The Young Bridge-Tender Part 31

Instantly Ralph's eyes flashed dangerously. He felt under no obligations to the squire, rich as he was, to swallow any insult.

"So you think I am guilty?" he said, as calmly as he could.

"Yes, I do," returned the great man, bluntly.

"What makes you think so?"

"Because you were around the post office," said Mrs. Nelson. "He even insinuates that my sickness was not real, but was put on so that you might have an excuse for being out at that time of night."

Again Ralph's eyes flashed. It was bad enough to have insults heaped upon his own head, but when they touched his mother----

"Squire Paget, you are no gentleman!" he burst out. "You haven't the least spark of a gentleman in your whole composition!"

"Wha--what----" stammered the village dignitary.

"Oh, Ralph----" began his mother.

"Hush, mother, I will handle him as he deserves. Let me alone."

"You young rascal! What do you mean?" burst out the squire, in a rage.

"I mean just what I say. You may be rich and influential, but you can't come here and insult my mother, understand that!"

"Why--why, you young vagabond----" spluttered the squire.

For the moment he could not find words to express himself.

"I am no vagabond, Squire Paget, not half as much a one as your son, who drinks, smokes cigarettes, and keeps company with all sorts of questionable village sports."

"Stop! stop!" roared the great man. "How dare you speak to me in this fashion?"

"How dare you insult my mother? If I had an outside witness, I would prosecute you for libel."

The squire winced. This was an attack he had never once dreamed of. He had thought to bulldoze the widow and her son, but he was getting decidedly the worse of the encounter.

"I know what I am talking about," he began, lamely, but Ralph cut him short.

"So do I know what I am talking about, Squire Paget. You are down on us for some reason; I have not yet found out what, but I will some day; and you are doing your best to make endless trouble for us. But I am not going to stand it. We are poor, but we have our rights as well as the rich."

"You rascal! I'll----"

"I want you to stop calling me a rascal and a vagabond. I might as well call you a wooden-head, a shyster lawyer, and a lot more."

"Oh, Ralph!" pleaded Mrs. Nelson.

"No, mother, he shall not come here to worry and insult you. I will give him fair warning now. If he does it again I'll pitch him out of the house."

"You--you," spluttered the squire.

He was so mad he could get no further.

"There is the front door," went on the boy, walking forward and opening it.

"The best thing you can do is to get on the other side of it just as quick as you can."

The squire was livid. He wanted to say something awful, something that would crush the fearless lad before him--but the words would not come. He caught up his silk hat and waved it fiercely in the face of Ralph and his mother.

"You'll rue this, both of you! Mark my words!" he fairly hissed, and the next moment he had disappeared into the darkness of the night.

CHAPTER XXII.

RALPH'S NEW SITUATION.

After the squire had vanished Ralph closed the front door and locked it. He returned to the sitting-room to find his mother pale and trembling. Unable to stand, the poor woman had sunk back on the lounge.

"Oh, Ralph!" was all she could say just then.

"Don't look so scared, mother," he replied, soothingly. "He has gone now."

"Oh, my boy, how could you?" she went on, half in reproach, and yet secretly admiring his courage.

"I wouldn't have done it had he not cast a slur on your fair name, mother.

I might have stood what he said against me, but I'll never allow any one to say one word against you, never."

And the look he gave her out of his honest eyes showed that he meant what he said.

"But the squire! What will he do now?"

"I don't care what he does. We haven't done wrong, so what can he do?"

"He is influential."

"So is Mr. Carrington, and Bart Hayc.o.c.k, and a half-dozen others that are our friends."

"He evidently feels certain that you had something to with the post office robbery."

"He is down on us, mother, just as I told him. I wish I knew why," and Ralph grew more calm and more thoughtful as he spoke.

"He was not that way when your father was alive. Your father and he were quite friendly."

"I guess that was only because father did lots of work for him and always accepted the squire's price. He is very miserly, you know, outside of the allowance he makes Percy."

"I cannot imagine what brought him here to-night. I fancied the post office matter was past, so far as you were concerned."

"So did I. I'll tell you what keeps it in the squire's mind," went on Ralph, suddenly. "He lost a valuable registered letter that was in the mail. I heard Henry Bott speak of it."