CHAPTER XXX.

THE BARMAID OF THE TWO RAVENS.

"Norston's Rest" had its village lying within a mile of the park gate, mostly inhabited by the better sort of small tradespeople, with laborers' cottages scattered here and there on the outskirts, with more or less picturesqueness. From the inhabitants of this village and a large class of thrifty farmers, tenants on the estate, the public house drew its principal support.

One evening, just after the heir of "Norston's Rest" and its gardener were taken up wounded and insensible in the park, a party of these persons was assembled in the public room, talking over the exciting news. Among them was young Storms, who was referred to and called upon for information more frequently than seemed pleasant to him.

"How should I know?" he said; "the whole affair happened in the night. There wasn't likely to be any witnesses but the young heir and the old man himself. Who knows that it wasn't a chance slip of the trigger?"

A hoarse laugh followed this speech, and the drinking-cups were set down with a dash of derision as one after another took it up.

"A chance slip of the trigger! Ha, ha, ha! Who ever heard tell of a gun going off of itself and killing two men--one at the muzzle and t'other with the stock?" exclaimed one. "Most of us here have handled a gun long enough to know better than that. Come, come, Storms, tell us summat about it, for, if any man knows, it's yoursel'."

"I," said Dick, lifting both hands in much astonishment, while his face gave sinister confirmation of the charge. "How should I know? What should bring me into that part of the park?"

"In that part of the park--as if a more likely place could be found for you. Besides, some one said that you were out that very night, and you never gave the lie to it."

"Well, and if I was, what should bring me to the cedars, lying straight in the way between 'The Rest' and Jessup's cottage? My road home lay on the other side."

This was said with a covert smile, well calculated to excite suspicion of some secret knowledge which the young man was keeping back.

"Did you order more wine, sir?"

Storms half leaped from his chair, but sat down again instantly; casting a swift glance at the barmaid, who was apparently occupied in changing some of the empty bottles for others that were full.

"Judith Hart!"

The name had almost broken from his lips, but he checked it promptly, and pushing his empty glass toward her, looked smilingly in her face, and said, "I was afraid you had forgotten me."

There was a subtle thrill of persuasion in his voice, some meaning far deeper than his words, that turned the girl's averted look to his own.

"No," she answered, almost in a whisper, "it is not me that forgets."

Dick breathed again; a tone of reproach had broken through the hard composure of her first speech. In reaching forth his cup he managed to touch the girl's hand. She drew it back with a jerk, and flashing a wrathful glance at him left the room.

Meantime the conversation had been going on among the other occupants of the room.

"The doctor says that it may go hard with Jessup. One was saying, 'the ball went clear through him.' As for the young master--".

"Ah, he will be all right in a day or two. There was no great hurt; nothing but a blow on the head, which laid him out stark a while, and left him crazy as a loon; but that is nothing like a hole through the body."

"If Jessup should die, now," said another.

"Why, then, there would be a sharp lookout for the murderer. Now Sir Noel will have nothing done."

"There may be a reason for that," said Storms, coming forward, and speaking in a sinister whisper.

The man, thus addressed, lifted the pewter cup, newly-filled with beer, to his mouth and drank deeply, giving Dick a long, significant look over the rim.

"Least said soonest mended," he answered, in a low voice, wiping the foam from his lips. "At any rate, where the family up there is concerned. Sir Noel is not likely to make a stir in the matter; and as for Jessup--"

"Jessup is a stubborn fool," said Storms, viciously.

"Not if Sir Noel makes it worth his while. I would rather have a hundred gold sovereigns in my pocket any day than see a dashing, handsome youngster like one we know of at the assizes; though it would be a rare sight in old England."

"Yes, a rare sight. A rare sight!" said Storms, rubbing his thin hands with horrid glee. "I would go half over England to see it. Only as you say, old Jessup loves gold better than vengeance. If he had died now--"

"Why, then, there would be no evidence, you see."

"Don't you be so sure of that," said Storms, "he may die. Men don't get up so readily with bullet-holes through them. He may, and then--"

Here the young man took his wine from the barmaid, and began to sip its contents, drop by drop, as if it had a taste of vengeance he was prolonging to the utmost.

The girl watched him, and a strange smile crept over her mouth.

"Here, drink with me, lass," he said, holding the glass toward her. "Drink with me, and fill again; there is enough for us both."

"No," said the girl, pushing the glass away; "not here or now."

Storms saw that the men around his portion of the table were occupied, and spoke to her in a swift, low voice:

"When and where?"

The girl gave her head a toss, and moved down the table, casting a look over her shoulder, which made the young man restless in his seat. Directly she came back, and leaning close to him, while her hand was busy with the glasses, whispered sharply:

"To-night, after the house is closed, I want to see you, face to face, just once more."

"That will do," whispered Storms; "and a nice time I shall have of it," he thought, with some apprehension.

"A fine lass that," said the man who sat nearest him, as the barmaid moved across the room, with the force and rude grace of a leopardess. "Kin to the mistress here, isn't she--a cousin?"

The man spoke loud enough for others to hear, and followed the girl with bold, admiring eyes.

Storms answered him with sneering sarcasm. He felt this to be imprudent, but could not suppress the venom of his nature, even when his heart was quaking with terror.

