CHAPTER XVI.

THE TIGER IN HIS LAIR.

The next house to that of the French people was larger and more pretentious than theirs. It had more of a garden, there were two stories instead of one, and the roof was surmounted by a tiny tower.

The outside of the tiger's den was highly satisfactory, and 'Tilda Jane smiled in weary stoical humour. Now to find the particular corner in which the tiger himself abode. The house was dark, except for one feeble glimmer of light on the ground floor. She had rapped at the front door, she had rapped at the back door without getting any response, and now she returned to the latter to see if perchance it had been left unfastened.

It had, and lifting the latch cautiously, she went in. She knew Mr. Dillson was an old man, she knew he was lame, and possibly he heard her, but could not come to her rescue. Passing through a small porch where she stumbled against some heaped up pans, she turned the first door-knob she touched in passing her hand around the dark wall.

She found herself in a kitchen. The table in the middle of the floor, the chairs, the dresser, were all illumined by a feeble, dying glow in a small cooking stove, and by the beams of a candle struggling through an open door.

Poacher and Gippie crept after her as she proceeded slowly in the direction of this light. They felt that there was something mysterious afoot.

'Tilda Jane paused at the bedroom door. Here was the lair of the tiger, and there was the tiger himself,--an old man with white hair, red eyes, and a night-cap. A candle was on a shelf by the head of the bed, and a pair of crutches was within reaching distance, and the old man was lifting his head from the pillow in astonishment.

'Tilda Jane could not help laughing aloud in her relief. This was not a very dangerous looking person. He seemed more amazed than vexed, and she laughed again as she noted his clutch of the bed-clothes, and the queer poise of his white head.

"'Scuse me, sir," she said, humbly, "for comin' this time o' night, but I thought you'd like me to report first thing. I hope you've heard from your son I was comin'?"

The old man said nothing. He was still open-mouthed and dumb, but something in his face assured 'Tilda Jane that he had heard--he had received some news of her, apart from the telegram sent by Mr. Jack.

"I've had lots o' speriences," she said, with a tired gesture. "I'll tell 'em some other time. I jus' wanted to 'nounce my 'rival, an' tell you I'm goin' to wait on you good--I guess I'll go to bed, if you'll tell me where to get a candle, an' where I'm to sleep."

He would tell her nothing. He simply lay and glared at her, and by no means disposed to seek a quarrel with him, she made her way back to the kitchen, opened the stove door, and, lighting a piece of paper, searched the room until she found the closet where the candles were kept.

The old man lay motionless in his bed. He heard her searching, heard the dogs pattering after her, and a violent perspiration broke out upon him. Wrath sometimes gave him unwonted fluency of speech. To-night it rendered him speechless. He did not wish this beggar's brat to wait on him. Hank had not asked his permission to send her--had simply announced that she was coming. He was treated as if he were a baby--an idiot, and this was his own house. Hank had nothing to do with it. He didn't care if Hank did pay her. He had money enough of his own to hire a housekeeper. But he didn't want one. He wanted to wait on himself. He hated to have women cluttering round, and he lay, and perspired, and inwardly raged, and obtained not one wink of sleep, while 'Tilda Jane, having obtained what she wished, peacefully composed herself to rest.

First though, she calmly bade him "Good-night," told him to "holler," if he wanted anything, and, calling her dogs, went off in search of a bed for herself.

Beyond the kitchen was a front hall,--cold, dusty, and comfortless. Up-stairs were four rooms, two unfurnished, one having something the appearance of a spare room left long unoccupied, the other smelling of tobacco, exceedingly untidy, littered with old clothes, fishing rods, bats, cartridge shells, and other boyish and manly belongings. This must be Hank's room, probably it had been occupied later than the other, and the bed would not be so damp. She would sleep here, and she turned down the clothes.

"Good land!" she murmured, "I wonder how long sence those blankets has been washed?" and she turned them back again, and, going to the other room, obtained two coverlets that she spread over herself, after she lay down on the outside of the bed.

The dogs had already curled themselves up on a heap of clothes on the floor, and in a few minutes the three worn-out travellers were fast asleep.

When 'Tilda Jane lifted her head from her very shady pillow the next morning, her ears were saluted by the gentle patter of rain. The atmosphere was milder--a thaw had set in.

She sprang up, and went to the dogs, who were still snoring in their corner. "Wake up," she said, touching them with her foot. Gippie started, but something in the expression of Poacher's eloquent eyes told her that, although he had been apparently sound asleep, he knew perfectly well what was going on about him.

"Let's go and see Mr. Dillson," she exclaimed, and picking up Gippie, she ran down-stairs with Poacher at her heels.

"It ain't cold--it's just pleasant," she muttered, turning the key with difficulty in the front door, and throwing it open.

