A Sacred Confidence
'Duke Radford was very ill. For a week he hovered between life and death, and Mrs. Burton's skill was taxed to the uttermost. There was no doctor within at least a hundred miles. One of the fishers at Seal Cove had set the broken collar bone, the work being very well done too, although the man was only an amateur in the art of bone-setting. But it was not the broken bone, nor any of his bruises and abrasions, which made 'Duke Radford's peril during that black week of care and anxiety. He was ill in himself, so ill in fact that Mrs. Burton lost heart, declaring that her father's constitution had broken up, and that half a dozen doctors could not pull him through if his time had come.
Katherine would not share this gloomy view, and was always hoping against hope. If only the waters had been open, a doctor might have been procured from somewhere; but in winter time, when the small lakes and many of the lesser rivers were all frozen, nothing in the way of outside help was available, and the dwellers in remote places had to depend upon their own skill, making up in nursing what was lacking in medicine.
By the time the second Sunday came, the sick man showed signs of mending. Mrs. Burton grew hopeful again, while Katherine was nearly beside herself with joy. It had been a fearfully hard week for them all, though the neighbours had been as kind as possible. Stee Jenkin's wife came up from Seal Cove one day, and, after doing as much work as she could find to do, carried the twins off with her to her little house at the Cove, which was a great relief to Mrs. Burton and Katherine. Mrs. M'Kree was ill herself, so could do no more than send a kindly message; but even that was better than nothing, for sympathy is one of the sweetest things on earth when one is in trouble.
Sunday was a blessed relief to them at the end of their troubled week. Finding her father so much better, Mrs. Burton betook herself to bed at noon for the first real untroubled rest she had enjoyed for many days. The boys were stretched in luxurious idleness before the glowing fire in the kitchen, and Katherine was in charge of the sickroom. She was half-asleep herself; the place was so warm and her father lay in such a restful quiet. It had been so terrible all the week because no rest had seemed possible to him. But since last night his symptoms had changed, and now he lay quietly dozing, only rousing to take nourishment. Presently he stirred uneasily, as if the old restlessness were coming back, then asked in a feeble tone:
"Are you there, Nellie?"
"Nellie has gone to lie down, Father; but I will call her if you want her," Katherine said, coming forward to where the sick man could see her.
"No, I don't want her; it is you I want to talk to, only I didn't know whether she was here," he replied.
"I don't think you ought to talk at all," she said, in a doubtful tone. "Drink this broth, dear, and then try to sleep again."
"I will drink the broth, but I don't want to go to sleep again just yet," he said, in a stronger voice.
Katherine fed him as if he were a baby, and indeed he was almost as weak as an infant. But she did not encourage his talking, although she could not prevent it, as he seemed so much better.
"There is something that has been troubling me a great deal, and I want to tell you about it," he said. "I could not speak of it to anyone else, and I don't want you to do so either. But it will be a certain comfort to me that you know it, for you are strong and more fitted for bearing burdens than Nellie, who has had more than her share of sorrow already."
Katherine shivered. There was a longing in her heart to tell her father that she wanted no more burdens, that life was already so hard as to make her shrink from any more responsibility. But, looking at him as he lay there in his weakness, she could not say such words as these.
"What is it you want to tell me, Father?" she asked. Her voice was tender and caressing; he should never have to guess how she shrank from the confidence he wanted to give her, because her instinct told her that it was something which she would not want to hear.
"Do you remember the day we went up to Astor M'Kree's with the last mail which came through before the waters closed?" he said abruptly, and again Katherine shivered, knowing for a certainty that her father's trouble was proving too big for him alone.
"Yes, I remember," she replied very softly,
"That was a black day for me, for it brought dead things to life in a way that I had thought impossible. I used to know that Oswald Selincourt who has bought the fishing fleet."
"That one? Are you sure it is the same?" she asked in surprise. "The name is uncommon, still it is within the bounds of probability that there might be two, and you said the one you knew was a poor man."
"I fancy there is no manner of doubt that it is the same," 'Duke Radford said slowly. "The day we went to Fort Garry, M'Crawney told me he had a letter from Mr. Selincourt too, in which the new owner said he was a Bristol man, and that he had known what it was to be poor, so did not mean to risk money on ventures he had no chance of controlling, and that was why he was coming here next summer to boss the fleet."
"Poor Father!" Katherine murmured softly. "Ah, you may well say poor!" he answered bitterly. "If it were not for you, the boys, poor Nellie, and her babies, I'd just be thankful to know that I'd never get up from this bed again, for I don't feel that I have courage to face life now."
"Father, you must not talk nor think like that, indeed you must not!" she exclaimed, in an imploring tone. "Think how we need you and how we love you. Think, too, how desolate we should be without you."
"That is what I tell myself every hour in the twenty-four, and I shall make as brave a fight for it as I can for your sakes," he said in a regretful tone, as if his family cares were holding him to life against his will. Then he went on: "Oswald Selincourt and I were in the same business house in Bristol years ago, and I did him a great wrong."
Katherine had a sensation that was almost akin to what she would have felt if someone had dashed a bucket of ice-cold water in her face. But she did not move nor cry out, did not even gasp, only sat still with the dumb horror of it all filling her heart, until she felt as if she would never feel happy again. Her father had always seemed to her the noblest of men, and she had revered him so, because he always stood for what was right and true. Then some instinct told her that he must be suffering horribly too, and because she could not speak she slid her warm fingers into his trembling hand and held it fast.
"Thank you, dear, I felt I could trust you," he said simply, and the words braced Katherine for bearing what had to come, more than anything else could have done.
"What is it you want me to know?" she asked, for he had lain for some minutes without speech, as if the task he had set himself was harder than he could perform.
"I wanted to tell you about the wrong I did Selincourt," the sick man said in a reluctant tone. He had brought himself to the point of confiding in his daughter, yet even now he shrank from it as if fearing to lower himself in her eyes. "We were clerks in one business house, only Selincourt was above me, and taking a much higher salary; but if anything happened to move him, I knew that his desk would be offered to me. I was poor, but he in a sense was poorer still, because he had an invalid father and young sisters dependent on him."
"Father, surely there is no need to tell me of this dead-and-buried action, unless you wish it, for the telling can do no good now," burst out Katherine, who could not bear to see the pain in her father's face.
