Thus angrily soliloquising, he strides back to his skiff, and getting in rows off. But more than once, on the way homeward, he might be heard muttering words in the same wild strain—threats against Coracle Dick.
Volume Three—Chapter Seven.
A Late Tea.
Mrs Wingate is again growing impatient at her son’s continued absence, now prolonged beyond all reasonable time. The Dutch dial on the kitchen wall shows it to be after ten; therefore two hours since the skiff passed upwards. Jack has often made the return trip to Rugg’s in less than one, while the shopping should not occupy him more than ten minutes, or, making every allowance, not twenty. How is the odd time being spent by him?
Her impatience becomes uneasiness as she looks out of doors, and observes the hue of the sky. For the moon having gone down it is now very dark, which always means danger on the river. The Wye is not a smooth swan pond, and, flooded or not, annually claims its victims—strong men as women. And her son is upon it!
“Where?” she asks herself, becoming more and more anxious. He may have taken his fare on up to the town, in which case it will be still later before he can get back.
While thus conjecturing a tinge of sadness steals over the widow’s thoughts, with something of that weird feeling she experienced when once before waiting for him in the same way—on the occasion of his pretended errand after whipcord and pitch.
“Poor lad!” she says, recalling the little bit of deception she pardoned, and which now more than ever seems pardonable; “he hain’t no need now deceivin’ his old mother that way. I only wish he had.”