Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/73

 busy with agreeable plans, when he heard excited voices in the kitchen.

"I'll go and tell him," he heard Phœbe say.

"You'll do nothing of the sort," came sharply from Mrs. Machin, "just let me get my hands out of this flour and I'll tell him myself."

Then Newbigging spoke: "Whist, can't ye? I'll go mysel'."

He came to the door, cap in hand.

"Weel," he announced, with a grin, "they've flitted."

"Flitted? Who? Where?"

"The Indians. They've all gone to Chaird's to pick. There's neither hide nor hair o' them aboot the place." The others crowded about him, staring in at Derek.

He set down his teapot with a bang. Why was bad news so often announced in the middle of a comfortable meal? "Why did they go?" he asked. "What do you expect me to do about it?"

"Chaird has gie'd them a fine new cottage he had built for his parents who died last winter, and he has twice as many raspberry canes an' currants an' blackcaps coming on. His missus is goin' to teach the girls to sew an' read, and she's goin' to doctor the bairn that has fits."

"He wouldn't have dared do this in your uncle's time, the scoundrel," said Mrs. Machin.

"You're changing your tune about him, aren't you?" said Windmill, sarcastically. "But he's only living up to his reputation for shrewdness."

"Good God," said Vale, "what shall we do? Can't we force them to come back? The cherries are fairly dropping off the trees for ripeness."

No one answered him. They had turned back to the kitchen with angry looks towards someone who had come