He stopped short, thoroughly startled by the thoughts which came into his mind. It was as if a temptation had been whispered to him, and, looking sharply round in the darkness, he hurried back to the bothy. That night he lay awake tossing about till morning. That very day he had encountered John Grange twice at the end of the long green walk, with its sloping sides and velvet turf, at the top of which slopes were long beds filled with dahlias. These John Grange was busy tying up to their sticks, and, as if unable to keep away, Barnett hung about that walk, and bullied the man at one end who was cutting the grass by hand where the machine could not be used; and at last made the poor fellow so wroth that he threw down his scythe as soon as Barnett had gone, and said he might do it himself.
Barnett came to the other end a couple of hundred yards away, and began to find fault with the way in which the dahlias were being tied up.
But John Grange bore it all without a word, though his lips quivered a little.
This was repeated, and Grange felt that it was the beginning of a course of persecution to drive him away.
Barnett went down the long green path till nearly at the end, when the dinner-bell began to ring, and just then he came upon the scythe lying where the man had thrown it in his pet.
“Humph!” ejaculated Barnett. “Well, he won’t have Mrs Mostyn to take his part. Pretty thing if I can’t find fault with those under me.”
At that moment he turned, and there, a hundred yards away, was John Grange coming along to his dinner, erect, and walking at a fair pace along the green walk, touching the side from time to time with his stick so as to keep in the centre.
The idea came like a flash, and Daniel Barnett glanced round. No one appeared to be in sight, and quick as thought it was done. One sharp thrust at the bent handle was sufficient to raise the scythe blade and swing it round across the green path, so that the keen edge rose up and kept in position a few inches above the grass right in John Grange’s path as he came steadily on.
The next moment Barnett had sprung among the bushes, and was gone.