Katharine never forgot that walk. To her, also, the distance seemed interminable, and the firm clutch of his hand upon her shoulder for its support almost to break her own bones. His face, when she now and then glanced toward it, was pallid with suffering, but his lips were grimly shut, defying his own misery. As he shaved only once a week, on Sunday morning, his half-grown stubble of beard enhanced his pallor, but did not add to his beauty; and Katharine, reared among city folks who made such "Sunday habits" their every-day ones, felt something like disgust.
"I'm awful sorry for him, but—but he looks horrid. And he hurts me, too. Oh, I wish we had never come into this dreadful forest, pretty as it is; but, joy! there's a house. We'll be in the village soon and at home. What will Aunt Eunice say? And where did that mean boy go?"
As Katharine's thoughts ran on this wise they were steadily though slowly passing over the rough ground of the wood to the smoother fields beyond; and as they came in sight of the Maitland barns, there was Montgomery peeping around a corner and on the lookout for somebody. His release from confinement at home had been the result of Aunt Eunice's call, he having been permitted to walk home with her, and to spend the day with Katharine. Alfaretta was recovered and able to do her own dish-washing, and on the Monday the boy must return to school. So Madam had made him array himself once more in his best attire and had duly instructed him how young gentlemen of the Sturtevant race should conduct themselves toward young ladies of the Maitland family.
Arrived at the stone mansion, Susanna had promptly sent the boy to the woods to hunt up his playmate, if he desired her, and in any case to remind Moses that he had gone off without killing the chicken for dinner.
"You tell him to come right straight back here an' do it now, if he wants a bite to eat. I ain't never wrung a fowl's neck nor chopped off her head, nor Eunice hain't, nuther, an' we ain't a-goin' to begin at our time o' life. Killin' poultry or pigs, ary one, is man's work an' not woman's, an' so say to him 't if he wants his dinner he can come kill it. He's gettin' so forgetful lately 't he can't remember nothin' 'cept fishin', an' though he took his axe along I 'low he'll do more threshin' nut-trees for that young one than choppin'; an' you remember, Montgomery Sturtevant, that you've got on your Sunday clothes; and no matter if your rich city relations do give 'em to you without no trouble to you nor your grandma, 'at you ought to take care of 'em and keep 'em clean. Don't go climbin' trees with 'em on, but just pick up what's on the ground an' you'll eat enough then, fat white worms an' all, to make you sick. Katy, she can give you part her cookies, but don't you get carryin' on with her little basket, 'cause it was her pa's, an' she's goin' to set great store by it. Tell him it's half-past nine if it's a minute, an' them old fowls what we're killin' off first is ruther tough. I ought to have her in the pot right now, an' there she ain't caught yet, runnin' 'round the hen-yard at loose ends, an' I'll try to catch her an' that'll help, an—My suz! if that boy ain't half 'crost the pastur' an' me not done talkin' to him. The sassy thing! If I'd had my way makin' this world there wouldn't have been nobody in it 'cept girls, an' them grown up and come to their gumption. But that hen—I'll try catch her or she'll never be caught."
Which was very true; as also the fact that before the garrulous housekeeper had more than suggested "chicken" and "chestnuts," Montgomery had vanished to set them in train. After all, there might be compensations, he thought, for a day wasted upon a girl's society. There still seemed to linger upon his palate the flavor of Aunt Eunice's pullets, from which he had been despoiled by his first enforced call upon her ward, and though he had regretfully heard Susanna say "chicken" without the plural "s," he knew that, being himself "company," he would get his full share of the fowl, which he trusted might be a large one.
Which explains his presence in the wood and his lingering in the barn-yard now, where he could command a first view of any person issuing from the forest on the shortest way home. He had retreated here after what he had supposed was a robber had fallen at his feet, and at the cost of a breathless run had preserved the mysterious brass bound box from theft. He had now safely hidden it in the hay-mow, and awaited Kate's return to tell her where. It had been almost beyond his power to keep the secret from Miss Maitland, even thus long, but loyalty to the discoverer had restrained him. And at last there she was coming across the pasture, Uncle Moses with her; and what was most astonishing, the pair were leaning upon one another in an intimacy which made Montgomery feel rather jealous.
"F-f-f-fudge! I didn't know he liked g-g-girls! He's got his hand on her s-s-shoulder, an' my, how they do just c-c-cr-creep! Even the pug dog just bare w-w-waddles, like he's tuckered out," remarked the watching lad to Sir Philip, who had taken advantage of the day's warmth to visit the mouse-infested barn and now lay sunning himself on its southern threshold.
But at the name of dog the Angora sniffed the air and withdrew with dignity to his throne indoors. He had already learned that Punch knew a good cushion when he saw it; and, though early provided with one for himself, preferred the satin couch of Sir Philip to the carpet-covered one which Susanna declared "plenty good enough for ary dog humbly as that one." If Punch secured the cushion first he was not easily dislodged, and since his one great battle the Angora shrank from contest. Evidently Sir Philip judged discretion better than valor, and the behavior of the two animals afforded the family much amusement.
Thus deserted of all society save his own thoughts, Monty fixed a keener attention upon the slowly advancing pair, and presently exclaimed: