"Ay, Master Ralph!" he muttered, between his teeth, "we will fit you with something;" and then again he fell into silence. A moment or two after he muttered in the same tone, "Harry's a fool! He's as hot as pepper, though, when put up, and one can make something of that, perhaps."
Once more a moment or two passed without his saying any thing, and then came the words. "Yes, it must be that way if he has been tampering with Margaret's heart, and is now half won away from her by this bright Hortensia. Demme, it might be my game to let him win the young baroness, and make sure if Mistress Margaret myself. She is very handsome--would show well; and then her mother's fortune, that is all her own at once. No--zounds! I will not play that game; for, though I might win the stakes, yet he would carry off more still; and, by ----, he shall not triumph. My mother told me to avoid him through life; for that, if a struggle came between us, he might throw me: that was her word. Now we have run against each other, and the struggle must come. But we will see, mother mine which will throw the other. He may have the strength, but I have the trick. What the fiend can be keeping that lad? he has had time enough to learn the whole history of every body in the house."
Once more he relapsed into silence; but if he were waiting for any one, he had full a quarter of an hour to remain in expectation. At the end of that time a tall, powerful, but agile fellow, in the garb of a servant, entered the room, and with a sort of tip-toe, sliding, and noiseless step, approached the back of the young gentleman's chair. There standing he spoke over his shoulder, saying, "I have plenty of news for you, sir."
"You have had time enough to get it," replied Robert Woodhall, sharply; "speak out, and be quick."
"This cousin of yours is not here alone, as you thought, sir," said the man; "he has got a servant with him, and who do you think that servant is?"
"Nay, I know not, and what matters it?" rejoined his master; "though where the beggarly animal picked up a servant, or got money to keep him, I can not divine."
"He is none other, sir, but our old friend Gaunt Stilling," said the servant, by those few words causing his young master to start upon his feet with a look of vindictive fierceness which would have done honor to a tragedy-villain. The next instant, however, he sat down again with a laugh, saying, "That is impossible, you fool! That scoundrel Stilling went away with my pretty Kate, to take her out of my reach. I will find her, though. I heard the whole plan, and set three men to belabor him on the road, and bring her back. They failed in the latter, for she had gone on with her old fool of a father; but they succeeded in the former part of the business--at least they swore so, and if they cheated me, I will trounce them. It is impossible, I tell you. The men did overtake him, and one of them got a sharp poke in the shoulder from a companion of his. I saw the wound myself; and it was not such a scratch as a man might give himself, for the sake of a little bloody evidence to support a lie. What you tell me is impossible, I say."
"It is quite true, sir," said the man, in a soft, insinuating tone; "I will tell you all about it; but let me just say, in the mean time, sir, that if you had but condescended to trust me in the matter of the young lady, Mistress Kate, I would have had her back for you, and snug in the little cottage, within a single day."
"I never trust any body too much," replied Robert Woodhall, in a surly tone. "How the devil did you know any thing about the cottage?"
"Oh, I know every thing that goes on, sir," answered the servant, with a slight touch of self-sufficient confidence in his tone; "I believe you would find it better to trust one than many."