"A wrong is never dead and buried while the man lives who did it," 'Duke Radford answered with a wan smile, "for his conscience has a trick of rounding on him when he least expects it, and then there is trouble, at least that is how it has been with me. One day a complaint was lodged with our business chiefs that one of the clerks had been gambling, was an habitual gambler in fact. I was not the one, and I was not suspected, but I knew very well which one it was; but when suspicion fell on Selincourt, I just kept silent. For some reason he could not clear himself, was dismissed, and I was promoted. But the promotion did me little good; the firm went bankrupt in the following year, and I was adrift myself."
"What became of Selincourt?" asked Katherine, and was instantly sorry she had spoken, because of the pain in her father's face.
"I don't know. I never heard of him from the day he left the counting-house until Astor M'Kree read his name from that letter, but I thought of him a good bit. It is hard enough for a man to do well with an unblemished character, but to be thrown out of a situation branded as a gambler is ruin, and nothing short of it."
"What became of the other man—the one who was a gambler?" askedKatherine.
"I don't know. He remained with the firm until the crash came. I fancy Selincourt's fate made a great impression on him, for I never heard of his gambling after Selincourt's dismissal," answered her father.
"How strange that he could not clear himself! Do you expect he had been gambling really, as well as the other one?" Katherine said quickly.
"I am sure he had not," replied 'Duke Radford. "He was not that sort at all. But the thing that bowled him over was that he was known to have money in his possession, a considerable amount, for which he could not or would not account."
"Still, I don't see that you were so much to blame," said Katherine soothingly. "If the man was accused and could not clear himself, then plainly there was something wrong somewhere: and after all you simply held your tongue; it was not as if you had stolen anything, letting the blame fall on him, or had falsely accused him in any way."
"Just the arguments with which I comforted myself when I kept silent and profited by the downfall of a man who was blameless," 'Duke Radford replied. "But though there may be a sort of truth in them, it is not real truth, and I have been paying the price ever since of that guilty silence of mine."
"Father, why do you tell me all this now?" cried Katherine protestingly. Never in her heart would she have quite so much admiration for her father again, and the knowledge brought keen suffering with it.
He drew a long breath that was like a sobbing sigh; only too well did he understand what he had done, but he had counted the cost, and was not going to shirk the consequences.
"Because I've got the feeling that you will be able in some way to make the wrong right. I don't know how, and I can't see what can be done, only somehow the conviction has grown to a certainty in my mind, and now I can rest about it," he replied slowly.
"Has this trouble made you so restless and ill?" she asked, thinking that his burden of mental suffering had grown beyond his powers of endurance since he had been keeping his bed.
"I suppose it may have helped. I have suffered horribly, but since I made up my mind to tell you, things have seemed easier, and I have been able to sleep," he answered with a heavy sigh.
"Will you tell me just what you want me to do, if—if——?" she began, but broke off abruptly, for she could not put in words the dread which had come into her heart that her father might be dead before the summer, when Mr. Selincourt was expected in Keewatin.
"If I am alive and well when the summer comes there will be no need for you to do anything; I shall be able to face the consequences of my own wrong-doing. But if not, I leave it to you to do the very best you can. You can't make up for all the man may have had to suffer, but at least you can tell him that I was sorry."
Katherine shuddered. It was bad enough to be compelled to hear that her father had been guilty of such meanness as to keep silent, in order that he might profit by the downfall of an innocent man; but when, in addition to this, she was expected to tell that man of how her father had acted, and, as it were, ask pardon for it, the ordeal appeared beyond her strength to face. Not a word of this did she say, however, for it was quite plain to her that the invalid had already over-excited himself, and she rather dreaded what Mrs. Burton would say presently.
"You must go to sleep, Father, and we will talk about this again another day," she said firmly.
"No, we will not speak of it again, for it is not a pleasant subject for discussion," he replied. "Only tell me that you will take my burden and bear it for me as best you can, if I am not able to bear it myself, and then I can be at peace."
Katherine bent over him, gathering his feeble hands in a close clasp, and the steadfast light in her eyes was beautiful to see. "Dear Father, I will do my very best to make the wrong as right as it can be made. Now try to rest, and get better as fast as you can."
He smiled, shook his head a little at her talk of getting better speedily, then to her great relief he shut his eyes and went to sleep. The burden had fallen from him upon her, and it had fallen so heavily that just at first she was stunned by the blow. There was no sound in the quiet room except the regular breathing of the sleeper. Outside the brief winter day merged into the long northern night; the stars came out, shining with frosty brilliancy, but Katherine sat by the bedside, and never once did her gaze wander to the window. Mrs. Burton came in presently, bringing a lamp, and scolding softly because the room was in darkness. But when she saw how quietly her father was sleeping, her gentle complaining turned into murmurs of pleased satisfaction.
"Really, Katherine, you are a better nurse than I thought. I was so afraid of the restlessness coming on again, as it has done about this time every day since his accident. But now he is sleeping most beautifully, so I feel sure he has taken a turn, and that we shall pull him through."
"Yes," said Katherine, as she followed Mrs. Burton into the store to look after the fire. "I think he will get better now," but her tone was so dull and lacking in spirit that her sister faced round upon her in quick consternation.
"What is the matter? Do you feel ill? Why, you are white as chalk, and you look as if you had seen a ghost!"
"I don't think there are any ghosts to see in this part of the world," Katherine replied, with a brave attempt at a laugh, "unless, indeed, the unquiet spirit of some Hudson's Bay Company's agent, done to death by treacherous Indians, haunts these shores."
"Or some poor sealer caught in the ice and frozen to death," murmured Mrs. Burton, with a sobbing catch in her breath.
Katherine, who was putting wood in the stove, turned suddenly, catching her sister in a warm, impulsive hug. "There are no ghosts nor unquiet spirits among those brave men who meet death while doing their daily work, darling!" she said earnestly. "But I fancy some of those old H.B.C. agents were fearful rogues, and well deserved the fate they met at the hands of the outraged red men."
"Perhaps so; I don't know. But I don't like seeing you look so pale, Katherine. Come and have your tea, and I will send one of the boys to look after Father for a little while."
Katherine followed her sister from the store into the kitchen, wondering as she went if tea, however hot, would have the power to drive away the creeping chill at her heart. Miles went off to take charge of the sickroom, while Phil set tea, chattering all the time concerning the gossip of the store which had come to his ears during the last few days.
"The men are saying that most likely, if Mr. Selincourt is such a rich man, he will be sure to have a steamer run up through the Strait two or three times during the summer with provisions, and so it will be bad for Father and the store," he said, carefully setting the cracked cup for Miles, although by rights it was his own turn to have it.
