“O Cressy!”
“O Maw!”
The response came from the inner room. The next moment Cressy appeared at the door with an odd half-lazy defiance in her manner, which the master could not understand except upon the hypothesis that she had been listening. She had already changed her elaborate toilet for a long clinging, coarse blue gown, that accented the graceful curves of her slight, petticoat-less figure. Nodding her head towards the master, she said, “Howdy?” and turned to her mother, who practically ignored their personal acquaintance. “Cressy,” she said, “Dad's gone and left his Sharps' yer, d'ye mind takin' it along to meet him, afore he passes the Boundary corner. Ye might tell him the teacher's yer, wantin' to see him.”
“One moment,” said the master, as the young girl carelessly stepped to the corner and lifted the weapon. “Let ME take it. It's all on my way back to school and I'll meet him.”
Mrs. McKinstry looked perturbed. Cressy opened her clear eyes on the master with evident surprise. “No, Mr. Ford,” said Mrs. McKinstry, with her former maternal manner. “Ye'd better not mix yourself up with these yer doin's. Ye've no call to do it, and Cressy has; it's all in the family. But it's outer YOUR line, and them Harrison whelps go to your school. Fancy the teacher takin' weppins betwixt and between!”
“It's fitter work for the teacher than for one of his scholars, and a young lady at that,” said Mr. Ford gravely, as he took the rifle from the hands of the half-amused, half-reluctant girl. “It's quite safe with me, and I promise I shall deliver it into Mr. McKinstry's hands and none other.”
“Perhaps it wouldn't be ez likely to be gin'rally noticed ez it would if one of US carried it,” murmured Mrs. McKinstry in confidential abstraction, gazing at her daughter sublimely unconscious of the presence of a third party.
“You're quite right,” said the master composedly, throwing the rifle over his shoulder and turning towards the door. “So I'll say good-afternoon, and try and find your husband.”
Mrs. McKinstry constrainedly plucked at the folds of her coarse gown. “Ye'll like a drink afore ye go,” she said, in an ill-concealed tone of relief. “I clean forgot my manners. Cressy, fetch out that demijohn.”
“Not for me, thank you,” returned Mr. Ford smiling.