come to me with her coaxing ways, and with tales about how rough Jim
was, and how happy she had been when I was kind to her; for it was in
her blood to speak like that, and she could not help it.

But for the most part Jim and she were happy enough. It was all over
the countryside that they were to be married when he had passed his
degree, and he would come up to West Inch four nights a week to sit with
us. My folk were pleased about it, and I tried to be pleased too.

Maybe at first there was a little coolness between him and me: there was
not quite the old schoolboy trust between us. But then, when the first
smart was passed, it seemed to me that he had acted openly, and that I
had no just cause for complaint against him. So we were friendly, in a
way; and as for her, he had forgotten all his anger, and would have
kissed the print of her shoe in the mud. We used to take long rambles
together, he and I; and it is about one of these that I now want to tell
you.

We had passed over Bramston Heath and round the clump of firs which
screens the house of Major Elliott from the sea wind. It was spring
now, and the year was a forward one, so that the trees were well leaved
by the end of April. It was as warm as a summer day, and we were the
more surprised when we saw a huge fire roaring upon the grass-plot
before the Major's door. There was half a fir-tree in it, and the
flames were spouting up as high as the bedroom windows. Jim and I stood
staring, but we stared the more when out came the Major, with a great
quart pot in his hand, and at his heels his old sister who kept house
for him, and two of the maids, and all four began capering about round
the fire. He was a douce, quiet man, as all the country knew, and here
he was like old Nick at the carlin's dance, hobbling around and waving