Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/74

 family. The sad breach being made, all that he could do to heal it was to take himself away, whether Adam favoured that course or not. And he had concluded that, painful as the remedy would be, yet he must needs take it, and that very speedily, when he came up to the gate of Government House, and turned Goldie down the path to the left that led to the stables.

He had not gone far when over the lowing of the cattle in the byres, and the steady munching of the sheep on the other side of the hedge, and through the smell of the early grass, there came to him the sweetest sounds he had ever heard, and some of the queerest and craziest. Without knowing what he did, or why he did it, but taking himself at his first impulse, he drew rein, and Goldie came to a stand on the moss-grown pathway. Then he knew that two were talking together a little in front of him, but partly hidden by a turn of the path and the thick trammon that bordered it. Rising in his stirrups he could see one of them, and it was his old friend, Chalse A'Killey, the carrier, a shambling figure in a guernsey and seaman's blue cap, with tousled hair, and a simple, vacant face, and lagging lower lip, but eyes of a strange brightness.

And "Aw, yes," Chalse was saying, "he's a big lump of a boy grown, and no pride at all, at all, and a fine English tongue at him, and clever extraordinary. Him and me's same as brothers, and he was mortal fond to ride my ould donkey when he was a slip of a lad. Aw, yes, him and me's middlin' well acquent."

Then some linnets that were hiding in the trammon began to twitter, and what was said next Michael Sunlocks did not catch, but only heard the voice that answered old Chalse, and that seemed to make the music of the birds sound harsh.

"'What like is he?' Is it like it is?" old Chalse said again. "Aw, straight as the backbone of a herrin', and tall and strong; and as for a face, maybe there's not a man in the island to hold a candle to him. Och, no, nor a woman neither—saving yourself, maybe. And aw, now, the sweet and tidy ye're looking this morning, any way: as fresh as the dewdrop, my chree."

Goldie grew restless, began to paw the path and twist his flanks into the leaves of the trammon, and at the next instant Michael Sunlocks was aware that there was a flutter in front of him, and a soft tread on the silent moss, and before he could