Page:Such Is Life.djvu/140

126 "Come this way, then, please." There was a slight flush of vexation on the girl's face now. And, indeed, it was scarcely fair of Dogberry, when his own soft thing had fallen through, to make Jim cover his dignified retreat. With deepening colour, she led the way to the stable, and opened a loose-box, disclosing Pup, crouched, sphynx-like, with a large bone between his paws. The red collar was gone; and he was chained to the manger by a hame-strap. Of course, I did n't blame the franklin, nor do I blame him now; rather the reverse. There seems something touching and beautiful in the thought that respectability, at best, is merely poised—never hard home; and that our clay will assert itself when a dog like Pup throws himself into the other scale. But I could feel the vicarious crimson spreading over Jim's forehead and ears as I unbuckled the hame-strap, whilst vainly ransacking my mind for some expression of thanks that would n't sound ironical. A terrible tie of sympathetic estrangement bound this sweet scapegoat and me asunder, or divided us together; and each felt that salvation awaited the one who spoke first, and to the point—or rather, from the point. All honour to Jim; she paced

"You call him 'Pup'," observed the girl girlishly. "He's a big pup."

"His proper name is 'The Eton Boy'," replied the wretch wretchedly. And neither of us could see anything in the other's remark.

But the tension was relaxed; and, leaving the stable together, we gravely agreed that a thunderstorm seemed to be hanging about. Still a new embarrassment was growing in the girl's face and voice, even in the uneasy movement of her hands. At last it broke out

"I s'pose you haven't had any dinner?"

"Don't let that trouble you, Miss Q."

"Father's not himself today," she continued hastily. "He blames us for burning an old straw-stack; and I'm sure we never done it. Mother's been at him to burn it out of the way this years back, for it was right between the house and the road; and it was '78 straw, rotten with rust. But I'm glad we did n't take on us to burn it, for father's vowing vengeance on whoever done it; and he's awful at finding out things."

"Mr. Q mentioned it to me," I replied, with polite interest. "But don't you think it seems a most unlikely thing for a stranger to do? Perhaps some of your own horses or cattle trod on a match that Mr. Q had accidentally dropped there himself?"

"That couldn't be; for father never allows any matches about the place, only them safety ones that strikes on the box. And he hates smoking. My brothers has to smoke on the sly."

"Have you many Irish people about here, Miss Q?"

"None only the Fogartys; and they're the best neighbours we got."

"And was nobody seen near the stack before the fire broke out?"

"Not a soul. I was past there myself, not twenty minutes before we seen the fire; but I was going middling smart, and I did n't see anybody—nothing only Morgan's big white pig, curled under the edge of the stack, that always jumps out of the sty, and comes over here, and breaks into our garden. Well, father's always threatening to shoot that pig; and me, never thinking, I told him it was there; and he got his gun and went after