第10章 Andy Page's Rival(3)

She turned towards him with her usual faint smile. Her small features were "washed out" and rather haggard.

"'Ello, Andy!"

But, at the sight of her, all his hatred of "funny business" -- intensified, perhaps, by a sense of personal injury -- came to a head, and he exploded:

"Look here, Lizzie Porter! I know all about you. You needn't think you're goin' to cotton on with me any more after this!

I wouldn't be seen in a paddock with yer! I'm satisfied about you!

Get on out of this!"

The girl stared at him for a moment thunderstruck; then she lammed into the old horse with a stick she carried in place of a whip.

She cried, and wondered what she'd done, and trembled so that she could scarcely unharness the horse, and wondered if Andy had got a touch of the sun, and went in and sat down and cried again; and pride came to her aid and she hated Andy; thought of her big brother, away droving, and made a cup of tea. She shed tears over the tea, and went through it all again.

Meanwhile Andy was suffering a reaction. He started to fill the hole before he put the post in; then to ram the post before the rails were in position. Dubbing off the ends of the rails, he was in danger of amputating a toe or a foot with every stroke of the adze.

And, at last, trying to squint along the little lumps of clay which he had placed in the centre of the top of each post for several panels back -- to assist him to take a line -- he found that they swam and doubled, and ran off in watery angles, for his eyes were too moist to see straight and single.

Then he threw down the tools hopelessly, and was standing helplessly undecided whether to go home or go down to the creek and drown himself, when Dave turned up again.

"Seen her?" asked Dave.

"Yes," said Andy.

"Did you chuck her?"

"Look here, Dave; are you sure the feller was Mick Kelly?"

"I never said I was. How was I to know? It was dark. You don't expect I'd `fox' a feller I see doing a bit of a bear-up to a girl, do you?

It might have been you, for all I knowed. I suppose she's been talking you round?"

"No, she ain't," said Andy. "But, look here, Dave; I was properly gone on that girl, I was, and -- and I want to be sure I'm right."

The business was getting altogether too psychological for Dave Bentley.

"You might as well," he rapped out, "call me a liar at once!"

"'Taint that at all, Dave. I want to get at who the feller is; that's what I want to get at now. Where did you see them, and when?"

"I seen them Anniversary night, along the road, near Ross' farm; and I seen 'em Sunday night afore that -- in the trees near the old culvert -- near Porter's sliprails; and I seen 'em one night outside Porter's, on a log near the woodheap. They was thick that time, and bearin' up proper, and no mistake. So I can swear to her. Now, are you satisfied about her?"

But Andy was wildly pitchforking his thatch under his hat with all ten fingers and staring at Dave, who began to regard him uneasily; then there came to Andy's eyes an awful glare, which caused Dave to step back hastily.

"Good God, Andy! Are yer goin' ratty?"

"No!" cried Andy, wildly.

"Then what the blazes is the matter with you? You'll have rats if you don't look out!"

"JIMMINY FROTH! -- It was ME all the time!"

"What?"

"It was me that was with her all them nights. It was me that you seen.

WHY, I POPPED ON THE WOODHEAP!"

Dave was taken too suddenly to whistle this time.

"And you went for her just now?"

"Yes!" yelled Andy.

"Well -- you've done it!"

"Yes," said Andy, hopelessly; "I've done it!"

Dave whistled now -- a very long, low whistle. "Well, you're a bloomin' goat, Andy, after this. But this thing'll have to be fixed up!" and he cantered away. Poor Andy was too badly knocked to notice the abruptness of Dave's departure, or to see that he turned through the sliprails on to the track that led to Porter's.

. . . . .

Half an hour later Andy appeared at Porter's back door, with an expression on his face as though the funeral was to start in ten minutes.

In a tone befitting such an occasion, he wanted to see Lizzie.

Dave had been there with the laudable determination of fixing the business up, and had, of course, succeeded in making it much worse than it was before.

But Andy made it all right.