"What nonsense people talk!" exclaimed Mrs. Burton, with a scornful laugh. "Mr. Selincourt will have his hands full with managing the fishing fleet, and if he is so unwise as to turn general trader, I dare say we can find some way of underselling him or enticing his customers away."
Katherine put down her cup of tea with an unsteady movement which spilled some of the contents over the tablecloth. Here was a view of the situation which she had not thought to be compelled to face. If Mr. Selincourt did anything which took their trade away, and left them face to face with starvation, would it be their duty to sit down meekly and bear such an injustice, without attempting a blow in self-defence, and all because of that evil from the past which, although so long buried, had suddenly come to life again?
"Katherine, how frightened you look! You surely are not worrying about a bit of store gossip, which has probably not the slightest foundation in fact?" Mrs. Burton said in remonstrance.
"It is of no use to worry about anything so remote as Mr.Selincourt and the fishing fleet," Katherine answered languidly."But I am so tired that bed for a few hours seems the mostdesirable thing on earth."
"Then go, dear, and get a good rest," said her sister.
But, although Katherine lay down and covered herself with the bedclothes, sleep was long in coming, while the burden she had taken made her heart heavy as lead.
Business Bothers
For a few days 'Duke Radford appeared to get better with astonishing rapidity. He left his bed, and crept across the store, to sit in the rocking-chair by the kitchen stove, and said he was now quite well. But when he had pulled up thus far towards strength again, he stopped short, unable to get any farther. In vain Mrs. Burton plied him with every nourishing food she could think of: an invalid he remained, weak and depressed, all his old energy and enterprise under a cloud, and with a settled melancholy which nothing could lift.
It was then that the burden of life descended with such crushing force on Katherine. The work of the store must go on, and it was harder in winter than in summer. She spent long hours burrowing among the piles of merchandise in the underground chamber beneath the store, where were kept the goods bought and brought to Roaring Water Portage when the waters were open. Or, with Miles for a companion, she went long distances across the snowy wastes, delivering stores by dog team and sledge. This was all very well on the still days, when the sun shone with cloudless brilliancy in a clear sky, and the dogs tore along like mad creatures, and the whole of the expedition would seem like a frolic; but there were other days when things were very different. Sometimes a raging wind would sweep in from the bay, laden with a terrible stinging damp, which kind of cold pierced like daggers. Or a roaring north wind would howl through the forests, snapping off big trees from their roots as if they were only twigs, while earth, air, and sky were a confusion of whirling snowflakes. These were the dangerous days, and they never ventured far from home when such blizzards were raging, unless it was for the three miles' run down to Seal Cove, where the trail had been dug out, and the snow banked, at the beginning of winter.
There were a large number of sealing and walrus boats laid up in ice between Roaring Water Portage and Seal Cove. Most of these had men living on board, who passed the days in loafing, in setting traps for wolves, or in boring holes through the ice for fishing. Many of them spent a great portion of their time in the little house at the bend of the river, where Oily Dave dispensed bad whisky and played poker with his customers from morning to night, or, taking a rough average, for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. These were the men whom Katherine most dreaded to encounter. They looked bold admiration, and roared out compliments at the top of husky voices, but they ventured nothing further; her manner was too repressive, and the big dogs which always accompanied her were much too fierce to be trifled with. Mrs. Burton had left off lamenting the chances of damage to her sister's complexion from exposure, for she realized that Katherine must be breadwinner now, and the stern necessities of life had to be first consideration for them all.
One day Katherine found to her surprise that some tin buckets of lard were missing from the store. It was only the day before that, rummaging in the far corner of the cellar, she had unearthed six of these buckets, which had apparently been forgotten, as the date chalked on them was eighteen months old. With much hard work she hauled four of them to the store above, ripped the cover from one, so that the contents might be retailed at so much per pound, and left the other three standing in a row on a shelf which was remote from the stove. But now two were gone, and looking at the one which had been opened she saw that it was only half full. For a moment she supposed that there must have been a considerable run on lard during the previous evening, while she was teaching night school, with Miles on duty in the store. It had been such a fine clear evening that many people were abroad who would otherwise have been in bed, or at any rate shut up in the stuffy little cabins of the snow-banked sealers.
A minute of thought, however, showed her that such a demand for lard would have been so much out of the common as to have elicited some comment from Miles at closing time. Each bucket would contain something over thirty pounds in weight, so the sale of over sixty pounds' weight of lard in one evening would have been something of a record for Roaring Water Portage. Miles was busy at the wood pile; she could not leave the store to go and question him then, so had to wait with what patience she could muster until he came indoors again. Her father had not left his bed yet; indeed he rarely did leave it now until noon or later, when he dressed himself, walked across the kitchen, and sat in the rocking-chair until it was time for bed again.
The life would have seemed dreary and monotonous enough if it had not been for the hard and constant work, which made the days of that winter fly faster for Katherine than any winter had ever flown before. She did not mind the work. Young, strong, and with plenty of energy, the daily toil seemed rather pleasant than otherwise. It was business bothers like this about the missing lard which tried her patience and temper. Presently Miles came in, his face red and warm from hard work in the open air, but puckered into a look of worry, which found a reflection on the countenance of Katherine.
"We are running out of fish for the dogs, Katherine. Have we been using it too fast, do you think?" he asked.
"Surely not. The poor creatures cannot work unless they are well fed, and they have never had more than they could eat. How much longer will it last?"
"Three days perhaps, not more," Miles answered. "It has seemed to go all at once."
"Just so. I should fancy the fish has suffered in the same way as the lard. You had better keep the door of the fish-house locked in future. I wonder where we can get some more fish? People's stocks of dried fish will be getting low now, I expect," Katherine said, wrinkling her brows and trying to think of a likely place where the want could be supplied.
"I know where we could get fresh fish, pretty nearly any amount of it, if you didn't mind the bother of catching it. We could freeze it and keep it so. But what about the lard? You meant it to be sold, didn't you?"
"Yes, of course; but how much did you sell?" asked Katherine, with a hope that he really had sold it all and merely forgotten to mention it.
"Sixteen pounds, all told. Oily Dave seemed uncommonly pleased with it; though, of course, he wanted to beat me down two cents a pound, and when he found I would not put up with that, he tried to palm some bad money off on to me. I'm not so sure that he would not have had me there, for I'm not half so sharp about money as I ought to be, but Stee Jenkin called out to me to keep my eyes open, and then I soon found out there was something on hand, so I made the old rascal pay up in honest coin."