"I have not inquired into her pedigree. You may be more interested. She is a little out of my level."

He was about to say more, but checked himself, and ended his speech more cautiously: "If she has kinsfolk here, none of us ever heard of them."

"But where did she come from?" questioned the man, who was greatly interested in the singular girl. "Such black hair and eyes should be of a strange land. There is nothing English about her but her speech. Look at her face; the color burns through it like wine."

"Now that she looks fierce," said another, "one sees how handsome a fiery woman can be. Some one has stirred up her temper. He may find himself the worse for it. The fellows are shy of angering her, take my word on that. She has a quick hand, and a sharp tongue; but her bright, comely face brings customers to the house. A tidy girl is the new one. Only keep the right side of her, that's all."

Just then the barmaid came back into the room. There was something in her appearance that might have reminded one of Ruth Jessup, could the soul of a wild animal have harbored in the form of that beautiful girl. The same raven hair, and large eyes; the same rich complexion, joined to features coarser, sensuous, and capable of expressing many passions that Ruth could not have imagined. As she stood, with a sort of easy grace, the purely physical resemblance was remarkable; but when she moved or spoke, it was gone. Then the coarse nature came out, and overwhelmed the imagination.

"Where did she come from?" asked Judith's new admirer.

"Better ask her yourself," answered Storms, absolutely jealous that any one should admire the beauty he had begun to loathe.

"I will," said the man, and, leaving the table, he approached Judith with a jaunty exhibition of gallantry, which she received with a cold stare, and, turning from him, walked back into the bar.

Storms broke into a laugh, and followed the girl into her retreat. Even in that brief interval he had arranged his plan of action, and carried it out adroitly. The girl knew that he was coming, and stood there, like a leopard in its den, ready to fight or be persuaded, as her heart swayed to love or resentment.

"This is madness; it is cruel to your old father--hard on me. Twice have I been to the house, and found it empty."

The fire went out of Judith's face. Bewildered, baffled and ready to cry, she turned away with a gesture that Storms took for unbelief of what was indeed a glib falsehood.

"No one could tell me where to look for you. Of all places in the world, how could I expect to find you here?"

"You have been to the old house?" said Judith. "Is this true? Tell me, is it the truth?"

"The truth!" repeated Storms, with a look of amazement. "What should prevent me going as usual?"

"Nothing but your own will. Nothing but--"

"But what, Judith?"

"But her--the girl that lives in the park at 'Norston's Rest.'"

"That story again! How often shall I be called upon to tell you it is sheer gossip?"

"But you told it yourself to the landlord at our village."

"Not as a fact; but amusing myself with the absurd things that are said about one; things that one repeats and laughs about with the first man he meets."

Judith bent her eyes downward; their proud defiance was extinguished; the heaviness of repentant shame fell upon her. Before she could speak, a call outside startled them both. Storms broke off the interview with some hurried snatches of direction.

"Take the highway; here is a key to the little park-gate; turn to the left, the wilderness lies that way. In its darkest place you will come upon a lake. There is an old summer-house on the bank: I will be there; if not, wait for me. You will not mind the walk?"

"No, no!"

"Good-night, then."

Storms said this and was gone. Judith went back to the public room. There the company had fallen into more confidential conversation.

"No wonder the young man is put about so," said one. "Old Jessup was as good as his father-in-law, and of course he feels it. Then there is a story going that the heir was over sweet on pretty Ruth, the daughter, and that, no doubt, has made more bitterness. For my part, I think the young man bears it uncommonly well."

"Uncommonly well," answered another. "This poaching in our cottages, whenever a young face happens to grow comely there, is a shame that no man should put up with. I shouldn't wonder if Jessup had made a stand against it, and got a bullet through him for interfering. Our young lords make nothing of putting an old man aside when he dares to stand between a pretty daughter and harm. But see how the law waits for them. Had it been Storms, now, he would have been in jail, waiting for the assizes. Yet who could have blamed him? The girl was his sweetheart, and a winsome lass she is. But Storms will never wed her now."

"Wed her--as if the young gentleman ever thought of it!" said Judith, breaking into the conversation. "There is your beer, man; let it stop your mouth till more sense comes into it."

The man laughed and cast a knowing glance at his companions. "Hoity-toity! Lies the wind in that quarter?" he said. "Well, I had begun to suspicion it."

This outburst was received with shouts of laughter, and a loud rattling of pewter. This was an ovation that the landlady liked to witness; for half the value of her new barmaid to the public house lay in her quick wit and saucy expression. Even the fierce passions into which she was sometimes thrown amused the men who frequented that room, and enticed them there quite as much as the beer they drank.

"One thing is sure," said Judith's tormentor, renewing the conversation with keener zest: "Storms has lost a pretty wife and a good bit of money by this affray."

Judith turned deadly white, and specks of foam flew to her lips.

"Do you mean that?"

"Of course I mean it."

"That Richard Storms and Ruth Jessup would have been wed now, if this affray at the park had not happened? Is that what you mean?"

"Mean? Why, lass, there is not a man here who does not know it. Ask him, if you can't believe us."

"I will!" answered the girl, between her white teeth. "That is the very question I mean to put to him before the sun rises."

These words were uttered in a voice so low and broken that no one heard it. She was silent after that, and went about her work sullenly.