“Ay, that’s blowing hot and cold!” he said. “Put the gin back, lass, and no two words about it.”
She stood darkly hesitating, as if she meant to refuse. But Lunt had risen, and it was clear that he would take no refusal that was not backed by force. She replaced the Dutch bottle sullenly; and Giles drew it towards him and with a free hand laced his ale.
“There’s naught like dog’s nose,” he said, “to comfort a man! The lass forgets that it’s wintry weather and I’ve been out in it!”
“A dram’s a dram, winter or summer!” Lunt growled. And he followed the example.
But Bess knew that she had lost the one ally on whom she had counted. She could manage Giles sober. But drink was the man’s weakness; and when he was drunk he was as brutal as his comrade; and more dangerous.
She had satisfied her grudge against Henrietta. And she was aware now, only too well aware, that she had let it carry her too far. She had nothing to gain by further violence; she had everything to lose by it. For if the girl were ill-treated, there would be no mercy for any of the party, if taken; while escape, in the face of the extraordinary measures which Clyne was taking and of the hostility of the countryside, was doubtful at the best. As she thought of these things and ate her supper with a sombre face, she wished with all her heart that she had never seen the girl, and never, to satisfy a silly spite, decoyed her. Her one aim now was to get her out of the men’s sight, and to shut her up where she might be safe till morning. It was a pity, it was a thousand pities, that Henrietta had not stayed in the smugglers’ oven! And Bess wondered if she could even now persuade her to return to it. But a glance at Henrietta’s haggard face, on which the last twenty-four hours had imprinted a stamp it would take many times twenty-four hours to efface, warned her that advice—short of the last extremity—would be useless. It remained to remove the girl to the only place where she might, with luck, lie safe and unmolested.
In this Henrietta might aid her—had she her wits about her. But Henrietta did not seem to be awake to the peril. The insolence of the gipsy’s glances, which had yesterday brought the blood to her cheeks, passed unnoted, so complete was her collapse. Doubtless strength would return, nay, was even now returning; and presently wit would return. For her nerves were young, and would quickly recover their tone. But for the moment, she was almost comatose. Having eaten and drunk, she sat heavily, with her elbow on the table, her head resting on her hand. The sleeve had fallen back from her wrist, and the gipsy lad’s eyes rested long and freely on the white roundness of her arm. Her fair complexion seduced him as no dark beauty had power to seduce. He eyed her as the tiger eyes the fawn before it springs from covert. Bess, who read his looks as if they had been an open book, and who saw that Giles, her one dependence, was growing more sullen and dangerous with every draught, could have struck Henrietta for her fatuous stolidity.
One thing was clear. The longer she put off the move, the more dangerous the men were like to be. Bess never lacked resolution, and she was quick to take her part. As soon as she had eaten and drunk her fill, she rose and tapped Henrietta on the shoulder.
“We’re best away,” she said coolly. “Will you carry the brat upstairs, or shall I?”
For a moment she thought that she had carried her point. For no one spoke or objected. But when Henrietta rose and turned to the settle to take up the boy, the gipsy muttered something in Lunt’s ear. The ruffian glared across at the girls, and struck the haft of his knife with violence on the board.