There was an air of modest swagger about Miles as he spoke, for he rather prided himself on his business acumen and general smartness, so Katherine's next words were a terrible blow to his pride.
"My dear boy, you had better have let him have his two cents twice over, and then winked at the money, than have given him such a chance as he must have made for himself last night," she said bitterly.
"What do you mean?" he demanded, with the offended air he always displayed when his pride was wounded.
"I mean that Oily Dave or some of his precious companions walked off with two whole buckets of that lard from under your nose last night, unless indeed you took the trouble to carry it into the cellar again."
"It would not have been possible for anyone to do that, for I was here all the time," he answered stiffly.
"Quite all the time, or did you have to leave for anything; some silly little thing, perhaps?" she said in a coaxing tone, anxious to win him from his show of bad temper, and at the same time get some clue to the disappearance of the stuff.
"I don't think I went away at all," Miles began, then caught himself up in a sudden recollection. "Oh yes, I did! I remember I took a ten-dollar bill, that Jean Doulais brought, indoors for Father to give me change."
"Then while you were indoors the thief stepped into the store and walked off with our two pails of lard. Well, I hope the stuff will make him very sick indeed!" exclaimed Katherine, in a tone of disgust.
"I wonder who it was? It couldn't possibly have been Jean," saidMiles, "for he was sitting on the counter and banging his heels.When I went into the kitchen I heard him thumping away all the timeI was there, and he was sitting and banging when I came back."
"Was it Jean Doulais who made all that noise?" said Katherine. "I was demonstrating on the blackboard, and had to write my explanations, because I could not make myself heard. One of the boys volunteered to go and punch the noisy one's head, but this I forbade for prudent reasons."
"Pity you didn't let the fellow come. He might have happened on the thief," growled Miles. "If Jean didn't take the things, he must know pretty well who did. Will you tackle him about it?"
"I think not," replied Katherine, after a pause for consideration. "He might think we suspected him, which would be bad from a business point of view. Then he would be certain to tell the thief, and that would lessen our chances of detecting him."
"What a desperately light-fingered lot they are here this winter!" Miles exclaimed in a petulant tone. "Just see what a rush we had to save the stores from your cache the night Father had his accident."
"But we did save them," replied Katherine with a ripple of laughter. "And incidentally we also saved the lives of a noble pair of men."
Miles gave a grunt of disgust. "A regular pity they didn't get killed, I think; and I shouldn't wonder if they are at the bottom of this piece of thieving also."
Katherine shook her head. "Oily Dave may be, for pilfering seems to be second nature with him. But Stee Jenkin is made of better stuff, and I believe he is really grateful because we saved him that night. Then remember how kind he and his wife were to us when Father was so ill. Oh, I've got a better opinion of Stee than to think he would steal our things now!"
Miles grunted again in a disbelieving fashion, but he did not attempt to upset Katherine's convictions by argument; only they agreed that for the future a more vigilant watch should be kept both indoors and out. A padlock and chain were put on the door of the fish-house, everything that could be locked up was carefully made fast; then Katherine and Miles set themselves to the task of keeping their eyes open to find out who had stolen the lard.
Later in that same day a miserable-looking Indian came in with a lot of dried fish which he wanted to trade off for provisions, and, after a good deal of bargaining, Katherine took the lot in exchange for a small barrel of flour and a packet of tobacco.
"No need for us to go fishing to-morrow, Miles. I have got enough fish to last the dogs for a fortnight, if we are careful," she said to her brother, when he came back from a journey down to Seal Cove.
"Where did you get it from?" he asked.
"From an Indian who called himself Waywassimo, so I think he must have been reading Longfellow's Hiawatha, for you know Waywassimo was the lightning, and Annemeekee the thunder," Katherine replied. "Only there was nothing grand nor terrible about this Waywassimo. He was simply a miserable-looking Indian with a most dreadful cough."
Miles began to laugh in a hugely delighted fashion, but it was some time before Katherine could get from him the cause of his mirth. At length, with many chuckles, he commenced to explain.
"There has been a wretched-looking Indian hanging about Seal Cove for the last two or three days, stealing pretty nearly everything he could lay his hands on, and Mrs. Jenkin told me that last night he broke into Oily Dave's fish-house and cleared off with every bit of dried fish there was."
"So I have been buying stolen goods. How horrid!" exclaimed Katherine with a frown. "Now I suppose it is my duty to hand at least a part of that fish back to Oily Dave. Oh dear, I would rather it had been anyone else, for I do dislike him so much!"
"Don't fret yourself; wait until you hear the end of my story, and then you will see that for once the biter has been bitten," answered Miles, with so much chuckling and gurgling that he seemed to be in a fair way to choke himself. "Mrs. Jenkin says she is quite positive that Oily Dave stole that fish, because his fish-house was quite empty a week ago, as she saw with her own eyes, but yesterday, when she was cleaning his house for him, she saw that he had a lot of fish. He told her then that he had bought it to sell again. She knew how much of that to believe, however, and asked me if we had missed any of our fish."
"What did you say?" asked Katherine, who then began to wonder if their fish had really wasted through being stolen, instead of having merely been used too fast.
"Oh, I didn't commit myself! Mrs. Jenkin has a good heart, but her head is as soft as blubber, so I was pretty careful not to say much," Miles answered, with a wag of his own head, which he thumped with his fist to show that at least he was not topped with blubber.
"It is maddening whichever way one looks at it!" cried Katherine. "If Oily Dave stole our fish, and Waywassimo stole it from him again, then I have been buying our own property, and paying for it at a rather stiff price. I simply could not beat that poor wretch down, he looked so sad and hungry. Oh, Miles, what shall we do? If this business leaks out we shall just be the laughing-stock of the whole place."
"It is not going to leak out; I'll take good care of that," retorted the boy, squaring his jaws. "If we say nothing about it, who is to be any the wiser? Was there anyone here when you bought the fish?"
"Not a soul. How very fortunate!" cried Katherine, beginning to smile again. "It is quite bad enough to be taken in by such a trick, but it would be simply intolerable to have other people knowing about it and laughing at our misfortunes."
Miles nodded. This was just his own opinion, and he would have suffered tortures if the wits of Seal Cove had been able to taunt him about his clever sister having bought her own fish. Then he said slowly, as if he had been giving the matter profound consideration; "There isn't a scrap of doubt in my mind that if Oily Dave took the fish he took the lard as well."
"Then I wish Waywassimo would steal that too!" said Katherine with a laugh.
