“Well, Momma, they say it’s jest got to be done. We jest got to give her up, and put her out of her misery. I don’t know where we’re a-goin’ to git another one like her. I don’t know—that I don’t. Poor old Molly. She’s been with us now longer than my boy there, pretty near as long as Lilly here. It breaks me up to lose her. Yes, sir, it goes hard, but there ain’t no helping it.”
“That’s the way to look at it, Hermann,” said Rob, with gruff good nature.
Hal raised his voice from where he stood with Moira at some distance.
“I’ll give you another horse, Dietz,” he said. Moira squeezed his arm.
“Thank you, thank you, Mr. Hal,” the farmer responded, obsequiously, peering for him in the weak light. “Now, Momma, ain’t that fine! Well, children, I guess we better be movin’ in. Poor Molly—I’d rather not see you do it, gentlemen, if you don’t mind.”
The family turned to obey, exhibiting a variety of expressions, from fright to the deepest woe, but Moira observed that there was one who had not shared the general grief—the short, mature, straw-haired girl of sixteen or seventeen, whose face bore a stolid, disdainful look. She followed toward the kitchen after Ellen and one of the small children, but as she reached the porch she turned and gazed at Rob Blaydon, fascinated by the revolver in his hand. In the weird light, which cast a romantic glow over her figure and uncouth clothing, Moira thought the girl had a touch of beauty, fresh and coarse and natural as earth.
“Poor Hermann,” she said, “he’s a rustic Pierrot, Hal.”
Just as they topped the ridge they heard the harsh double-fire of Rob Blaydon’s revolver. She was glad to see the lights of Thornhill.
“Well,” said Hal, “Rob had a good hunch to-night—even if it was fun for him. Just the sort of thing he’d love. There’s the boy who needed to go to France. As it is he’ll get over that raw streak very slowly.”
“Rob’s a dear,” she broke in, earnestly. “I’m not one of those who worry about him. He’s a good animal—without a shred of theory in him. I let him get me most beautifully pickled twice last Fall.”