoe” it seemed to be the last straw to her burden of endurance to be told that Mr Selincourt had arrived The loss of the supper fish did not trouble her, for she and Phil had brought home a fine sale for a couple of sht have fetched perhaps a halfpenny each, but in that remote district were priced at a quarter of a dollar It was the news of the arrival which upset her so badly She suffered tortures while she listened to Mrs Burton's eager talk about the Selincourts, of Mr Selincourt's kindly raceful char ”You will excite and worry Father with all this talk of new people”
”I don't think so,” Mrs Burton replied ”See how peaceful he is, and how little notice he takes of anything outside He will not remark any difference between Mr Selincourt and Stee Jenkin, except that heto talk to”
But Katherine shook her head, stealing lance at her father while she ate her supper, and worrying lest the naed should stir sohost frohtht have been sawdust for all the taste it had for her that night, and when supper was done she hurried through the hich could not be left, then, pleading weariness, went off to bed quite an hour before her usual tih she went to bed she could not sleep She heard Jervis co to Mrs Burton She also heard hi to take Mr and Miss Selincourt across to Aki day Then Jervis left, her father ith slow, faltering steps to his bed, and Nellie ca her sister asleep, moved softly and did not speak, for which Katherine waswhen she saw the boat with Mr Selincourt and Mary slipping down the river, rowed by soht them up from the lakes So it would be a day of respite, for the Selincourts would not be back until evening, too late to go visiting ahbours, and Katherine's spirits rose immediately, because there was one o to Fort Garry that day, and started an hour before noon, taking Phil with her as usual, and having her boat piled high with skins taken in barter, bags of feathers, and other marketable products There was a short outlet to the bay froh flat reen; only, to use an Irishi+sm, they were not meadows at all, but stretches of swa: and the unwary creature, huulfed Very beautiful these stretches of rich green looked on a bright suht as she forced the boat through the weedy channel, which became every week more difficult to pass
”Oh, Phil, isn't it lovely!” she cried
”Can't say I adrumpily ”The air down here always seems to choke h this narroeedy channel as it is to go the longer way round”
”I knoe shall have to cease co this way soon, but it is pretty, and I like it,” Katherine answered, and would not ad those weedy byways, was the desire to avoid all danger of an encounter with the Selincourts
The voyage to Fort Garry ithout incident, and the intervieith the M'Crawneys was of the usual type Mrs M'Craas low-spirited and ho for Ireland, for the shbours
”I shall die if I stay here nation, not life at all; indeed, I'd sooner be dead,” moaned the poor discontented wo to a well-filled shelf in one corner of the rooirl froood for the child and good for you too”
”Books are not satisfying, and I think it a great waste of ti,” Mrs M'Crawney replied with a touch of asperity Her husband's love of books and willingness to spend money upon them was always a sore point with her, only Katherine did not know that, ”And I wouldn't have a strange girl about the house, not whatever I never could abide having to do with other people's children”
”Then I ao lonely,” Katherine answered, feeling that it was quite beyond her powers to estion to the poor unhappy woman, whose ailment consisted more in a discontented mind than a diseased body
The M'Crawneys were such an ill- of irritation to go there, while Peter M'Crawney himself was tooto face hi over the water as they turned back towards ho a pure pleasure
”Let us go the longer way,” pleaded Phil, who did not care for the solereen swamp on either side of the backwater
But Katherine had been resting on her oars and looking round, catching sight as she did so of a fishi+ng boat, with its brown sails set,of her pulses she told herself that this was most likely the fleet boat which had taken the nener out to Aki him back If this were the case, her little row boat and the fisher would enter the river channel by the fish sheds side by side She would be hot and untidy with the vigorous exercise of rowing, while Miss Selincourt, cool and cal her irl This was not to be endured for a rip on the oars, Katherine said decidedly: ”We will go through the swaet hos to see to, and a lot of booking to do”
Phil resigned himself to the inevitable with a rather dour face, and there was silence between them for quite ten minutes, as Katherine, forced by the narrowness of the way, ceased rowing, and, shi+pping her oars, picked up a paddle which formed part of the boat's equiph the short cut
”What's that?” asked Phil sharply, jerking up his head to listen again for a sound which would not have caught his ear at all if he had not been so silent just then
”I heard nothing,” said Katherine, pausing in her work, but holding the boat steady by planting her paddle in a group of rushes and holding it fast ”What kind of sound was it, Phil?”
”Soht in a trap,” replied Phil Then he cried eagerly: ”There it is, and I believe it is a ?”
”Help, help!” cried a voice from somewhere, only the trouble was to knohere to locate it