While thus conjecturing, a scowl, dark as the night itself, flits over his own face.
“Yes; a coracle!” he continues; “must ’a been the plash o’ a paddle. If’t had been a regular boat’s oar I’d a heerd the thumpin’ against the thole pins.”
For once the waterman is in error. It is no paddle whose stroke he has heard, nor a coracle impelled by it; but a boat rowed by a pair of oars. And why there is no “thumpin’ against the thole pins” is because the oars are muffled. Were he out in the main channel—two hundred yards above the bye-way—he would see the craft itself with three men in it. But only at that instant; as in the next it is headed into a bed of “witheys”—flooded by the freshet—and pushed on through them to the bank beyond.
Soon it touches terra firma, the men spring out; two of them going off towards the grounds of Llangorren Court. The third remains by the boat.
Meanwhile, Jack Wingate, in his skiff, continues listening. But hearing no repetition of the sound that had so slightly reached his ear, soon ceases to think of it; again giving way to his grief, as he returns to reflect on what lies in the chapel cemetery. If he but knew how near the two things were together—the burying-ground and the boat—he would not be long in his own.
Relieved he is, when at length voices are heard up at the house—calls for carriages—proclaiming the ball about to break up. Still more gratified, as the banging of doors, and the continuous rumble of wheels, tell of the company fast clearing off.
For nigh half an hour the rattling is incessant; then there is a lull, and he listens for a sound of a different sort—a footfall on the stone stairs that lead down to the little dock—that of his fare, who may at any moment be expected.
Instead of footstep, he hears voices on the cliff above, off in the direction of the summer-house. Nothing to surprise him that? It is not first time he has listened to the same, and under very similar circumstances; for soon as hearing he recognises them. But it is the first time for him to note their tone as it is now—to his astonishment that of anger.
“They be quarrelling, I declare,” he says to himself. “Wonder what for! Somethin’ crooked’s come between ’em at the ball—bit o’ jealousy, maybe? I shudn’t be surprised if it’s about young Mr Shenstone. Sure as eggs is eggs, the Captain have ugly ideas consarnin’ him. He needn’t, though; an’ wouldn’t, if he seed through the eyes o’ a sensible man. Course, bein’ deep in love, he can’t. I seed it long ago. She be mad about him as he o’ her—if not madder. Well; I daresay it be only a lovers’ quarrel an’ll soon blow over. Woe’s me! I weesh—”
He would say “I weesh ’twar only that ’twixt myself an’ Mary,” but the words break upon his lips, while a scalding tear trickles down his cheek.