He came quite close to the girl, and advanced his red face so that his injected eyes looked full into hers.
“A lake of wine,” he repeated. “Have you ever heard tell of one?”
She shook her head smiling.
“Come now,” said the man—and the watcher saw his jovial face suddenly assume a very evil and menacing look. “Have you ever heard of one, I say? You’d better answer.”
Again she shook her head.
“You must know, you know,” said the fellow, his eyes staring and his mouth creasing at the corners. “You ain’t a lively sucker o’ the old stem and growed up here all these years not to have heard on it. What is it, I say? What’s become o’ the Lake of Wine?”
He gripped her wrist as he spoke. She uttered a little shriek of pain and anger—not of fear—and sprang back from him. She even made a feint of aiming a blow at him with her soft fist.
“You dare to touch me!” she cried. “My nails are like thorns.”
“Aye, and so’s your mind,” muttered the man. He looked at her in savage gloom a moment; then his broad face cleared, and he grinned in a conciliatory manner.
“Come, missy,” he said, with an upward jerk of his chin. “We’ll be good friends, I can see. I not expeerunce spurit in a gal without knowing how to admire it. Of course if you’re set on havin’ a secret from old Joe, Joe’s not the man to appint to find it out. His wit’s a rumfusticus sort o’ target to put up agen your bright arrers. I only axed out o’ curiosity—has you ever heard tell of a Lake of Wine?—and no, says you.”