Pipes and drains held no attraction for me. While the pater went through the house to the yard, I strolled outside the front-gate and across to the little coppice to wait for him. It was shady there: the hot midsummer sun was ablaze to-day.
And I declare that a feather might almost have knocked me down. There, amidst the trees of the coppice, like a picture framed round by green leaves, stood Ketira the gipsy. Or Ketira’s ghost.
Believing that she was dead and buried, I might have believed it to be the latter, but for the red cloth cloak: that was real. She was staring at Hyde’s house with all the fire of her glittering eyes, looking as though she were consumed by some inward fever.
“Who lives there now?” she abruptly asked me without any other greeting, pointing her yellow forefinger at the house.
“The cottage was empty ever so long,” I carelessly said, some instinct prompting me not to tell too much. “Lately the workmen have been making alterations in it. How is Kettie? Have you found her?”
She lifted her two hands aloft with a gesture of despair: but left me unanswered. “These alterations: by whom are they made?”
But the sight of the Squire, coming forth alone, served as an excuse for my making off. I gave her a parting nod, saying I was glad to see her again in the land of the living.
“Ketira the gipsy is here, sir.”
“No!” cried the pater in amazement. “Why do you say that, Johnny?”