There was the stone. One wrench, and what he wanted would be in his hand. He looked around, not quickly nor directly, but in a casual manner; taking fully a minute over the process. But as he turned to the stone again a kind of influence seemed to spring from it, almost assuming the tones of a voice. “You cannot. You dare not,” it seemed to say. Then came reaction.
“Oh, can’t I? Daren’t I?” he repeated scornfully to himself. “We’ll see.”
He bent over the stone now, at the same time drawing the finger ends of his holed gloves as far forward as possible, as though to cover as far as might be, the defects of those same holes. Then he stood upright again, and continued his stroll up towards the sluice. For ever so faint a sound had caught his ear.
“Good evenin’ Mr Mervyn, good evenin’ sur. Fine evenin’ to get the air, sure-ly.”
“Ah, good-evening, Pierce. Yes. A breath of air makes you sleep better in this February weather, eh?”
Sir John Tullibard’s head keeper had been looking up the pond. Now he turned, the glow of the bowl of his short clay pipe showing dull red in the gloom.
“That it do, sur. But I could sleep middlin’ without that,” answered the man, with a grin.
“I’d say something about a pint of ale, Pierce,” went on Mervyn, “but I don’t want to risk disturbing Miss Seward. She sleeps light, and—well, do you know, I’m afraid she’s getting a bit of a scare on about the old place. I only hope no one has been chattering over all the old silly yarns about it to her, eh?”
“That haven’t I, sur,” answered the man.
“Well, get the pint to-morrow instead of to-night,” said Mervyn, and something changed hands. “Still, I believe she must have overheard some one chattering; yet I’ve rubbed the fear of the Lord into old Joe about it.”