King of the Castle Part 6

"I don't know."

"Claude, dearest," he whispered, and his voice trembled as the words were breathed in her ear, "for pity's sake don't trifle with me."

"I am not trifling with you. I told you the truth. I don't know."

"Ah, that's not catching salmon," came sharply from behind them.

"Claude, dear, don't listen to him. He's a wicked fortune-hunter."

Chris started away from Claude as if some one had struck him a violent blow.

"Mary!" cried Claude.

"Oh, I beg your pardon. What did I say?"

_Whizz_!

"Mr Lisle! Help!" cried Claude, for the line had suddenly tightened, the top of the rod bent over in a curve, and the winch sang out as it rapidly revolved.

"Take the rod, please, Mr Lisle," continued Claude, in a voice full of emotion; and, as he took it without a word, she saw that he was deadly pale, and that his white teeth were pressing hard upon his nether lip.

He played the fish mechanically, and with Claude steadily looking on, and feeling as if she would like to run home to shut herself in her own room and throw herself upon her knees and sob. But the face before her held her as by a chain, and she turned with a bitter look of reproach upon her cousin, as she saw the way in which Chris was stung.

"Don't look at me like that, dear," cried Mary, "the words slipped out.

I did not mean them, indeed. It's a big fish, isn't it, Mr Lisle?

Shall I gaff it for you?"

"Thank you," he said drearily; and Mary picked up the bamboo staff with the glistening hook at the end.

"Oh, I do beg your pardon, Mr Lisle."

"Granted," was the laconic reply.

"Don't, pray, don't punish me for saying those words," cried Mary.

"There, finish your lesson in love and fishing. Claude," she whispered, as the young man had to follow the fish a few yards down the stream, "you've caught him tightly; shall I gaff him as well?"

"Yes; you had better finish your lesson, Miss Gartram," said Chris, walking back slowly winding in the line, and speaking in a hard, cold tone.

"No; you had better finish," she replied hastily; and then, as she saw the cloud deepening on his brow, she stepped forward quickly, and laid her hand on the rod. "Yes, let me finish, Chris," she said, and she gazed at him with her eyes full of faith and trust.

"Claude," he whispered, as he gave her the rod, "you couldn't think--"

"Hallo! What's this?" cried a harsh voice, and all started, so suddenly had Norman Gartram--followed closely by his visitor--stepped up to where they stood.

"Mr Lisle giving Claude and me a lesson in fishing," said Mary sharply.

"Now, Claude, dear, wind in and I'll hook him out."

"Most interesting group," said Parry Glyddyr, with rather a contemptuous look at the teacher of the art.

"Very," said Norman Gartram, frowning. "Here, Claude, stop that fooling and come home."

"Mary, Mary, what have you done?" whispered Claude, as they walked away.

"Made a mess of it, darling, I'm afraid."

As they turned a corner of the glen, with her father's guest talking about what she did not know, Claude stole a glance back, to see Christopher Lisle standing with his hands resting upon the rod he held, and a bright, silvery fish lying at his feet.

The girl's heart went on beating heavily with pulsations that seemed as full of pleasure as of pain.

Volume One, Chapter IV.

"ALL TO BITS!"

Mary Dillon did the greater part of the talking on the way home, Gartram saying scarcely a word, but making great use of his eyes, to see how Glyddyr took the unpleasant _contretemps_.

"And just after what I had said to him," muttered Gartram. "The insolent young scoundrel! The miserable, contemptible pauper! How dare he?"

But Glyddyr's behaviour was perfect, and excited Gartram's wonder.

"He can't have seen what I did," he thought, "or he would never talk to her so coolly."

For, ignoring everything, and as if he was blind to what had pa.s.sed, Glyddyr dashed at once into a series of inquiries about Danmouth, and the weather in the winter.

"Do the storms affect the place much?" he said, looking at Claude.

"Knock the pots off sometimes, and always wash the slates clean," said Mary, before Claude could reply.

"Not pleasant for the inhabitants," said Glyddyr, after giving Mary a quick, amused glance before turning again to Claude. "But at the Fort, of course, you are too high up for the waves to reach?"

"Salt spray coats all the windows, and makes the walls shine,"

interposed Mary.

"What will he think of me?" thought Claude; and then she wondered that she did not feel sorry, but that all the time, in spite of her father's fiercely sullen looks, a peculiar kind of joy seemed to pervade her breast.

Glyddyr talked on, but he was completely talked down by Mary, who felt that the kindest thing she could do was to draw every one's attention from her cousin, till they had pa.s.sed through the little town, and nearly reached the Fort, where they were met by a rough-looking workman, who ran unceremoniously towards them, caught hold of Gartram roughly, and cried out, in wild excitement,--

"Come on to the quarry at once."

"What's the matter--fall of rock?" cried Gartram.

"Blasting--Woodham--blown all to bits," panted the man.

"Then he has been using dynamite."

"Nay; soon as we picked him up, he said it was the cursed bad powder."

"Bah! Where is he?"

"We took him home, and I fetched the doctor, and then come on here."