Christopher looked down suddenly at his great bronzed hands. "Oh, he needn't have stuck the tail of it on," he remarked carelessly; "but the first part has a bully sound."
When Cynthia had gone, he undressed and threw himself on the bed, but there was a queer stinging sensation in his veins, and he could not sleep. Rising presently, he opened the window, and in the frosty October air stood looking through the darkness to the light that twinkled in the direction of Blake Hall. Faint stars were shining overhead, and against the indistinct horizon something obscure and black was dimly outlined—perhaps the great clump of oaks that surrounded the old brick walls. Somewhere by that glimmer of light he knew that Fletcher sat hugging his ambition like a miser, gloating over the grandson who would grow up to redeem his name. For the weak, foolish-mouthed boy Christopher at this moment knew neither tolerance nor compassion; and if he stooped to touch him, he felt that it was merely as he would grasp a stick which Fletcher had taken for his own defense. The boy himself might live or die, prosper or fail, it made little difference. The main thing was that in the end Bill Fletcher should be hated by his grandson as he was hated by the man whom he had wronged.
CHAPTER IX. As the Twig is Bent
It was two weeks after this that Fletcher, looking up from his coffee and cakes one morning, demanded querulously "Whar's Will, Saidie? It seems to me he sleeps late these days."
"Oh, he was up hours ago," responded Miss Saidie, from behind the florid silver service. "I believe he has gone rabbit hunting with that young Blake. "
Fletcher laid down his knife and fork and glowered suspiciously upon his sister, the syrup from his last mouthful hanging in drops on his coarse gray beard.
"With young Blake! Why, what's the meaning of that?" he inquired.
"It's only that Will's taken to him, I think. Thar's no harm in this hunting rabbits that I can see, and it keeps the child out of doors, anyway. Fresh air is what the doctor said he needed, you know."
"I don't like it; I don't like it," protested Fletcher; "those Blakes are as mad as bulldogs, and they've been so as far back as I can remember. The sooner a stop's put to this thing the better it'll be. How long has it been going on, I wonder?" "About ten days, I believe, and it does seem to give the boy such an interest. I can't help feeling it's a pity to break it up."
"Oh, bother you and your feelings!" was Fletcher's retort. "If you'd had the sense you ought to have had, it never would have started; but you've always had a mushy heart, and I ought to have allowed for it, I reckon. Thar're two kind of women in this world, the mulish and the pulish, an' when it comes to a man's taking his pick between 'em, the Lord help him. As for that young Blake—well, if I had to choose between him and the devil, I'd take up with the devil mighty fast, that's all."