Deirdre had meant to take Socks into the clearing, and let him feed on the wild oats and clover matting it, while she investigated the forlorn chimney and the fruit trees and flowers growing near where her garden had been, seeking in the tangled undergrowth for the flowers she had planted long ago. She had thought she would sit on the edge of the well, listen for the great green frogs to go dropping into the water, and weave her dreams of the old times for awhile, watching the sunlight make a patchwork of dancing light with the shadows the leaves of the fruit trees cast on the beaten yard about the doorway of the hut. But she went straight by with scarcely a glance at the grey chimney and the tangled garden greenery, across which a tall, sweet English rose nodded gaily. She only stopped a moment to pull a trail of scarlet-runners from the bank near the house.
She wondered if Davey had remembered the place and the flowers when he passed the day before. She looked down at the scarlet flowers with a little smile, as she pinned them into her dress.
But thought of the flowers and of Davey lasted only a moment. She was eager to ask the Schoolmaster for an explanation, and to hear from him what they had to fear from McNab.
When she saw Dan, with the sun behind him, coming towards her on his big grey nag, whose nose was so like a kangaroo's that they called him "the 'Roo," she quickened her pace, her heart swelling with love at the sight of him, and at the thought of the concern which had sent him back along the road to meet her.
She lifted her face to his with a breathless little glad sob when she came up to him.
"What is it?" he asked, his anxiety leaping instinctively at the sight of her face.
"Perhaps I'm foolish," she said quickly. "It's something McNab said before I left this morning. It wasn't so much what he said, but the way he said it. And I've been thinking of it all the way—wondering what he meant. Is there any harm he could do us?"
"What did he say?" Farrel asked.
"He came just as I was going," Deirdre told him, "and he seemed annoyed that you didn't tell him you were going to-day—said there was something particular he wanted to talk to you about. Then just as I was going, he said: 'It was a mean trick clearin' out without lettin' me know—such old friends as we are too, and me wanting to stand by him in any little bit of trouble that's coming to him. But I'll be coming up to see him one of these days soon—sooner than he thinks p'raps.' It wasn't so much what he said as the way he said it, made me think—"
Deirdre hesitated, looking at her father's face. She knew that he was troubled, that there was enough in this to disturb him without telling him what else McNab had said to her.