“No, I should say that the fellow has as many lives as a cat; at any rate, he has not come to the end of them yet,” returned Fricker, with a laugh, and then he pulled a thick letter out of his pocket, which he handed to Bertha. “But I want you to take this home with you and read it. You can return it at any time, only I think that it will interest you, because it turns out that Bradgate comes from Nova Scotia, and he has been about as all-round unfortunate as falls to the lot of most men.”
“How funny that there should be three of us here so close together, and only to find it out by accident that we all hail from Arcadia!” said Bertha; and then she asked, with a little hesitation in her tone, “I hope that Mr. Bradgate is really better now?”
“He’ll do, I fancy; but it beats me to think that he has been lying ill at Rownton all this time and I have never been near him, when, so to speak, he was one of my own people. I feel downright mean about it, though of course I did not know. However, I shall go over and see him next week if I can get away, and then I can give him my mother’s message that she sent in that letter,” and Fricker nodded towards the letter which he had given to Bertha.
“But if this concerns Mr. Bradgate, would you not rather that he saw it first?” she asked.
“I should not show him the letter, and the message I know by heart. You keep it, Miss Doyne, until I come for it. Hullo! this old horse of yours wants to run over me, and I’m too valuable to be turned into road metal just yet, so good morning!” Fricker stood aside and raised his hat as old Pucker dashed ahead, kicking up the snow in a fashion suggestive of a five-year-old, and actually squealing with delight at being in motion again.
Bertha tucked the letter into the inside pocket of her coat, and thought no more about it just then. The sun beat down in dazzling brilliancy, and her eyes ached from the glare, despite her coloured spectacles. But it was good to be out in the keen fresh air, and to know that the long winter was nearly over.
Dicky and Molly chattered like two young magpies all the way home, and if Bertha answered them in an abstracted fashion they did not notice it, so there was no great harm done, and she was able to enjoy the peace and rest of the long, monotonous drive in her own fashion. Mrs. Smith would not stay for dinner because her husband would be expecting her home, and when she had gone, Bertha’s first business was to get the midday meal ready, though by this time it was long past midday, and breakfast was a dim and distant memory.
Then came the delicious rest by the fire in the afternoon, while Grace told the children Bible stories, and Bertha had nothing to do but lean back in the rocking chair and think her own thoughts. The funny thing was that she did not then remember the letter which Fricker had given her; but then she was not thinking about him, or indeed anyone at Pentland Broads. It was later, when she had donned her working pinafore and gone out to the barn to milk the cow and feed the animals, that she suddenly remembered that the letter was still in the pocket of her coat.
“How stupid of me to forget! But then I have been stupid more or less all day to-day, I think,” she said to herself, as she pulled down a great armful of swamp hay for the cow, saw that Pucker was getting a comfortable supper, and attended to the other things which had to be done on Sunday as well as every other day in the week.
“I have brought a letter home to read, and I am going to forget all about it again unless you help me to remember,” she said to Grace, when she went in with the milk pail.