The Major Part 16

Despite Kathleen's fears there was dinner enough for all.

"This is perfectly stunning!" said Romayne, glancing round the little clearing and up at the trees waving overhead, through the interstices of whose leafy canopy showed patches of blue sky. "Gorgeous, by Jove! Words are futile things for really great moments."

"Ripping," said Nora, smiling impudently into his face. "Awfully jolly! A-1! Top hole! That's the lot, I think, according to the best authorities. Do you know any others?"

"I beg pardon, what?" said Romayne, looking up from his fried pork and potatoes.

"Those are all I have learned in English at least," said Nora. "I am keen for some more. They are Oxford, I believe. Have you any others?"

Mr. Romayne diverted his attention from his dinner. "What is she talking about, Miss Gwynne? I confess to be entirely absorbed in these fried potatoes."

"Words, words, Mr. Romayne, vocabulary, adjectives," replied Nora.

"Ah," said Romayne, "but why should one worry about words, especially adjectives, when one has such divine realities as these to deal with?"

"Have some m.u.f.fles, Mr. Romayne," said Nora.

"m.u.f.fles? Now what may m.u.f.fles be?"

"m.u.f.fles are a cross between m.u.f.fins and waffles."

"Please elucidate their nature and origin," said Mr. Romayne.

"Let me show you," said Kathleen. She sprang up, dived into the cabin and returned with a large, round, hard biscuit in her hand. "This is Hudson Bay hard tack, the stand-by of all western people--Hudson Bay freighters and cowboys, old timers and tenderfeet alike swear by it.

See, you moisten it slightly in water, fry it in boiling fat, sugar it and keep hot till served. Thus Hudson Bay hard tack becomes m.u.f.fles."

"Marvellous!" exclaimed Mr. Romayne, "and truly delicious! And to think that the Savoy chef knows nothing about m.u.f.fles! But now that my first faintness is removed and the mystery of m.u.f.fles is solved, may I inquire just what you are doing up here to-day, Miss Gwynne? What is the business on hand, I mean?"

"Oh, Nora is getting out some logs for building and firewood for next winter. The logs, you see, are cut during the winter and hauled to the dump there."

"Dump!" exclaimed Mr. Romayne faintly.

"Yes. The bank there where you dump the logs into the creek below."

"But what exactly has Miss Nora to do with all this?"

"I?" enquired Nora, "I only boss the job."

"Don't you believe her," said Mrs. Waring-Gaunt. "I happen to remember one winter day coming upon this young lady in these very woods driving her team and hauling logs to the dump while Sam and Joe did the cutting.

Ask the boys there? And why shouldn't she?" continued Mrs. Waring-Gaunt.

"She can run a farm, with garden, pigs and poultry thrown in; open a coal mine and--"

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Nora, "the boys here do it all. Mother furnishes the head work."

"Oh, Nora!" protested Kathleen, "you know you manage everything. Isn't that true, boys?"

"She's the hull works herself," said Sam. "Ain't she, Joe?"

"You bet yeh," said Joe, husky with the m.u.f.fles.

"She's a corker," continued Sam, "double compressed, compensating, forty horsepower, ain't she, Joe?"

"You bet yeh!" adding, for purpose of emphasis, "By gar!"

"Six cylinder, self-starter," continued Sam with increasing enthusiasm.

"Self-starter," echoed Joe, going off into a series of choking chuckles.

"Sure t'ing, by gar!" Joe, having safely disposed of the m.u.f.fles, gave himself up to unrestrained laughter, throwing back his head, slapping his knees and repeating at intervals, "Self-starter, by gar!"

So infectious was his laughter that the whole company joined in.

"Cut it out, boys," said Nora. "You are all talking rot, you know; and what about you," she added, turning swiftly upon her sister. "Who runs the house, I'd like to know, and looks after everything inside, and does the sewing? This outfit of mine, for instance? And her own outfit?"

"Oh, Nora," protested Kathleen, the colour rising in her face.

"Did you make your own costume?" inquired Mr. Romayne.

"She did that," said Nora, "and mine and mother's, and she makes father's working shirts."

"Oh, Nora, stop, please. You know I do very little."

"She makes the b.u.t.ter as well."

"They're a pair," said Sam in a low growl, but perfectly audible to the company, "a regular pair, eh, Joe?"

"Sure t'ing," replied Joe, threatening to go off again into laughter, but held in check by a glance from Nora.

For an hour they lingered over the meal. Then Nora, jumping up quickly, took Mrs. Waring-Gaunt with her to superintend the work at the dump, leaving Mr. Romayne reclining on the gra.s.s smoking his pipe in abandoned content, while Kathleen busied herself clearing away and washing up the dishes.

"May I help?" inquired Mr. Romayne, when the others had gone.

"Oh, no," replied Kathleen. "Just rest where you are, please; just take it easy; I'd really rather you would, and there's nothing to do."

"I am not an expert at this sort of thing," said Mr. Romayne, "but at least I can dry dishes. I learned that much on the veldt."

"In South Africa? You were in the war?" replied Kathleen, giving him a towel.

"Yes, I had a go at it."

"It must have been terrible--to think of actually killing men."

"It is not pleasant," replied Romayne, shrugging his shoulders, "but it has to be done sometimes."

"Oh, do you think so? It does not seem as if it should be necessary at any time," said the girl with great earnestness. "I can't believe it is either right or necessary ever to kill men; and as for the Boer War, don't you think everybody agrees now that it was unnecessary?"

Mr. Romayne was always prepared to defend with the ardour of a British soldier the righteousness of every war in which the British Army has ever been engaged. But somehow he found it difficult to conduct an argument in favour of war against this girl who stood fronting him with a look of horror in her face.

"Well," said Mr. Romayne, "I believe there is something to be said on both sides. No doubt there were blunders in the early part of the trouble, but eventually war had to come."