As Aunt Polly received no answer she busied herself stirring the simmering members of the fowl with a large wooden spoon, while her auditor began to pace the floor with a brow that grew darker and a step that became heavier each instant.
The landlady wiped the perspiration from her face and looked rather inquisitively at him.
“Why, what has come over you?” she said; “you look as black as a thunder-cloud all tu once.”
“This week. Did you say that Edward Clark and Jane Derwent were to be married so soon?”
“Yes—they’ll have a wedding on the island afore Sunday, or I’ll lose my guess.”
“What day and hour—do you know the hour?”
“Why, no—I don’t s’pose they’re particular to a minute.”
“So the rebel dog thinks to have Jane Derwent at last, does he!” exclaimed Butler, pausing angrily in his walk, and bending his flushed brow on the landlady; then turning away he muttered between his teeth:
“By the Lord that made me, I will spoil his fun this once!”
“Lard a-marcy! how mad you look,” said Aunt Polly. “You a’most make my hair stand on end—but the first sight of you was enough for that; why, we all thought you were dead and hung long ago.”