Page:The Toll of the Bush.pdf/67

avoidance of accidents, it counts for nothing when the time comes for the bush to demand its price. There was a superstition in the settlement that so long as Mark Gird lived the woodman was safe, and many besides the devoted wife watched for the dying out of the flame.

Geoffrey heard the sound of an axe in the dimness ahead, and, smiling to himself, he left the track and made softly towards it. In a few minutes he reached the clearing.

‘Geoffrey, you wretch,’ said the lady, ‘how dare you come creeping up like that?’

‘Like which? I thought you always completed your sentences.’

‘Good. Your sentence is to take hold of the other end of that saw.’

‘Everything all right?’ asked Geoffrey, laying his hand on the tree and looking up.

Mrs. Gird allowed him to walk round the barrel and examine the scarf. ‘Well?’ she asked.

‘The fowl-house won’t be there when we’ve done,’ he remarked, taking off his coat.

‘Rubbish!’ said the lady. ‘The fowl-house is fifty yards off.’

‘Well, you’ll see,’ said Geoffrey, bringing the maul and wedges up to the tree and picking up the saw. ‘Are you ready?’

Mrs. Gird tucked the sleeves higher up her fine arms, made a mysterious arrangement of her skirt which seemed to convert it into a sort of sublimated masculine garment on the spot, gripped the handle and started the saw.

‘Tell me when you are tired,’ said Geoffrey, smiling retiringly behind his side of the barrel.