"Oh, my, how pretty!" and she clasped her hands in delight. Across the road was the deep hollow of the river. She was in one of a line of cottages following its bank, and across the river were fields and hills, now a soft, hazy picture in the rain. But the sun would shine, fine days would come--what an ideal place for a home! and her heart swelled with thankfulness, and she forgot the cross old man in the room behind her.

The cross old man would have given the world to have turned her out of his house at that very minute, but his night of sleeplessness and raging temper had given him a fierce headache, a bad taste in his mouth, and such a helplessness of limbs that he could not turn in bed.

'Tilda Jane fortunately did not know that if he could have commanded his tongue he would have ordered her into the street, but she saw that there was something wrong with him, and as she stood in his doorway, she said, pityingly, "I guess you're sick; I'll make you some breakfast," and she vanished in the direction of the wood-shed.

He heard her chopping sticks, he heard the brisk snapping of the fire and the singing of the teakettle. He heard her breaking eggs--two eggs when he never cooked more than one at a time! He opened his mouth to protest, but only gave utterance to a low roar that brought Poacher, who happened to be the only one in the kitchen, into his room to stare gravely and curiously at him.

She made an omelet, she toasted bread, she steeped him a cup of tea--this slip of a girl. She had evidently been taught to cook, but he hated her none the less as she brought in a tray and set it beside his bed.

He would not touch the food, and he gave her a look from his angry eyes that sent her speedily from the room, and made her close the door behind her.

"I guess he'd like to gimme a crack with them crutches," she reflected, soberly, "I'd better keep out of his way till he's over it. Reminds me o' the matron's little spells."

If she had been a petted darling from some loving home, she would have fled from the cottage in dismay. As it was, although she suffered, it was not with the keenness of despair. All her life she had been on the defensive. Some one had always found fault with her, some one was always ready to punish her. Unstinted kindness would have melted her, but anger always increased her natural obstinacy. She had been sent here to take care of this old man, and she was going to do it. She was too unconventional, and too ignorant, to reflect that her protective attitude would have been better changed for a suppliant one in entering the old man's domain.

However, if she had meekly begged the privilege of taking care of him, he would have sent her away, and as she was given neither to hair-splitting nor introspection, but rather to the practical concerns of life, she calmly proceeded with her task of tidying the house without reference to future possibilities.

The kitchen was the first place to be attacked, and she carefully examined the stove. It smoked a little. It needed cleaning, and girding on some old aprons she found in the porch, she let the fire go out, and then brushed, and rubbed, and poked at the stove until it was almost as clean outside as it was inside. Her next proceeding was to take everything off the walls, and wipe them down with a cloth-bedraped broom. Then she moved all the dishes off the dresser, washed the chairs, and scrubbed the floor.

Then, and not until then, did she reopen the door into the old man's room. Now he could see what a clean kitchen she had, and how merrily the fire was burning in the stove. It was also twelve o'clock, and she must look about for something more to eat.

Mr. Dillson had not touched his breakfast, so she ate it herself, made him fresh toast, a cup of tea, and a tiny meat hash, then went up-stairs to tidy her bedroom.

The hash was well-seasoned, and the odour of onions greeted the old man's nostrils tantalisingly. He was really hungry now. His wrath had burned down for lack of fuel, and some power had come back to his limbs. He ate his dinner, got out of bed, dressed himself, and limped out to the kitchen.

When he had dropped in his big rocking-chair, he gazed around the room. The girl had done more in one morning than all the women he had ever employed had done in three. Perhaps it would be economy to keep her. He was certainly growing more feeble, and a tear of self-pity stood in his eye.

There she was now, coming from the French-woman's house. She had been over there to borrow sheets, and a flash of impotent rage swept over him. He tried to have no dealings with those foreigners. He hated them, and they hated him. This girl must go, he could not stand her.

The back of his rocking-chair was padded, and before he realised what was happening, his state of fuming passed into one of sleepiness,--he was off, soundly and unmistakably announcing in plain terms, through throat and nose, to the world of the kitchen, that he was making up for time lost last night.

When he opened his eyes, it was late afternoon, and 'Tilda Jane, sitting at a safe distance from him, was knitting an unfinished sock of his, left by his dead wife some ten years ago.

He blinked at her in non-committal silence. She gave him one shrewd glance, with her toe pushed Gippie's recumbent body nearer her own chair, and went on with her work. If he wanted to hear her talk, he could ask questions.

The afternoon wore away and evening came. When it grew quite dark 'Tilda Jane got up, lighted a lamp, put on the teakettle, and with the slender materials at hand prepared a meal that she set before the uncommunicative old man.

He ate it, rolling his eyes around the clean kitchen meanwhile, but not saying a word.

'Tilda Jane kept at a safe distance from him until he had finished and had limped into bed. She then approached the table and ate a few morsels herself, muttering as she did so, "I ain't hungry, but I mus' eat enough to help me square up to that poor ole crossy."

She was, however, too tired to enjoy her supper, and soon leaving it, she washed her dishes and went up-stairs.