Part 30 (1/2)
”How long will it take to refor; but Katherine could only shake her head and say she did not know
The gulls were riding on the crests of the waves, or ski so closely down on the water that it was hard to knohether they were swieese overhead all headed southward showed plainly that sus Katherine took note of as she pulled across the choppy water to Fort Garry, only now they did not sadden her as two days ago they would have done Hope had shone into her life again, a heavy burden had been lifted, and it seeain feel quite so sorrowful and worn down as she had done so the last few months
”Hurrah! Safely arrived!” she exclairounded on the pebbly beach in front of the old blockhouse, which looked even grirey day than when the sun shone down upon it
”Good , Miss Radford! Noonder who told you how badly I needed a wo?” said Peter M'Crawney, co out fro to reat bundle of pelts on each shoulder, while Phil, laden in similar fashi+on, walked behind
”Does that ain?” Katherine asked
Peter shrugged his shoulders ”She is desperate uneasy in her mind, poor lass, and as hard to live with as a houseful of ot, or I should be forced to drownout of my mind”
”Not so bad as that, I hope,” Katherine said with a laugh, and instantly resolved that it would be her duty to stay an hour with the poor woman, who pined so much because of the solitude in which her life was cast
”It is pretty bad anyhow,” he growled, a frown cos considered, but his douessed at
Katherine turned an anxious eye towards the sky before going in at the house door If she could start back in anything under a quarter of an hour she o as she had coue; but an hour or perhaps an hour and a half hence it would be very different The storh weather ca sometimes for several days However, if the worst came to the worst, she could always skirt the shore, and, consoling herself with this thought, she entered the house, leaving M'Crawney and Phil to unload the pelts and bring thelected look of the house struck Katherine first Peter was not great at housework, while the half-breed, Si in winter, and did a little of all sorts of work, was rather less clean and tidy in his ways than even Peter The sight of the dusty, ill-kept rooht's supper dishes still littered the table, and had probably served for breakfast dishes as well What was the use of wasting her tilected her ho that came with it? For a few minutes she felt disposed to turn back with only a five hbour-and that is a more important duty in isolated places than in more crowded centres
Then an idea flashed into her mind If by any means she could contrive to ht be ht even work a cure, in fact; and that would be so the shore all the way ho off her coat and hat, she rolled up her sleeves, and for want of an apron pinned a big towel round her; a very dirty towel it was too, but so she must have to protect her frock, and it had to be the towel or nothing
First, with plenty of noise and clatter, she piled the dirty crockery ready for washi+ng, and, filling the stove ood, set a kettle of water on to get hot This done, she flung door and ide, and proceeded to sweep the rooed that it ht, since it ept last
Of all the work in the world she hated sweepingsunshi+ne, with a load of furs on one's back, was play to sweeping The dust got on her face, it walked up her nostrils and down her throat,her feel as if she must in self-defence thron her broo But it was not like her to give up, when once she had set her hand to anything; so she finished the sweeping, then fled outside to let the dust bloay from her face and hair while the thick ath to admit of the next set of operations
Peter M'Craas talking to Phil on the other side of the fence, and froed that Simon must be there too Then she heard Phil start on a description of what had taken place at the captain's reception on the ocean-going steaed herself safe for another ten minutes, for well she knew that he would not spare them full details, especially of the monkey trick he had played on Nick Jones
In ten ain she hurried, and set to work dusting the furniture with an old cotton jacket of Peter's, because she could find no duster The buttons got in the way sometimes, but that was a minor detail, and it did not do to be over-particular about trifles when one was in a hurry The dusting was done, and she had started work on the dirty dishes, when the door of the inner room came open with a jerk, and Mrs M'Crawney, very much in undress, poked her head out
”Miss Radford, is it you?” she cried in profound astonishment ”I couldn't think what the noise was out here If it had been night I should have settled it intoo h no twothey are, for therein such disco drink,” Katherine answered severely Then she asked in a ?”
”Oh, I ah, thank you! It isn't my body; bodies don't matter unless they ache, which mine doesn't, the saints be praised!” Mrs M'Crawney exclaied from her bedroom and seated herself in all her squalid untidiness on the nearest chair
”If it is not your body, what is it, then? Do you think you are going out of yourfro, she treated the wo stare, which took in every detail, frohtdress to the unwashed, naked feet
”Going out of nation ”Indeed no! I've got ot your own, Miss Katherine Radford; o slavingwork that no one is likely to say 'thank you' for”
Katherine laughed merrily: ”Don't be too sure of that I expect that you will be saying 'thank you' presently, when you are washed and dressed; it o into your roo you some hot water in a , and he is such a dreadfulyou off for the benefit of Seal Cove to-morrow, in spite of all that I can do to stop him”
Mrs M'Crawney vanished with all speed, the hint about beingelse would have been
Katherine carried in the hot water and tried not to see how badly the bedroo also She had no more time for heavy housework that day, nor did she deeth on labour which the Irishwoman was equally well able to perform Peter had co about him as if scarcely able to believe the evidence of his own eyes