Another Clue
It was fully a fortnight after this before Katherine and Miles found any opportunity for going fishing. Then there came a day when they had to take a load of stores up beyond the second portage, to the house of Astor M'Kree, and they decided to bring a load of fish back with them if possible, as the store which Katherine had bought from Waywassimo was beginning to run low. Their father seemed better that day, and was able to look after the store with the help of Phil.
Katherine too was bright and lively this morning, as if there were no dark shadow of trouble in her life. Sometimes she was fearfully sick at heart with the remembrance of her father's confidence, and a dread of what the summer might bring; but at other times, on days like this, she took comfort in the ice, the snow, and the searching cold. Winter was not nearly over yet, a hundred things might happen before the summer came, and so her high spirits pushed the dark shadow to one side and for a brief space forgot all about it. She was especially blithe of heart to-day, and so had donned a skirt of scarlet blanket cloth, which matched in hue the woollen cloud she wrapped about her head. On other days, when her mood was more sombre, she wore a dark-blue skirt, like the thick, fur-lined coat which was put on every time she left the house.
"How gay you look, Katherine!" exclaimed Mrs. Burton, as her sister came dancing into the kitchen, where she was making bread. "But what a pity to put on that scarlet skirt if you are going to bring fish home!"
"I shan't spoil it, or if I do I will wear it spoiled until it drops into rags," replied Katherine. "I call it my happiness skirt, and I wear it only when I feel happy. To-day the winter has somehow got into my bones or up in my head, and I feel as light-hearted and reckless as if I had been having oxygen pumped into me by a special contrivance; so plainly this is the proper time for my scarlet skirt."
"It is so funny that scarlet suits you so well, for you are certainly not a brunette," Mrs. Burton said, looking at Katherine in warm sisterly admiration. "But indeed you would look charming in anything."
Katherine swept her a curtsy. "Now that is a compliment most flatteringly paid. Really, Nellie, I don't see how you can expect me to be properly humble-minded if you say things of that sort, for you are such a dear, sincere little person that every word you speak carries conviction with it. But Miles is waiting and I must be off. Don't worry if we are rather late back, for we must bring as much fish as we can."
Mrs. Burton left the bread to take care of itself for a while, and, throwing a thick shawl round her shoulders, came out to see the start. There was only one sledge to-day, but that was piled high with stores of various descriptions, from a barrel of flour to a roll of scarlet flannel, and from canned pineapple to a tin of kerosene. This last was the lightde luxein that part of the world, fish oil serving for all ordinary purposes of illumination. Miles looked after the dogs, while Katherine sped on in front, an ice saw and two fish spears carried across her shoulder. It was just the sort of morning when work was absolute joy, and toil became nothing but the zest of endeavour. Fresh snow had fallen during the night, but the sun was so bright and warm that the cold had no chance against it. The winter was advancing, as was evidenced by longer hours of daylight and hotter sunshine; but when night came the frost was more severe than ever, as if loath to loose its grip on the lakes and streams of that wide white land.
Roaring Water Portage had lost all claim to its name for the present. The river which rushed in summer with a roar over the rocks in rapids was absolutely silent now, and the rocks were merely snow-covered hummocks. The river above was frozen, there was no water to run down, and all the resonant echoes were dumb. The silence and the brightness suited Katherine's mood. She hurried on in front, so that even the shouts of Miles to the dogs became faint in the distance. Then her pace decreased as she swung along with a gentle swaying motion, the big frame of her snowshoe never quite lifted from the ground. When the boatbuilder's house came in sight she hesitated, wondering if it would not be pleasanter to remain outside in the pure fresh air until Miles came, instead of sitting in the hot, stuffy kitchen talking to Mrs. M'Kree. Then, remembering how solitary was the life of the poor little woman, shut up from month's end to month's end with her babies, Katherine decided to get on as quickly as she could and give Mrs. M'Kree the benefit of her society.
Mrs. M'Kree received her literally with open arms, and gave her a hug which nearly took her breath away. "Oh, I am glad you've come yourself! If the weather had been bad I should have been quite sure of seeing you; but as it was so fine I was desperately afraid you'd send the boys. But where is the sledge?"
"Miles is coming on with the dogs, but I came forward at a tremendous pace just because the morning was so beautiful, and I wanted to be alone," Katherine answered, subsiding into a rocking-chair and picking up the M'Kree baby which happened to be nearest.
"Wanted to be alone? My dear, that doesn't sound natural in a young girl. Oh, I hope you are not getting melancholy from all the trouble you've had this winter!"
"How can you even think of melancholy and me in the same connection!" protested Katherine with a merry laugh. "Why, I am a most cheerful person always, and Nellie complains that I live in a perfect whirlwind of high spirits."
"So you may. But if you want to go mooning off alone, it is a sure sign that something is wrong, unless indeed you are in love," and Mrs. M'Kree nodded her head in delight at her own shrewdness.
But Katherine only laughed as she asked: "Pray, whom do you think I should be likely to fall in love with? There are so few eligible men in this part of the world."
"How was I to know but what you left your heart in Montreal last winter? At least there are men enough there," Mrs. M'Kree said. Then she asked anxiously: "My dear, what is the matter? You look quite ill."
Katherine had started to her feet with a look of profound amazement on her face, for at that moment the door of the next room had opened, and another small M'Kree appeared, dragging after him a tin bucket, on which he was raining a shower of resounding blows.
"Where did you get that thing?" she asked with a gasp, instantly recognizing the bucket as identical with the two filled with lard which had been stolen.
Mrs. M'Kree appeared slightly confused, and tried to hide her embarrassment by scolding her offspring.
"Jamie, Jamie, why will you make such a fearful riot? Miss Radford will run away and never come back if you are not quiet."
"I don't care if she does," replied the juvenile. He had not yet reached the age when pretty girls become interesting, and the noise he was producing filled him with tremendous satisfaction, so he banged away with renewed ardour.
Katherine crossed the room with a quick step, and, seizing Jamie, swung him up to the window. "See, here comes Miles," she said, "and he has some toffee in the sledge. Run out and ask him to give you some."
One look of beaming satisfaction Jamie flung her, then, wriggling from her grasp, he tore away to the door and was seen no more for some time. Then Katherine turned to Mrs. M'Kree and said imploringly: "Please tell me where you got that bucket from, and how long you have had it?"
