Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/106

 in them than in the skittish filly, or the two "drivers," or the broad-backed farm horses. When Derek took him to the cow-stable he had little enough to say about the two fine Holstein cows that had been purchased in the autumn to mate with the young son of Gretta van Lowe. Yet he hung fascinated over the calf-pen to watch Phœbe feed twin Jersey calves, late comers in the season, her arm rising, round and white, from the warm, sickly-smelling milk, her face flushed with exertion as she cuffed back the other twin.

"Hello," said Derek, sharply, "you dropped a cigarette stub. If you were a hired man I'd fire you." He put his foot on the smouldering spark.

"Mr. Vale's awful partic'ler about cigarette stubs," said Phœbe, drawing her hand from the clinging mouth of the calf. "He nearly sacked Bob Gunn for dropping one once."

"Very well," said Edmund, petulantly, "if I can't drop a few cigarette stubs about the place, I'd better go home, eh Phœbe?"

"Come along," said Derek, "you scarcely saw the bull. Then there are the pigs and sheep and poultry."

The turkeys had got into the poultry house and were resting on the highest perch, pecking the heads of the unhappy fowls beneath, so that most of the hens had huddled together in a corner on the floor, while the cocks with ruffled plumage strode up and down before the perches, longing but not daring to attack the intruders. Derek began to throw the turkeys out over the half-door. With heavy beating of wings they alit in the barnyard and, with scornful dignity, walked unhurriedly to the rail fence where they were supposed to perch.

"Why do they want to be in here?" asked Edmund, cautiously grasping the white hen-turkey.

"Pure cussedness. They know the fowls hate them,