CHAPTER XXXVII.

A STORM AT THE TWO RAVENS.

"Judith Hart, will ye just carry the ale-cans a little more on the balance? Can't ye mind that the foam is dripping like suds over yer hands, and wetting the sand on the floor till it's all in puddles?"

This sharp remonstrance came from the mistress of the house in which Judith was barmaid, and chief attraction. The public-room was crowded that night, not only with its old guests, but by strangers on their way from a neighboring town, where a monthly fair was held. The girl gave her head a toss, as this reprimand pointed out her delinquency, and sat the two ale-cups she carried down upon the nearest table, with a dash that sent both foam and beer running over it in ruddy rivulets.

"If you're not pleased with the way I serve customers, there's plenty more that would be glad of doing it better. I'm not to be clamored at, anyway, so long as there's other places ready for me."

"An' a pretty prize they'd get!" rejoined the landlady, putting her hands a-kimbo, and nodding her head with such angry vehemence, that the borders of her cap rose and fluttered like the feathers of a rageful bantam. "It's all well enough while there's none of the better-to-do sort wanting to be served; but when they come! Hoity-toity! My lady tosses her head at commoners, and scorns to heed the knock of a workman's can on the table, as if she were a born princess, and he a beggar. I can tell ye what, lass, this wasn't the way I got to be mistress, after serving from a girl at the tap."

"And what if I didn't care that forever being mistress of a place like this!" cried Judith, snapping her fingers over the dripping cups, and shaking her own handsome head in defiance of the fluttering cap, with all it surmounted. "As if I didn't look forward to something better than that, though I have demeaned myself to serve out your stale beer till I'm sick of it."

"Ah! ha! I understand. One can do that with half an eye," answered the irate dame, casting a glance over at young Storms, who sat at one of the tables, sipping his wine and laughing quietly over the contest. "But have a care of yourself. It may come about that chickens counted in the shell never live to pip."

Judith turned her great eyes full of wrathful appeal on Storms, and burst into a scornful laugh, which the young man answered by a look of blank unconcern.

"You hear her! You hear her, with her insults and her tyrannies; sneering at me as if I was the dirt under her feet!" the girl cried out, stamping upon the sanded floor, "and not one of you to say a word."

"How should we?" said Storms, with a laugh. "It's a tidy little fight as it stands. We are only waiting to see which will get the best of it. Who here wants to bet? I'll lay down half a sovereign on the lass."

As he tossed a bit of gold on the table, Storms gave the barmaid a look over his shoulder, that fell like ice upon her wrath. She shrunk back with a nervous laugh, and said, with a degree of meekness that astonished all in the room, "Now, I will have no betting on me or the mistress here. We are both a bit fiery; but it doesn't last while a candle is being snuffed. I always come round first; don't I now, mistress?"

The good-hearted landlady looked at the girl with open-mouthed astonishment. Her color lost much of its blazing red, her cap-borders settled down with placid slowness. Both hands dropped from her plump waist, and were gently uplifted.

"Did any one here ever see anything like it?" she said. "One minute flaring up, like a house on fire, the next, dead ashes, with any amount of water on 'em. I do think no one but me could get on with the lass. But I must say, if she does get onto her high horse at times, with whip and spur, when I speak out, she comes down beautifully."

"Don't I?" said Judith, with a forced laugh, gathering up her pewter cups. "But that's because I know the value of a kind-hearted mistress--one that's good as gold at the bottom, though I do worry her a bit now and then, just to keep my hand in. If any of the customers should take it on 'em to interfere, he'd soon find out that we two would be sure to fight in couples."

With this pacific conclusion, the girl gathered up a half dozen empty cups by the handles, and carried them into the kitchen. The moment she was out of sight, all her rage came back, but with great suppression. She dashed the cups down upon a dresser with a violence that made them ring again; then she plunged both hands into the water, as if that could cool the hot fever of her blood, and rubbed the cups furiously with her palm, thus striving to work off the fierce energy of her passion, which the studied indifference of Storms had called forth, though its fiercest expression had fallen on the landlady.

"I woke him up, anyway," she thought, while a short, nervous laugh broke from her. "He got frightened into taking notice, and that is something, though he kills me for it. Ah!"

The girl lifted her eyes suddenly, and saw a face looking in upon her through the window. His face! She dropped the cup, dashed the water from her hands, and, opening the kitchen-door, stole out, flinging the white apron she wore over her head.