“You’re less clever than I thought, George Iredale,” 239 he muttered. “You would have done better to have bought my silence. Now I can sell my discovery elsewhere. Money I want, and money I mean to have.”
But he spurred his horse on as an anxious thought came to him.
CHAPTER XIV
A STAB IN THE DARK
Mrs. Malling fumbled her glasses out of her pocket and adjusted them on her nose. She had paused in her work to receive her letters, which had just been brought from Lakeville. The girls stood by waiting to learn the news.
The summer kitchen was stifling hot. The great cook-stove, throwing off a fearful heat, helped to heighten the brilliancy of the farm-wife’s complexion, and brought beads of perspiration out upon her forehead. Prudence and Alice looked cool beside “Mother Hephzy,” but then they were never allowed to do any work in the kitchen. Mrs. Malling loved her kitchen better than any part of the house. She had always reigned supreme there, and as long as she could work such would always be the case.
Now she was preparing the midday meal for the threshing gang which was at work in the fields. Great blocked-tin canteens stood about upon the floor waiting to receive the hot food which was to be sent down to the workers. Hephzibah was a woman of generous instincts where the inner man was concerned. The wages she paid were always board wages, but no hired man was ever allowed to work for her and pay 241 for his keep. She invariably insisted that every labourer should be fed from her kitchen, and she took care that his food was the best she could provide.
“Alice, girl,” the old lady said, as she tore open the first letter, “go and see if Andy is hitching-up yet. Tell him that the dinner boxes will be ready in quarter-hour. Maybe you’ll find him in the bean patch, I sent him to gather a peck o’ broad beans. Who’s this from?” she went on, turning to the last page of her letter to look at the signature. “H’m––Winnipeg––the bank. Guess I’ll read that later.”