"I'll tell you, of course, seeing that you make such a point of it, but I'm not specially proud of the business, I can assure you," Mrs. M'Kree said, with a touch of irritability very unusual with her. "Oily Dave was up here about a week ago, and he said that he had some buckets of rough fat that would do for greasing sledge runners, or to mix with caulking pitch. He told us he bought the stuff from one of the American whalers that were fishing in the bay last summer, and he offered to sell us a bucket at such a ridiculously low price that Astor bought one off-hand."
"What happened then?" demanded Katherine, her lips twitching with amusement; for she knew quite enough of Oily Dave and his methods to be sure that Astor M'Kree had been rather badly duped.
"The stuff was more than half sawdust, but it had been worked in so carefully that you could not tell that until you came to rub the grease on to runners and that sort of thing; then of course it gritted up directly. But the worst of it was that Astor had mixed some of it with a lot of caulking pitch, which of course is quite spoiled, and he was about the maddest man in Keewatin on the day that he found it out."
Katherine was laughing; she really could not help it. But Mrs. M'Kree, not understanding where the joke came in, said in a reproachful tone: "My dear, it was not a laughing matter to me, either then or now; for when one is married what affects one's husband affects one's self also, and that sometimes in a very disagreeable fashion."
"Please forgive me for laughing!" cried Katherine. "But Oily Dave is such a slippery old rogue, and sometimes he overreaches even himself." Then she told Mrs. M'Kree about the disappearance of the lard, and how she had recognized the bucket upon which Jamie had been drumming so vigorously.
"What will you do?" asked Mrs. M'Kree.
"I don't see what we can do, except keep a sharper lookout in future. There is not enough evidence to go and boldly accuse him of having walked off with two buckets of lard for which he had not paid. There may be a hundred buckets like that in the district, every one of which has contained grease of some description, from best dairy butter down to train oil mixed with sawdust," Katherine replied with a laugh, in which the other now joined.
"It is a good thing you can laugh about it; but I am afraid that I shouldn't have felt like laughing if I had been in your case," said Mrs. M'Kree. Then she cried out in protest: "Must you go so soon, really? Why, you have been here no time at all, and there are heaps of things I wanted to say to you."
"Yes, we must go. We are going to Ochre Lake for fish. Miles says there are heaps there to be had for the catching, and the dogs are getting short of food. We have worked them very hard this winter, so they have needed more to eat, I suppose," Katherine replied. Then she went out to help her brother to bring the stores in, and Mrs. M'Kree came to assist also.
"Ochre Lake is a good long way off, so I mustn't keep you if you are going there. A good six miles from here it must be, if you follow the river," said Mrs. M'Kree; then made a grab at the packet of toffee in Jamie's chubby hand, for he was evidently intent on eating it all himself, and so leaving none for the others.
"We shall not follow the river, but take the short cut through the woods; and we shall go fast too, for the dogs will travel light, you see," Katherine said. Then picking up the fish spears and the ice saw she glided on ahead, while Miles and the dogs went racing after her.
At first, when they left the boatbuilder's house behind, it was wilderness without a sign of life, but after they had gone two or three miles, footprints of various sizes appeared on the snow. There were marks of wolf, of wolverine, of fox, with smaller prints which could only have been made by little creatures like the mink, ermine, and such tiny fry, that, clad in fur white like the snow, scurried hither and thither through the silent wastes hunting for food, yet finding in many cases swift death through the skill of the trapper. At length the lake was reached. In summer it was a sheet of muddy yellow water abounding in fish, and many acres in extent. Now it was a wide snowfield, except at one end, where for some unexplained reason it was open water still. This was the part at which they arrived, and Katherine halted on the bank with an exclamation of surprise. "Why, we shan't need the saw at all; it is open water!"
"The ice at the edge is too thin to stand upon, and we mustn't take risks here, for Father says there is a whirlpool at this end, and it is the constant motion of the water that keeps it from freezing," Miles answered; and taking the saw from Katherine he commenced making a hole in the ice a few yards from the open water.
The dogs were lying panting on the bank as if quite exhausted, but their ears were perked up, and their eyes were very wide open, for they quite understood what was going on, and the prospect of fish freshly caught was very welcome after their months of living on the dried article. When a hole had been cut in the ice, Katherine went to stand by it and spear the fish which immediately crowded to the surface as if anxious to be caught. Miles went to a little distance, where he cut another hole for himself, and for the next hour the two worked as hard as they could at spearing fish, then throwing them on the snow, where they quickly froze stiff. The water seemed entirely alive with fish, which could only be accounted for by the fact that the main part of the lake, which was shallow, was frozen solid, so that all the fish had been forced to the end where the moving water did not freeze.
[Illustration: Katherine and Miles spearing for fish.]
"I guess we have got a load now, so we might as well stop," said Katherine, whose arms were beginning to ache, having already had more than enough of slaughter for that day at least.
"You load while I jab at a few more of these big fellows, for they seem as if they are just yearning to be caught," Miles cried excitedly. "I never had such fishing as this; it is prime!"
"It isn't fishing at all; it is nothing but killing. Horrid work, I call it," Katherine cried with a shudder, as, gathering up the frozen fish, she proceeded to stack them on the sledge in much the same fashion as she might have stacked billets of firewood.
The dogs had eaten a good meal, and were in fine feather for work; so, although the load was heavy, they made very good pace, and Katherine, gliding along now by the side of Miles, told him of how she had found Jamie M'Kree banging away on one of their stolen lard buckets. Miles was furiously angry, and wanted to go straight off to Seal Cove, denouncing Oily Dave as a thief; but Katherine would not hear of it.
"By precipitating matters we may do a great deal more harm than good," she said. "We have had to buy our wisdom in rather an expensive school, but it ought to make us wiser in future. So far we have only suspicions to go upon, not facts, and it is very likely that if we accused Oily Dave of stealing our stuff he would be clever enough to turn the tables on us, and have us prosecuted for libel, or something of that sort, which would not be pleasant—nor profitable."
"I can't sit meekly down under things of that sort," retorted the boy, with the sullen look dropping over his face which Katherine hated to see there.
"It isn't easy, I know, but very often it pays best in the long run," she answered earnestly. "Whatever we do, or don't do, we must take especial care that Father isn't worried just now. He must be our chief thought for the present, and if our business pride gets wounded, we must just take the hurt lying down for his sake."
"Katherine, are you afraid that Father is going to die?" Miles asked, turning his head quickly to look at her; and there was the same terrified expression on his face which had been there when he asked the same question a few weeks before.
"I think his recovery will depend very largely on whether we can keep him from anxiety for the next two or three months," she answered; and there was a stab of pain at her heart as she thought of the gnawing apprehension and worry which were secretly sapping his strength.
