Blackjack Soirée 3

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"Jest the same as ever. There, teacher, it fair laughed right out at us then.",

Silence fell between them. He knew that she was thinking that last year on the opening morning of the duck season Frank Stanhope had sat at this table with him. She was gazing from the window, far down to where the Point was lost in the Settlement forests. He saw her bosom rise and fall, saw a tear grow up in her eyes and roll unheeded down her cheek.,

After a time he turned and walked back slowly to where the sick man sat. "Mr. Landon," he said, gravely, "I love your daughter. With your permission I would make her my wife. Wait," as the older man attempted to speak. "Hear what I have to say. I have endeavored to be honorable. Never by word or look have I given her to understand what my feelings are toward her. For Stanhope, the man who was brave and strong enough to give her up, I have always had the deepest respect; and now, knowing the price he has paid, I honor him. He was far more worthy of your daughter than I am. But now, as all is over between them, I would do my best to make her happy.",

The approaching terror had drifted into the shadow again. Suddenly, so near that it fairly seemed to scorch the frowsy top of the sapling to which he was hanging, a weird blue light twisted upward almost in Billy's eyes. At the same moment a tiny hoot-owl, sleeping off its early evening's feed in the cedar close beside the boys, woke up and gave a ghostly cry. It was too much for overstrained nerves to stand. Billy felt Fatty's form quiver and leap even before his agonized howl fell on his ears—a cry which he and Maurice may have echoed, for all he knew.

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"One night, two years after Roger Stanhope died, old Scroggie got drunk an' would have froze to death if Frank hadn't found him an' carried him into his own home. Scroggie cursed Frank fer it when he came round but Frank paid no attention to him. After that, Scroggie—who was too sick to be moved—got to takin' long spells of quiet. He would jest set still an' watch Frank nights when the two was alone together.,

A little later they went back up the road, side by side. Ringdo having heard the call of the forest-creek had strayed into the tangle, perhaps hoping to find a fat frog which had not yet sought its winter sleeping-bog. They paused to watch a red squirrel flash along the zig-zag fence and halt, with twitching tail, as the chatter of the black he was pursuing came down to him from swaying hickory tree-top. High overhead a flock of crows passed silently, black hurtling bodies seeming to brush the grey, low hanging skies as they melted into distance. High above, the shrill whistle of wings told of wild ducks seeking the marshes and the celery beds of the bay.,

Billy's eyes opened wide. "Misjedged him?" he repeated.,

"You are placed in the most helpless situation a woman could find herself in: at sea, locked up in a cabin, and all the crew, who might otherwise have helped you, believing that you were running away with Mr Lawrence, and that your imprisonment and your representations and your madness were part of a programme preconcerted between[Pg 411] you and your lover. You realise the horrors and peril of your position, and by virtue of the mother's genius that came to your help, you decided upon a behaviour which you magnificently conducted. So much for the better part of you: but what remains? To be wooed—shall I say won?—it is necessary for your sweetheart to act the part of a scoundrel. He must steal my ship and kidnap my only child, and heap lie upon lie, and then, to be sure, he is a very pretty gentleman, a noble, gallant rogue, at root a man of a lordly soul, of a most chivalrous and fighting spirit to be made much of—in short, to fall desperately in love with."