He reached a large alder whose divided stems rose from a wet place, dark with that touch of the unhallowed which is the charm of alder trees; Heber was leaning against the trunk amid the thick brush of leaves. He was so appropriate a figure to his surroundings that an imaginative person might have been startled. Saunders, who had for the time being forgotten his existence, stopped. He was not imaginative, but Heber—or, rather, the religious aspect of him—stood in his mind for everything he was rebelling against now; for at this moment Charles felt ready to become an infidel. The other aspect of Heber—the one which had been uppermost while he watched the woman he loved from the alder brake—only struck him as the man spoke.
“I thought ye were to go down to the water alongside o’ her,” he said. “I would ha’ done better for her than that.”
There was savage contempt in his voice.
“You!” exclaimed the other, catching his breath; “you, indeed!”
“Yes, I.”
“Ah! you scoundrel!” cried Saunders suddenly, “you black scoundrel, hiding there among the trees with your eyes on another man’s girl!”
“She won’t be yours long,” replied Heber.
“No, that she won’t!” shouted Saunders, “not if she’s going to keep up wi’ you folks on the hill! not if she’s to make a show of herself and a shame! not if she’s to go a different way to heaven from me that’s to be her husband! What’ll take me there’ll take her too, and she shall know it!”
His voice was so loud that many of the congregation were turning in his direction. By this time the minister had come up from the water and was speaking to the newly baptized persons who were standing about him. Catherine and the three women waited afar off in the yard of the inn.