CHAPTER XXXIII.

SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH.

Young Storms was very restless after his midnight interview with Judith Hart, and became feverishly so when he discovered that the elder Storms had begun to move in his affairs more promptly than he desired. He walked on by the old farmer with a frown on his face, and only spoke when his own footsteps bore him ahead of the stronger and more deliberate stride, which goaded his impatience into anger. There was, indeed, a striking contrast between the two men, which even a difference in age could not well account for. Old Storms was a stoutish man, round in the shoulders, slouching in his walk, and of a downcast countenance, in which a good deal of inert ability lay dormant. There was something of the son's cunning in his eye, and animal craving about the mouth, but if the keen venom which repulsed you in the younger man ever existed in the father, it had become too sluggish for active wickedness, except, perhaps, as the subordinate of some more powerful nature.

That nature the old man had fostered in his own family, of which Richard was the absolute head, before he became of legal age. If the old man had been a tyrant over the boy, as many fathers of his class are supposed to be in the mother land, Richard avenged his youth fully when it merged into manhood. As the two walked together across the park, toward their own farm, it was pitiful to see such gleams of anxiety in that old man's eyes, whenever they were furtively lifted to the stern face of the son.

Once, when Dick got ahead of his father, walking swiftly in his wiry activity, he paused, and cut a sapling up by the roots with his heavy pruning-knife, and stood, with a grim smile on his face, trimming off the small branches, and measuring it into a slender walking-stick.

"Art doing that for me, lad?" said the old man, in a voice that did not sound quite natural. "Nay, nay, I am not old enough for a stick yet a while. My old bones aren't so limber as thine, maybe; but they'll do for me many a year yet, never fear."

The young man made no answer, but smiled coldly, as he shook the sapling with a vigor that made the air whistle around him. Then he walked on, polishing up the knots daintily with his knife as he moved.

"More'n that," continued the old man, eying his son wistfully; "there isn't toughness enough there for a walking-stick, which should be something to lean on."

"It'll do," answered Dick, closing his knife, and thrusting it deep into his pocket. "It'll do, for want of a better."

"Ha, ha," laughed the old man, so hoarsely that his voice seemed to break into a timid bark. "That was what I used ter say when you were a lad, and I made you cut sticks to be lathered with. Many a time the twig that you brought wouldn't hurt a dormouse. Ah, lad, lad, you were always a cunning one."

"Was I?" said Dick. "Well, beating begets cunning, I dare say."

By this time they were getting into the thick of the wilderness, a portion of the park little frequented, and in which the lonely lake we have spoken of lay like a pool of ink, the shadows fell so blackly upon it.

Here Richard verged out of the usual path, and struck through the most gloomy portion of the woods. After a moment's hesitation, the old man followed him, muttering that the other path was nearest, but that did not matter.

When the two had left the lake behind them, Richard stopped, and wheeling suddenly around, faced his father.

"Now, once for all, tell me what took you to 'The Rest' this morning; for, mark me, I'm bound to know."

"I--I have told ye once, Dick. I have--"

"A lie. You have told me that, and nought else."

"Dick, Dick, mind, it's your father you are putting the lie on," said the old man, kindling up so fiercely that his stooping figure rose erect, and his eyes shone beneath their heavy brows like water under a bank thick with rushes.

"What took you up yonder, I say?" was the curt answer. "I want the truth, and mean to have it out of you before we go a stride farther. Do you understand, now?"

"I went to ask after the young maister," was the sullen reply.

"The truth! I will have the truth--so out with it, before I do you a harm!"

"Before ye do your old father a harm! Nay, nay, lad, it has no come to that."

Dick bent the sapling almost double, and let it recoil with a vicious snap, a significant answer that kindled the old man's wrath so fiercely that he seized upon the offending stick, placed one end under his foot, and twisted it apart with a degree of fury that startled the son out of his sneering insolence.

"Now what hast got to say to your father, Dick? Speak out; but remember that I am that, and shall be till you get to be the strongest man."

The thin features of Richard Storms turned white, and his eyes shone. He had depended too much, it seemed, on the withering influence his insolent overbearance had produced on the old man, whose will and strength had at last been aroused by the audacious threat wielded in that sapling. Whether he really would have degraded the old farmer with a blow or not, is uncertain; but, once aroused, the stout old man was more than a match for his son, and the force of habit came back upon him so powerfully, that he began to roll up the cuffs of his fustian jacket, as if preparing for an onset.

"Say out what there is in you, and do it gingerly, or you'll soon find out who is maister here," the old man said, with all the rough authority of former times.

The young man looked into his father's face with a glance made keen by surprise. Then his features relaxed, and he burst into a hoarse laugh.

"Why, father, did you think I was about doing you a harm with that bit of ash? It was for a goad to the cattle I was smoothing it off."

"Ah!" ejaculated the old man.

"But you have twisted it to a wisp now."

"That I have, and rare glad I am of it."

"It don't matter," said the son. "I can find plenty more about here. But the thing we were talking of. Did Sir Noel kick in the traces when ye came down upon him about the lease?"

A gleam of the young man's own cunning crept into the father's eyes.

"The lease, Dick? Haven't I said it was the young maister's health that took me to 'The Rest?'"

Richard made a gesture that convulsed his whole frame, and, jerking one hand forward, exclaimed, "It was for your own good, father, that I asked; so I don't see why you keep things so close."

