CHAPTER XXIX.
TEMPTATION.
Elijah Rebow sank into a sullen fierce silence. He scarcely stirred from the house except to the forge, where he groped among the dead ashes for the iron ring, which however he never found. He sat in his hall, smoking, his elbows on the arms of his chair, his head sunk on his breast, with his dull eyes on the floor. He seemed brooding over something, which occupied all his thoughts, and he rarely spoke.
There had been little difficulty in getting rid of Timothy. He lingered a day or two about Salcott and Red Hall, but as he met with angry repulse from Rebow, and no encouragement from Mehalah, he abandoned the ground as unproductive. He was an idle, good-for-nothing young man, hating work, and when he was obliged to leave comfortable quarters at Wyvenhoe, hoped to settle himself into a similar position at Salcott. He was conceited, and fancied himself able to make conquests when he liked, and never for a moment doubted that his looks and address would have ingratiated him with Mehalah, and won him a lodgment in the house. He had been hovering about Phoebe Musset for some time, as she was thought to have money. Her parents had no other child, and the farm and shop would have suited him. When he met with a rebuff at Red Hall he betook himself to Mersea, and was much surprised to be received there with coldness where he had expected warmth. The reason was that George De Witt had returned, a sailor in the Royal Navy, covered with glory according to his own account, and Phoebe was more disposed to set her cap at him than flirt with the shore-loafer, Timothy Spark.
As Mehalah was crossing the farmyard one day, old Abraham Dowsing stopped her.
'I want to speak along of you,' he said in his uncouth, abrupt manner. 'What does the master mean by his goings on? I saw him to-day after his dinner sitting with the great knife in his hand. The door was open and I was at the bottom of the steps, and I looked up, and there he was making stabs with it into the air. Then he got up, and holding the knife behind him, he crept over towards your mother's leather-backed chair. I seed him feel at it, and when he did touch it, then there came a wild look over his face, and he out with the carving knife, quick as thought, and he clutched the back of the chair with his left, and dug the blade right into the leather, and it came through at the back. You look next time you go into the hall. I guess he's going as his brother did.'
'Going out of his mind, Abraham?'
'Yes, I reckon. What else does it all mean? It is either that, or there is something that deadly angers him.'
He looked with a cunning covert glance at her.
'It is not that these matters concern me, over much, but I don't want to change places in my old age. I'm comfortable enough here. I gets my wittles regular, and my swipes of ale. Take care of yourself, Mistress. I've heard as how the master got somebody pressed when he was in the way,—there's a tale about it abroad. He won't stand that party about here much, and I wouldn't adwise the encouragement of him.'