The last swing had cut off the heads of a half-dozen tall white poppies, whereupon Jarreth turned about with an impudent grin to see if the old man dared protest.
“Don’t take any notice of him,” growled the Captain; “that is what will hurt him worst of anything.”
So Billy, by great effort, managed to keep quiet, and the disagreeable visitor walked away without the satisfaction of a word of comment.
“Do you really think he can get your land, Captain Saulsby?” Billy asked anxiously, as soon as Jarreth was safely out of hearing.
“I don’t quite know,” the sailor admitted slowly; “you see the place has belonged to my people so long I never thought about having much proof of the ownership. Harvey is right when he says I’ve been careless about taxes and things. He held a mortgage on the land once, and though it was paid off in my father’s time I’m blessed if I know if there is anything to show for the payment at my end. There’s sure to be plenty of documents of all kinds at his. He is terribly anxious, for some reason, to get those hard, lean fingers of his on the property.”
He puffed at his pipe for quite a little while in silence, then spoke again.
“That’s a dangerous kind of man, Billy Wentworth, the most risky kind a community can have. A man who thinks he’s smart and isn’t—that’s about as bad a combination as can be made. Jarreth has a reputation to live up to, for being shrewd and quick and able to get the best of people; he nearly lost that reputation and he will stop at nothing to get it back. He doesn’t mean any harm, he hardly means to be really dishonest; but he’s so bound to prove himself smart that he will let anybody who is more of a rascal than he is, make a fool of him. I’m not easy in my mind when I think of him and of that ‘friend’ of his that he’s so bound to prove is straight. No, I don’t like it.”
And when Billy went home to supper he left the Captain still sitting on the bench, evidently turning his anxious thoughts to the same matter, if one could judge by the way he smoked his pipe in short, troubled puffs.
The days went by, the poppies drooped their heads and scattered their petals in the winds, the early apples turned yellow on Captain Saulsby’s trees, and the blackberries ripened along the wall. The time of Billy’s visit had come to an end; the morning of his departure arrived, and he came down, dressed in his travelling clothes, to say good-bye to his dear, good friend.
He walked in past the gap in the stone wall and between the bent, old willow trees, went slowly up the path and down through the garden, not at all eager for this last parting. He did not quite know why he was so uncomfortable and depressed; he thought perhaps it might be that his stiff collar felt so uneasy against his sunburned neck and so made him miserable, more or less, all over. He was going West again; surely he was glad about that. He assured himself over and over again, that, yes, he was very glad.