Page:Possession (Roche, February 1923).pdf/76

 "Fine," said Derek, "just drop them in the basket."

"I'll light a cigar before I pick any more. Have one?"

"No thanks. Too busy."

"I wish Gay were here. She'd enjoy this."

"When is she coming back?"

"Very soon. She can't stay away from her father very long."

Newbigging came up, a full basket in either hand. "Hoo many hae ye plucked, Mr. Vale?" he asked, cheerily.

"This is my third. How are the Mistwell folk getting on?"

"Not too bad. Mrs. Orde's away the best, but she has to back down her ladder every wee while to nurse the bairn."

The child, unspeakably dirty, ran up to Newbigging and began to throw handfuls of earth on him. "Aw, Tommy," said the Scot, "it's a guid thing for you I'm no your dada."

The boy galloped back to the foot of the ladder up which he could see his mother's draggled skirt. "Mammy! Mammy!" he yelled, and beat on the rungs with his fists.

"Little brute," said Mr. Jerrold. He hung his stick on a branch, and the two men worked in agreeable silence, broken only by the soft dropping of fruit into the basket, and now and then, a snatch of jiggy song from the tree where Gunn was perched. The smoke of Mr. Jerrold's cigar hung in fragrant blue wisps among the cherries.

Vale was awakened by the same noise that had disturbed him on his first morning at Grimstone, the boisterous gobble of the turkey-cock. He sat up in bed and through the open window could barely see them as they passed, for it was not yet sunrise. The white hen-turkey came last, uttering little liquid sounds like dropping water.

He remembered his cherries with a pang. Oh, that those