"Then Oily Dave mustn't be meddled with just now, I suppose," Miles said, with a sigh of renunciation; "but sooner or later he has got to pay for it, or I will know the reason why."
The First Rain
The weary weeks of winter passed slowly away. April came in with long bright days and abundant sunshine, but still the frost-king held sway, and all the earth was snowbound, the rivers were mute, and the waterfalls existed only in name. The men in the store were saying one night that some Indians had got through from Thunder Bay by way of the Albany River with mails; but as this meant about four hundred miles on snowshoes, Katherine regarded it only as a piece of winter fiction, and thought no more about it. There were fifty miles of hill and valley between Roaring Water Portage and the Albany River at its nearest point; but this was undoubtedly the nearest trail to civilization and the railway, and when the waters were open it was easier than any other route.
Two days later Katherine was in the cellar overhauling the stores, which were getting so shrunken that she was wondering how they could possibly be made to hold out, when she heard Phil calling, and, going up the ladder, found a tired-looking Indian standing there, who had a bag of mails strapped on to his back.
"Have you really come from Thunder Bay?" she asked in a surprised tone.
"Yah," he responded promptly, and, dislodging the burden from his back, showed her the name Maxokama on the official seals of the bag.
Her father being too unwell to leave his bed that day, Katherine received the mail as his deputy, and, giving the Indian a receipt for it, proceeded to open the bag and sort the letters it contained. There were only a few, and as they were mostly directed to those in authority in the fishing fleet, and to Astor M'Kree, Katherine was quick in coming to the conclusion that it was Mr. Selincourt who had arranged with the post office for the forwarding of this particular mail. A shiver of fear shook her as she thought of him. As a rule she preferred to keep him out of her remembrance as much as possible; but there were times when the fact of his coming was forced upon her. The broad glare of sunlight streaming in through the open door of the store was another reminder that spring was coming with giant strides, and from spring to summer in that land of fervid sunshine was a period so brief as to be almost breathless.
The Indian made some purchases of food and tobacco, but as his conversational powers did not seem to go beyond a sepulchral "Yah", which he used indifferently for yes and no, neither Katherine nor Phil could get much information out of him. When he had gone, Miles came back from wood-cutting on the slopes above the portage, and was immediately started off to deliver the letters at Seal Cove.
A mail that arrives only once in five months or so is bound to be treated as a thing of moment, even when, as in this case, it was limited to half a dozen letters and three or four newspapers. To Katherine's great delight one of the papers was addressed to The Postmaster, Roaring Water Portage, and she carried it in to her father in the dreary little room which was walled off from the store.
"What have you got: a letter?" he asked, turning towards her, his face looking even more thin and drawn than usual.
"No, there were no letters for any of us; ours usually come by way of Montreal and Lake Temiskaming, you know; but this is a sort of special mail, which has been brought by Indians from Maxokama. But there is a newspaper for you, which shows it is a good thing to be postmaster even of a place so remote as this," she said with a laugh.
"A newspaper will be a treat indeed. I think I will get up, Katherine, and sit by the stove in the store; one can't read a newspaper comfortably in bed. Besides, you will be wanting to go out delivering the mail."
"Miles has taken the Seal Cove letters, but there is one for Astor M'Kree that Phil and I will take up this afternoon; the dogs will be glad of a run," she answered, bringing his garments and arranging them near the bed so that he could slip into them easily.
"Fancy a team of four dogs, a sledge, and two people to carry one letter!" he exclaimed.
"Not quite that," she responded with a laugh, glad to see that his mood was so cheerful. "There is a newspaper to go too, and we shall take up a small barrel of flour, with some bacon and sugar."
"That sounds better at any rate, and I shall be delighted for you to have a run in the sunshine," 'Duke Radford said, with that thoughtful consideration for others which made his children love him with such an ardent affection.
Katherine had not gone many yards from the door that afternoon before she noticed a difference in the temperature; it was a soft, clinging warmth, which made her glad to unfasten her scarlet cloud, while the glare of the sunshine was becoming paler, as if a mist were rising.
"Phil, the rain is coming; I can smell it, and the dogs can smell it too. We are in for weather of sorts, I fancy, but Astor M'Kree must get his letter first, even if we have to race for it!" she cried.
"Let's race, then; the dogs are willing, and so am I," repliedPhil, who was seated in the sledge among the packages, whileKatherine travelled ahead on snowshoes,
And race they did; but already the snow was getting wet and soft on the surface, so that the going was heavy, the sledge cut in deeply, and it was a very tired team of dogs which dropped to the ground in front of the boatbuilder's house. Phil set to work hauling out the stores, but Katherine as usual went in to chat with Mrs. M'Kree, who looked upon her visits with the utmost pleasure.
"I expect it is the last time we shall come up by sledge this season," said Katherine. "But in case the ice is troublesome, and we can't get a canoe through for a week or two, we have brought you double stores."
"That is a good thing, for we are all blessed with healthy appetites up here, and it isn't pleasant to even think of going on short commons," replied Mrs. M'Kree. "But do wait until I've read this letter, for there may be news in it, and there is so little of that sort of thing here that we ought to share any tidings from outside that may happen to get through."
"Perhaps Mr. M'Kree would rather read his letter first himself," suggested Katherine, who would have preferred not to hear about anything that letter might contain. She guessed it was from Mr. Selincourt, and for that reason shunned anything to do with it.
"Astor has gone across to Fort Garry to-day; he started at dawn, and a pretty stiff journey he'll have before he gets back: but I warned him not to go, for I smelled the rain coming when I put my head outside this morning; my nose is worth two of his, for he can't smell weather, and never could," Mrs. M'Kree answered, pulling a hairpin from her head and preparing to slit open the envelope in her hand.
"Still, he might rather that his letter waited for him unopened," murmured Katherine; but Mrs. M'Kree was already deep in her husband's correspondence, and paid no heed at all.
"Oh! oh! what do you think!" she cried a moment later, giving an excited jump, which so startled Katherine that she jumped too.
"How should I know what to think?" she said; then was angry to find that she was trembling violently.
"Mr. Selincourt hopes to arrive in June, and he is going to bring his daughter with him," announced Mrs. M'Kree with a shout, waving the letter in a jubilant fashion.
"Impossible!" remarked Katherine scornfully, the colour dying out of her face. "The first steamers can't get through Hudson Strait until the first week in July."
