poured on. The
fowls had collected--a melancholy crowd--in and about the wagon-house,
and the solitary gander, who alone had survived the six months' want of
water, walked hither and thither, printing his webbed footmarks on the
mud, to have them washed out the next instant by the pelting rain,
which at eleven o'clock still beat on the walls and roofs with unabated
ardour.

Gregory, as he worked in the loft, took no notice of it beyond stuffing
a sack into the broken pane to keep it out; and, in spite of the pelt
and patter, Em's clear voice might be heard through the open trap-door
from the dining room, where she sat at work, singing the "Blue Water:"

"And take me away,
And take me away,
And take me away,
To the Blue Water"--

that quaint, childish song of the people, that has a world of sweetness,
and sad, vague yearning when sung over and over dreamily by a woman's
voice as she sits alone at her work.

But Gregory heard neither that nor yet the loud laughter of the Kaffer
maids, that every now and again broke through from the kitchen, where
they joked and worked. Of late Gregory had grown strangely impervious to
the sounds and sights about him. His lease had run out, but Em had said,
"Do not renew it; I need one to help me; just stay on." And, she had
added, "You must not remain in your own little house; live with me; you
can look after my ostriches better so."

And Gregory did not thank her. What difference did it make to him,
paying rent or not, living there or not; it was all one. But yet he
came. Em wished that he would still sometimes talk of the strength
of the master-right of man; but Gregory was as one smitten on the
cheek-bone.

She might do what she pleased, he would find no fault, had no word to
say. He had forgotten that it is man's right to rule. On that rainy
morning he had lighted his pipe at the kitchen fire, and when breakfast
was over stood in the front door watching the water rush down the road
till the pipe died out in his mouth. Em saw she must do something for
him, and found him a large calico duster. He had sometimes talked of
putting the loft neat, and today she could find nothing else for him to
do. So she had the ladder put to the trap-door that he need not go out
in the wet, and Gregory with the broom and duster mounted to the loft.
Once at work he worked hard. He dusted down the very rafters, and
cleaned the broken candle-moulds and bent forks that had stu