"Never mind after that," growled Ben. "Ye had yer chance at bein' hones' and ye wouldn't take it."
Tessibel slipped her feet into Daddy's boots—she was strangely buoyant and unafraid. It was the woman in her rising to that supreme moment when she should call upon the man she loved, and he would answer. Ben was leaning against the wall, his eyes having sought for no other person in the room.
With the agility of a hare, Tessibel dashed around him toward Frederick, and snatched the blankets from the bed. The workings of Ben's mind were so slow that the form of the student loomed up, before he realized that the minister's son was in Tessibel's cabin.
"Ye air here to save me, Frederick," cried Tess, the light of the lantern sending a ray into the upturned widening eyes.
Letts dropped his under jaw, his body relaxing in fear. He was an arrant coward like the most of his downtrodden race. Then something shifted through his thick brain, and he smiled knowingly.
"So the high and the low air together—eh? The Dominie's son, and the fisherman's brat—the student—and the—"
Before he had finished the sneering words, Frederick had struck him full in the face. Boyish dignity—his father's position—God—everything was forgotten save Tess. He only knew that she was being maligned, and that her holy mission of rescuing him from the frost of a night like this was being turned into evil by a squint-eyed fisherman whom he had never seen before.
Into the man's fat flabby body crashed Frederick's strong fists. Tessibel stood looking on, her head bent forward alertly. One arm was clasped about her neck—excitement sparkling from the flushed face and panting lips. Once the throat sound that came when she was excited rolled forth; otherwise she was silent.
Thrashed from side to side, his ragged coat made worse by the severe shaking Frederick was administering, Ben Letts groaned audibly.
"Have you had enough?" demanded the student, standing over the fisherman.