“I’ll come down presently,” he said, and this apparently satisfied Reid, as he drove the horse at once on toward the stables.
Henderson then proceeded to the dining-room, where he found his mother sitting pale and trembling.
“Tom,” she said, tremulously, and then she paused.
“It’s adjourned,” he answered briefly, and then he went to the sideboard and poured out some spirit, which he eagerly drank, and his mother had not courage to ask him any further questions. She kept looking at him fugitively, her heart filled with the direst apprehensions. She saw him drink more spirit, and then he left the room, going toward the stables with a lowering brow and an angry heart.
“Confound the fellow,” he muttered, thinking of his groom. He believed that Reid wished him to pay for the evidence he had given at the inquest, and Henderson considered the ten pounds that Reid had already received ample reward.
When he reached the stables he found the groom smoking in the yard. Reid went on with his pipe as his master approached him, and this increased Henderson’s feeling of anger against him.
“Well,” he said, addressing the groom sharply, “what do you want?”
Then Reid took his pipe out of his mouth and looked straight in Henderson’s face.
“That was good evidence I gave for ye to-day,” he said.