"An' I don't know why a child of mine should ask questions of his own father like a schoolmaster, or as if he were ready for a bout at fisticuffs," answered the old man.

"It's a way one gets among the grooms and gamekeepers; but it means nothing," was the pacific answer. "I was only afraid you might have dropped a word about what I told you of, and that would have done mischief."

"Ah!"

"Just now, father, half a word might spoil everything."

"Half a word! Well, well, there was nought said that could do harm. Just a hint about the lease, nothing more. There, now, ye have it all. A fair question at the first would ha' saved all this bother."

"Are you sure this was all?" asked the young man, eying his father closely.

"Aye. Sure."

"Hush! One of the gamekeepers is coming."

"Aye, aye."

Old Storms moved forward, as the intruder came up with a pair of birds in his hands, which he was carrying to "The Rest."

Richard remained behind, for the man met him with a broad grin, as if some good joke were on his mind.

"Good-morrow to ye," he said, dropping the birds upon a bed of grass, as if preparing for a long gossip.

"Dost know I came a nigh peppering thee a bit yon night, thinking it war some poachers after the birds; but I soon found out it was a bit of sweethearting on the sly? Oh, Dick, Dick! thou'lt get shot some night."

"Sweethearting! I don't know what you mean, Jacob."

"Ye don't know that there was a pretty doe roving about the wilderness one night this week, just at the time ye passed through it?"

"Me, me?"

"Aye. No mistake. I saw ye with my own eyes in the moonlight."

"In the moonlight? Where?"

"Oh, in the upper path, nearest thy own home."

Richard drew a deep breath.

"Ah, that! I thought you said by the lake."

"Nay, it was the lass I saw, taking covert there."

"What lass? I saw none!"

"Ha, ha!" laughed the gamekeeper, placing a hand on each knee, and stooping down to look into his companion's eyes. "What war she there for, then? Tell me that."

"How should I know?"

"And what wert thou doing in the wilderness?"

"What, I? Passing through it like an honest Christian, on my way home from the village."

"Well, now, that is strange! Dost know, I got half a look at the doe's face, and dang me! if I didn't think it was Jessup's lass."

A quick thought shot through that subtle brain. Why not accept the mistake, throw the reputation of the girl who had scorned him into the power of this man, and thus claim the triumph of having cast her off when the certainty of her final rejection came? After a moment's silence, and appearing to falter, he said:

"You--you saw her, then? You know that it was Ruth Jessup?"

"Ha! ha! Have I run ye to covert? Yes, I a'most saw her face; an' as to the figure, any man, with half an eye, would know that. There isn't another loike it within fifty miles o' 'The Rest.'"

"Well, well, Jacob, as you saw her and me so close, I'll not deny it. A lass will get fractious, you know, when a fellow is expected, and don't come up to time, and follow one up, you understand. We have been sweethearting so long, and the old ones being agreeable, perhaps she is a trifle over restless about my hanging back."

"Aye, aye. This story about the young maister being o'er fond of her. I wouldn't put up with that."

Storms nodded his head mysteriously.

"You'll say nothing about her coming to seek me that night."

"In course not. Only I wouldn't a thought it of Jessup's lass, she looks so modest like."

"But when a lass is--is--"

"O'er fond, and afraid of losing her sweetheart. Still, I wouldn't a thought it of her anyhow."

"You're not to think hard of her for anything, friend Jacob, because we may be wed after all, and no one must have a fling at my wife, mind that. When I give her up will be time enough."

The gamekeeper laughed, and nodded his head, perhaps amused at the idea that a bit of gossip, like that, could escape circulation, in a place already excited on the subject of Jessup and his daughter. Storms having given the impression he desired, took a watch from his pocket, and glanced at the dial.

"It's wonderful how time flits," he said, putting the watch back. "It's near dinner-time, and the old man will be waiting. Mind that you keep a close mouth. Good-day!"

"Good-day ter ye," responded the gamekeeper, picking up his birds, and smoothing their mottled feathers as he went along. "I wouldn't a thought it of yon lass, though, not if the parson himself had told me. That I wouldn't."

Meantime young Storms walked toward home, smiling, nay, at times, laughing, as he went. The cruel treachery of his conversation with the keeper filled him with vicious delight. He knew well enough that the whole subject would be made the gossip of every house in the village within twenty-four hours, and revelled in the thought. If it were possible for him to marry Ruth in the end, this scandal would be of little importance to him; if not, it should be made to sting her, and poison the returning life of young Hurst. Under any circumstances, it was an evil inspiration, over which he gloated triumphantly.

So full was the young plotter's brain of this idea, that he was unconscious of the rapidity with which he approached home, until the farm-house hove in view, a long, stone building sheltered by orchards, flanked by outhouses, and clothed to the roof with rare old ivy. It was, in truth, something better than a common farm-dwelling, for an oriel window jutted out here, a stone balcony there, and the sunken entrance-door was of solid oak; such as might have given access to "The Rest" itself.

There had been plenty of shrubbery, with a bright flower-garden in front, and on one side of the house; but of the first, there was only a scattering and ragged bush left to struggle for life, here and there, while every sweet blossom of the past had given way to coarse garden vegetables, which were crowded into less and less space each year, by fields of barley or corn, that covered what had once been a pretty lawn and park.

"Ah, if I could but get this in fee simple. If he had died I might!" thought the young man, as he walked round to the back door. "If he had only died!"