The old woman sent him to the spring to bring her a mug of fresh water, for she was thirsty. As he stood in the gloaming with the dark farm buildings all about him, and the sycamores shuffling overhead, and the water gurgling at his feet, his eyes burnt, and he wetted his dry lips with his tongue. He filled the mug and drank, filled it a second time and drained it again. He was assailed by temptation. Could he not, by some means, anticipate the old woman's decree concerning the disposal of her money? A third of it was to be his—she had said so. Could he not have it now? It profited her nothing laid up in blue linen bags. It would bring salvation to him. The matter was not difficult to accomplish. Fate seemed to have thrown the chance at him, nay, had prepared it and laid it before him ready to be carried out. He had a sleeping-draught in his pocket which Timothy Hadwin had given him. The old man had been reluctant, but he had insisted. If he dropped it into the cup of water, Mistress Lynn would drink it without thinking. And if she did discover a faint, curious taste, she would imagine it due to the state of the spring, grown round as it was with water-weeds. He could hide, as his grandfather had done, among the fleeces, and then, when night came, and Barbara and Lucy were safe asleep upstairs, what could be easier than to slip out and open the bridewain unnoticed and unheard? He had seen Mistress Lynn hide the key under her pillow.
He put the idea from him with distaste: even though he promised himself that he would take no more than his share, that he would repay it some day, he could not help feeling it a cowardly act for a man to contemplate and that man the master of Forest Hall.
He filled the cup and returned towards the house. But on the way he paused. The darkness of his future appalled him; he was undone if he could not meet those debts of honour. Where could he hope to get the money if not here? And such a chance was not likely to come his way again. He had no time to argue the whole question over once more: he had been away too long already.
Mistress Lynn drank the water unsuspiciously. Old Camomile was too wise to put the powerful drug he had given Joel the night before into such weak hands. The young man was strong, and would sleep soundly enough, when he learnt to regulate his life like a Christian gentleman.
CHAPTER VII
Midnight
"Great-granny has been very generous—for her," said Lucy, as she bade Joel good-night in the copse below the house. "Fancy her giving you a whole sovereign! Doesn't it make you feel rich? I wish she'd give me one!"
"All in good time, Lucy, all in good time," he replied, mimicking the old woman's voice.
"She was sharp, wasn't she, when we hinted we'd like to have some of her money to spend now? But you're not as badly off as you say, eh, Joel?"