A little later Inman sat up. “Pass me my coat,” he said; and Jagger handed it to him without a word.
“You’re a better man than me with your fists,” he continued, as he looked up with proud defiance into the other’s set face. “You know how to hit, and where. So do I. I’ll hit where it’ll hurt, you bet; where it’ll hurt till hell ’ud be a picnic. I’m no saint, and I neither forget nor forgive. You needn’t wait, Mr. Drake. I’ll come down at my leisure.”
“Very good!” said Jagger contemptuously. “Get on with your hitting!” and turned away.
“If it was only me,” he said to himself as he walked slowly towards the village, “I daresay he’d find a way to ruin me, for he’s the devil himself; but he can’t hurt father.”
He was thinking of the business; but the business had not been in Inman’s thoughts.
CHAPTER XVIII
IN WHICH BALDWIN ALLOWS AN OPPORTUNITY TO
SLIP
HANNAH was bending over the fire stirring something in a pan when Inman entered the kitchen, and he went straight up to her and laying a hand on her shoulder said:
“Keturah’ll manage that, whatever it is; and if she can’t I’ll pay somebody else to do it. Get you off home and bandage your brother; and never set foot in this house again while I’m its master.”
Hannah flashed round, and though her eyes widened at the sight of his swollen face she was not cowed.