Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/134

 "You don't like caraway seeds, eh?" said Derek.

"I frow 'em away."

"That's a mistake. They'll give you muscle—make you strong."

"What's the use of being strong?" said the little fellow, his mouth down at the corners; "there's always somebody else stronger."

"Cyril," called his mother, "come here, this moment. Don't be so forward."

"Sha'n't go," said Cyril. "I'll stop here till we get to Mistwell."

"He does need a man to straighten him," confided the mother, leaning across. "His father's been out two years now. We're just coming to him. . . . It's an awful thing crossing the ocean and taking such a long rileway journey with young children."

"I'll see that you get off all right," said Derek. "Is your husband at Mr. Jerrold's?"

"No. He's with a Mr. Vile, at a farm called Grimstone, quite near Mistwell. He's not expecting us—." Her face flushed, and grew hard.

Derek was staggered. Rapidly the faces of his four men flitted across his mental vision—rosy, beady-eyed Gunn, altogether too young—brown, honest Hugh—if it were he, Good God! what a time they would have with Phœbe—Windmill, who was courting Miss Carss, and who was a notch above this worried, dowdy, little woman surely—Newbigging, ah, Newbigging, who had so lately "flitted," having got wind perhaps of his wife's intentions. It must be Newbigging.

He had leaned back staring out at the fields without seeing them. Now he asked the little boy, who had squeezed into the seat beside him, "What is your other name—besides Cyril?"