"Books are not satisfying, and I think it a great waste of time to be always reading," Mrs. M'Crawney replied with a touch of asperity. Her husband's love of books and willingness to spend money upon them was always a sore point with her, only Katherine did not know that. "And I wouldn't have a strange girl about the house, not whatever. I never could abide having to do with other people's children."
"Then I am afraid you will have to go lonely," Katherine answered, feeling that it was quite beyond her powers to make any more useful suggestion to the poor unhappy woman, whose ailment consisted more in a discontented mind than a diseased body.
The M'Crawneys were such an ill-matched pair that it always gave her a feeling of irritation to go there, while Peter M'Crawney himself was too much addicted to fulsome compliments to make her willing to face him oftener than need be. There was a cool breeze creeping over the water as they turned back towards home, and this tempered the heat, making rowing a pure pleasure.
"Let us go the longer way," pleaded Phil, who did not care for the solemn stretches of green swamp on either side of the backwater.
But Katherine had been resting on her oars and looking round, catching sight as she did so of a fishing boat, with its brown sails set, making for the river mouth. With a fluttering of her pulses she told herself that this was most likely the fleet boat which had taken the new owner out to Akimiski, and was now bringing him back. If this were the case, her little row boat and the fisher would enter the river channel by the fish sheds side by side. She would be hot and untidy with the vigorous exercise of rowing, while Miss Selincourt, cool and calm, would gaze at her with lofty disdain, regarding her merely as a rough working girl. This was not to be endured for a moment, and, setting her hands with a tighter grip on the oars, Katherine said decidedly: "We will go through the swamps to-day. I want to get home as quickly as I can, for there are so many things to see to, and a lot of booking to do."
Phil resigned himself to the inevitable with a rather dour face, and there was silence between them for quite ten minutes, as Katherine, forced by the narrowness of the way, ceased rowing, and, shipping her oars, picked up a paddle which formed part of the boat's equipment, and commenced to paddle her way through the short cut.
"What's that?" asked Phil sharply, jerking up his head to listen again for a sound which would not have caught his ear at all if he had not been so silent just then.
"I heard nothing," said Katherine, pausing in her work, but holding the boat steady by planting her paddle in a group of rushes and holding it fast. "What kind of sound was it, Phil?"
"Something like a fox makes when it is caught in a trap," replied Phil. Then he cried eagerly: "There it is, and I believe it is a man! Ahoy there! where are you, and what is wrong?"
"Help, help!" cried a voice from somewhere, only the trouble was to know where to locate it.