There was a peculiar sound in the still sunny glen heard above the dull rush and murmur of the river. It was the grating together of Glyddyr’s teeth, as Chris turned round once more, and unintentionally brushed the top of his rod against his rival again.
Glyddyr made a sharp movement, as if to snatch hold of and break the rod, but his hand did not go near it; and he stood there watching the fisherman as he turned down to the waterside, and went on up the glen, soon disappearing among the birches and luxuriant growth of heath and fern which crowned the stones.
“Curse him!” muttered Glyddyr, picking up the fallen cigar and lighting it, without smoking for a few minutes. “I’ll pay him out yet. Well,” he said, with a bitter laugh, “I’m going the right way. Poor devil; how mad he is. He shall see me come away from the church some day with little Claude on my arm, and I’d give a hundred pounds—if I’d got it—to let him see me take her in my arms, and cover her pretty face with kisses.”
There was a peculiarly malignant screw in his face as he stood looking up the glen, and then he laughed again.
“Poor devil,” he cried. “I can afford to grin at him.”
He turned to go, and at that moment a puff of wind came down the glen, rustling a piece of paper in the road, and drawing his attention to the fact that it was the envelope of the telegram.
Then he stooped and picked it up, and shaped it out till it was somewhat in the form of a boat, as he dropped it over the stone parapet, and stood watching as it swept round and round in an eddy, and then went sailing down the stream.
“That’s the way to serve you, Master Gellow,” he muttered; “and I wish you were with it sailing away out yonder. No, no, my fine fellow, once bit twice shy; once bit—a hundred times bit, but I’ve grown too cunning for you at last. Now, I suppose some other scoundrel is in that with you. Back it. Not this time, my fine fellow; not this time.”
He smoked away furiously as he watched the scrap of paper float down, now fast, now slowly. At one time it was gliding down some water slide, to plunge into a little foaming pool at the bottom, where it sailed round and round before it reached the edge and was whirled away again. Now it caught against a stone, and was nearly swamped; now it recovered itself, and was swept towards the side, but only to be snatched away, and go gliding down once more in company with iridescent bubbles and patches of foam.
“Hah!” ejaculated Glyddyr, “if I only had now all that I have fooled away by taking their confounded tips, and backing the favourites they have sent me. No, Master Gellow, I’m deep in enough now, and I’m not the gudgeon to take that bait. Money, money. There’ll be a fresh demand directly, and the old bills to renew. How easy it is to borrow, and how hard to pay it back. If I only had a few hundreds now, how pleasant times would be, and how easy it would be to get what I want.”