t have belonged to the nation he did, had he not indulged in a
caustic chuckle and a pair of good-humoured pishes and pshaws, at
Turnham's expense. "Like a showman in front of his booth!"

Then he thought again of the domestic scene he had been privileged to
witness, and grew grave. The beautiful young woman and her children
might have served as model for a Holy Family--some old painter's dream
of a sweet benign Madonna; the trampling babe as the infant Christ; the
upturned face of the little John adoring. No place this for the
scoffer. Apart from the mere pleasure of the eye, there was ample
justification for Turnham's transports. Were they not in the presence
of one of life's sublimest mysteries--that of motherhood? Not alone the
lovely Emma: no; every woman who endured the rigours of childbirth, to
bring forth an immortal soul, was a holy figure.

And now for him, too, as he had been reminded, this wonder was to be
worked. Little Polly as the mother of his children--what visions the
words conjured up! But he was glad Polly was just Polly, and not the
peerless creature he had seen. John Turnham's fears would never be
his--this jealous care of a transient bodily beauty. Polly was neither
too rare nor too fair for her woman's lot; and, please God, the day
would come when he would see her with a whole cluster of little ones
round her--little dark-eyed replicas of herself. She, bless her, should
dandle and cosset them to her heart's content. Her joy in them would
also be his.

Chapter IX

He sawed, planed, hammered; curly shavings dropped and there was a
pleasant smell of sawdust. Much had to be done to make the place fit to
receive Polly. A second outhouse was necessary, to hold the surplus
goods and do duty as a sleeping-room for Long Jim and Hempel: the
lean-to the pair had occupied till now was being converted into a
kitchen. At great cost and trouble, Mahony had some trees felled and
brought in from Warrenheip. With them he put up a rude fence round his
backyard, interlacing the lopped boughs from post to post, so that they
formed a thick and leafy screen. He also filled in the disused shaft
that had served as a rubbish-hole, and chose another, farther off,
which would be less malodorous in the summer heat. Finally, a
substantial load of firewood carted in, and two snakes that had made
the journey in hollow logs dispatched, Long Jim was set down to chop
and split the wood into a neat pile. Polly would need