Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/126

 fire him. I'm tired of him; though in some ways I don't see how I shall replace him."

"Well, I am very glad you came to me," said Derek. "How much do you want?"

He was surprised at the largeness of the sum mentioned by Mr. Jerrold, but he promised to write a cheque for it that day.

A little stream, nothing more than a rill, nosed its way delicately among the ferns and brambles of the Grimstone wood, and, after curving about a bank of violets, slipped under the boundary fence into Durras, hurried over a sloping meadow and was lost in the creek.

When Mr. Jerrold and he had parted Derek strolled musingly along the bank of the rill, his mind dwelling, now on Mr. Jerrold's ill fortune, now, half-consciously, upon a certain melancholy unrest within himself. He was absentminded, erratic, changeable, and he wondered vaguely why. He had set out to inspect the fall wheat, and now he did not care whether it were submerged or not. He was much more interested in the fate of an empty bird's nest, doubtless torn from its branch by some boy, robbed of its eggs, and thrown in the little stream. It bobbed and jigged like some ludicrous old boat; its progress was stayed by a few spears of grass; it was free again, and caught in a tiny eddy, whirled and danced as though it had never held five throbbing little hearts within its woven curve.

The white turkey-hen came from under an elderberry bush, trailing her slender feet, and craning her neck to peer at the bird's nest. She gave Derek a gloomy yet not unfriendly glance. "She feels like I do," thought Derek, "and Newbigging is the same. There's a vagabond streak in all three of us." She swept back into the shadow of the bush and sank wearily and yet mysteriously to her nest.