McBratney’s eyes sparkled with keen pleasure, and he squared his shoulders unconsciously as he spoke. Fighting the worst in men was his occupation. It was an energetic business of consecrated brawn. It was muscular Christianity of the most earnest and pugnacious type. Mauney felt that here beside him at the table sat a kind of modern crusader. One had to be good if McBratney was about, or otherwise be able to defeat him in a pugilistic contest.
For two or three hours Mauney found no alternative, but to sit and talk with him. At any other time the occupation would have been bearable or even pleasant, for he discovered many admirable, and almost lovable, qualities—if one could dare to feel so tenderly toward a modern Sir Galahad. But Mauney was too full of his own troubles to-night to be otherwise than indifferent to McBratney. His heart seemed to be breaking beneath these troubles. He wanted to leave his brother and the others, and walk alone by himself by that old swamp in front of the house. McBratney had changed, William and Evelyn had changed, he himself was changing in some indefinite way, while all the universe seemed in flux. What existed without change?
Some one came walking up the lane and opened the kitchen door. It was the Englishman who rented the old McBratney farm. His face was mildly excited.
“Did you see the fire?” he asked.
“Where, Joe?” asked William, uneasily.
He stepped back on the verandah and looked towards the road, and Mauney saw a dull, red reflection on his face. In a moment they were all walking toward the road. By some means a fire had started among the dried grasses of the swamp, and was spreading rapidly, with nervous little flashes of flame shooting up through heavy, grey clouds of smoke. There was no wind to fan the fire, but the light grass carried it swiftly along in a curve like an enlarging wave.
“It’s going to get into them cedars, too,” said William.
“Well, let ’em go,” said McBratney. “The barn’s safe as long as there’s no wind. There’s nothing you can do, anyway.”
“I wonder how it got started?” queried William. “I seen some gypsies in that end o’ the field over there last night. Maybe they left some live coals.”