"They are not coming that way, but straight from Montreal by way of Lake Temiskaming. My word! the young lady will have a chance of roughing it, for the portages on that route are a caution, so Astor says," Mrs. M'Kree answered, then fairly danced round the room. "Just fancy how gay we shall be this summer with a young lady fresh out from England among us! And her father must be just the right sort of moneyed gentleman, for he wants Astor to get a little hut ready for him by the middle of June."
"A what?" Katherine had risen to go, and was buttoning her coat, but faced round upon the little woman with blank surprise in her face, as if she failed to understand what the other was saying.
"A hut. They will want some sort of a place to live in. There is no hotel here, you see, and they are going to stay all summer. What a pity it is you haven't got room to board them at the store!"
"We don't want them," retorted Katherine quickly. "We have quite enough to do without having to wait on a lot of idle boarders."
"Oh! I don't fancy they will be very idle, for Mr. Selincourt says that he and his daughter intend being out a great deal among the fishers," said Mrs. M'Kree, who still kept dipping into the letter, and besought her visitor to stay until she had read it all.
But Katherine would not wait; she was in a hurry to start on the return journey, for every hour now would make the snow surface more wet and rotten to travel over. She was sick at heart, too, and suffering from the keenest disappointment. Six months ago how she would have rejoiced at the prospect of having Miss Selincourt at Roaring Water Portage for the weeks of the short, busy summer. An educated girl to talk to would make all the difference in the isolation in which they were forced to live. Katherine felt herself thrill and flutter with delight, even while she trembled with dread at the thought of her father having to meet Mr. Selincourt face to face. She wondered if the rich man who was coming would remember her father, and if he knew of the wrong that the latter had done in keeping silent, so that he might prosper by the other's downfall.
Bitter tears smarted in her eyes as she toiled through the melting snow; then a dash of wet struck her in the face, and she realized that the rain had begun, and the long winter was coming to an end at last. The last mile was very hard to traverse, and when at length they went down the hill between the high rocks of the portage trail, Katherine heard a faint rippling sound which warned her that the waters were beginning to flow. The store was crowded with men, as was often the case in the late afternoon, and Katherine's hope of being able to tell her father the news quietly was doomed to disappointment. Her first glance at him told her that he knew all there was to be known, and the look of suffering on his face hurt her all the more because she knew there was no balm for his pain. Miles was doing what was necessary in the store under his father's direction, and, because there seemed no need for her assistance just then, Katherine went on indoors to get a little rest before it was time for evening school.
"Oh, Katherine, have you heard the news?" cried Mrs. Burton, who was knitting stockings and reciting "Old Mother Hubbard" between whiles to the twins.
"Yes; at least, I have heard about Mr. Selincourt coming, if that is what you mean," Katherine answered, as she unfastened her outer garments.
"That is not the best part of the news by any means," returned Mrs. Burton, giving Lotta a little shake to silence the demand for more of "Mother Hubbard". "What delights me so much is to think that Miss Selincourt is coming too. Just imagine what it will be to have cultured society here at Roaring Water Portage!"
"She will despise us, most likely, and consider us about on a level with Peter M'Crawney's wife, or that poor little Mrs. Jenkin," said Katherine.
"Nonsense!" Mrs. Burton's tone was energetic; her manner one of mild surprise. "No one would despise you. They might look down upon me a little, but you are quite a different matter."
"Perhaps I am," replied Katherine. "But somehow I have got the feeling in my bones that Miss Selincourt and I shall not fall in love with each other."
"I expect that what you have really got in your bones is a touch of rheumatism from wading through wet snow," Mrs. Burton said anxiously. "Dear, you must take care of yourself, for what would become of us all if you were to fall ill?"
Katherine laughed, only there was not much mirth in the sound. "There is nothing the matter with me, nor likely to be, for I am tough as shoe leather; only sometimes my temper gets knobby, because all the children I can find to teach are grown-up babies of thirty and forty, who prefer flirting to arithmetic, and have to be continually snubbed in order to keep them in their places. The stupid creatures make me so angry!"
"Poor Katherine! It is hard on you, for you are certainly much too good-looking to teach a night school; but, on the other hand, what a good thing it has been for the men to have the school to occupy their evenings," said Mrs. Burton. "Mrs. Jenkin was saying only yesterday that there has not been half so much drinking and gambling at Seal Cove this winter as there was last year, because the men would rather come here and listen to your lectures on history and geography."
"They are willing enough to listen, and will sit looking as stupid as a school of white whales, caught in a stake trap," replied Katherine. "But see what dunces some of them are when I try to knock a little arithmetic into their thick heads."
"Yes, I will admit they are rather dense; and you are very much more patient with them than I should be, I'm afraid," Mrs. Burton said with a sigh. The night school had privately been a very great trial to her, for since 'Duke Radford's indifferent health had caused him to lie in bed so much, it had been impossible to use the room off the store as schoolroom, and so for two hours every evening the family living-room had been invaded by a swarm of more or less unwashed men, whose habits were not always of the most refined description.
"The need for patience will soon be over now," Katherine said, understanding the cause of the sigh, although Mrs. Burton had uttered no spoken complaint. "Miles says the men were beginning to break the boats out yesterday, and it is raining now, which will help matters on a great deal, unless, indeed, it rains too long, and then we may have floods."
"Oh dear, I hope not!" replied Mrs. Burton with a shiver, for spring floods were no joke in that part of the world. "By the way, has Miles told you that he saw the Englishman to-day?"
"What Englishman?" demanded Katherine, with dismay in her tone, for her thoughts immediately flew to Mr. Selincourt; only, of course, it was not possible that he could arrive before June.
"Didn't you hear that an Englishman came through from Maxokama with the Indians who brought up the mail?" said Mrs. Burton in surprise.
"Not a word. But certainly he must be a plucky sort of person to have ventured a journey of four hundred miles on snowshoes. Do you know who he is?" Katherine asked with quickened interest.
"Someone to do with the fishing, I think; a sort of master of the fleet very likely," replied Mrs. Burton, who had dropped her knitting and gathered both the little girls on to her lap, as the surest means of keeping them quiet while she talked to her sister.
"How will Oily Dave like that, I wonder?" Katherine said in a musing tone, and then her thoughts went wandering off to the pails of stolen lard. She had kept up an unremitting watchfulness ever since the time when the theft occurred, and had missed nothing more of importance; but her mistrust of Oily Dave was as great as ever.
"I don't suppose he will like it at all," Mrs. Burton answered. "But it is quite time that a more responsible man was put in charge."