Page:Catherine Carmichael; Or Three Years Running.pdf/6

"He is a lazy skunk."

"Who is to get the wood?"

"What's that to you? When you were down at Hokitika you could got wood for yourself." Not another word was said, and for a week she did cut the wood. After that, there came a lad who had been shepherding, and was now well-nigh idiotic; but with such assistance as Catherine could give him, he did manage to hew the wood and draw the water.

Then one day a great announcement was made to her. "Next week John Carmichael will be here."

"John!"

"Yes; why not John? He will have that room. If he wants a bed, he must bring it with him. "When this was said November had come round again, and it wanted about six weeks to Christmas.

CHAPTER II. CHRISTMAS DAY. NO. 2.

JOHN CARMICHAEL was to come! And she understood that he was to come there as a resident;—for Peter had spoken of the use of that bedroom as though it were to be permanent. With no direct telling, but by degrees, something of the circumstances of the run at Warriwa had become known to her. There were on it 15,000 sheep, and these, with the lease of the run, were supposed to be worth £15,000. The sheep and all were the property of her husband. Some years ago he had taken John, when he was a boy, to act with him as his foreman or assistant, and the arrangement had been continued till the quarrel had sprung up. Peter had more than once declared his purpose of leaving all that he possessed to the young man, and John had never doubted his word. But, in return for all this future wealth, it was expected, not only that the lad should be his slave, but that the lad, grown into a man, should remain so as long as Peter might live. As Peter was likely to live for the next twenty years, and as the slavery was hard to bear, John had quarrelled with his kinsman, and had gone away to the diggings. Now , it seemed, the quarrel had been arranged, and John was to come back to Warriwa. That some one was needed to ride round among the four or five shepherds,—some one beyond Peter himself,—some one to overlook the shearing, some one to attend to the young lambs, some one to see that the water-holes did not run dry, had become manifest even to Kate herself. It had leaked out from Peter's dry mouth that some one must come, and now she was told that John Carmichael would return to his old home.

Though she hated her husband, Kate knew what was due to him. Hating him as she had learned to do, hating him as she acknowledged to herself that she did, still she had endeavoured to do her duty by him. She could not smile upon him, she could not even speak to him with a kind voice; but she could make his bed, and iron his shirts, and cook his dinner, and see that the things confided to her charge were not destroyed by the old woman or the idiot boy. Perhaps he got from her all he wanted to get. He did not complain that her voice was not loving. He was harsh, odious in his ways with her, sometimes almost violent; but it may be doubted whether he would have been less so had she attempted to turn him by any show of false affection. She had learned to feel that if she served him she did for him all that he required, and that duty demanded no more. But now! would not duty demand more from her now?

Since she had been brought home to Warriwa, she had given herself up freely to her thoughts, telling herself boldly that she hated her husband, and that she loved that other man. She told herself, also, that there was no breach of duty in this. She would never again see that other man. He had crossed her path and had gone. There was nothing for her left in the world, except her husband Peter and Warriwa. As for her