Once I saw him take up _Ole Scorpio_ with a careful hand, and then
replace it in its recess with its spout pointing towards the room.
Presently, when he had gone, she gently moved it back to its former
position, exactly _en profile_, and the senseless idea darted through my
mind as I watched her do it that if her romance were moved from its
niche, she would instinctively wish to do the same, to readjust it to
the angle from which she had looked at it so long.
As the days passed and the first shyness between them wore off, the
primitive life he had led for so many years showed itself in a certain
slowness of speech, a disinclination to make acquaintance with the
neighbours, and an increasing tendency to long, tranquil silences with a
pipe in the garden. But, wonderful to say, it had not apparently
blunted him mentally. And he actually cared for books. Unfortunately,
there were almost no books in the cottage. How he had kept it I cannot
imagine, but he certainly had retained a quickness of apprehension which
made him half-unconsciously adapt himself to Aunt Emmy and her little
habits in a way that astonished me. It was she who showed herself less
perceptive as regarded him. But this she never divined. She had got it
rooted into her small, graceful head that he would naturally wish to
converse principally about his farm. And, in spite of scant
encouragement, she continually "showed an interest," as she herself
expressed it, in sheep, and water creeks, and snakes, and bush fires. He
was always perfectly good-natured, and ready to answer; but I sometimes
wondered how it was she did not realise that she asked the same
questions over and over again.
"Uncle Bob does not seem to care to talk much about his farming," I
ventured one day. "Perhaps he wishes to forget it for a little while."
"My dear," said Aunt Emmy rebukingly, "when you are as old as I am, you
will know that the only thing men really care to talk of _is_ their
business. My dear father always talked of stocks, and shares, and--and
bonuses. He said I could not understand about them, as indeed I could
not, but it interested me very much to listen. And your Uncle Tom, as
you may remember"--I did indeed--"did the same. It is natural that Mr.
Kingston's mind should dwell on agricultural subjects."
Presently wicked men began to mow the bracken with great scythes, and to
carry it away in carts which tilted and elbowed their way down the
mossy, heather-fringed tracks. Here and there the down-stretched arms of
the firs caught the topmost fronds of bracken and swept them from their
murdered brethren, and held them precariously suspended, only to drop
them when the first wind went by.
I left the cottage for a week to visit my husband's relations, and when
I returned the forest was bare. An indefinable sadness seemed to brood
over it, and to have reached Aunt Emmy as well. Mr. Kingston had also
been away to visit his relations, and had returned, and was staying at
the little inn on the edge of the forest, from which he could more
readily run up daily to town to have his shoulder massaged, which still
troubled him.
Aunt Emmy told me all this in her garden, where she was dividing her
white pinks. I knew she intended to make a fresh border, but the action
filled me with consternation.
"But Aunt Emmy," I said (the foolish words jolted out of me by sudden
anxiety), "will you--will you be _here_ next spring?"