The Lord of the Sea | Page 3

in her now: and suddenly she walked away,
going to meet--another man.
She passed through stubble-wheat, disappeared in a pine-wood, and
came out upon the Waveney towing-path. On the towing-path came
Frankl to meet her.
He took her hand, holding his head sideward with a cajoling fondness,
wearing the flowing caftan, and a velvet cap which widened out a-top,
with puckers.
"Well, sweetheart..." he said.
"But, you know, I begged you not to use such words to me!"--from her.
"What, and I who am such a sweetheart of yours?"--his speech very
foreign, yet slangily correct, being, in fact, all slang.

"No," she said, "you spoke different at first, and that is why--But this
must be the last, unless you say out clearly now what it is you mean--"
"Now, you are too hard. You know I am wild in love with you. And so
are you with me--"
"_I_?"--with shrinking modesty in her under-looking eyes. "Oh, no--
don't have any delusions like that about me, please! You said that you
liked me: and as I am in the habit of speaking the truth myself, I
thought that--perhaps--But my meeting you, to be frank with you, was
for the sake of my brother".
"Well, you are as candid as they make them," he said, eyeing her with
his mild eye. "But what's the matter with your brother? Hard up?"
"He's worried about something". "He must have some harvest-money
put away?"
"He has something in Reid's Bank at Yarmouth, I believe".
"Well, shall I tell you what's the matter with him? He's afraid, your
brother. He has refused to wear the cap, and he thinks that I shall be
down upon him like a thousand of bricks...But suppose I exempt him,
and you and I be friends? That's fair".
"What do you mean?"
"Give us one--"
"Believe me, you talk--!"
"Don't let your angry passions rise. I am going to have a kiss off those
handsome lips--"
Before she could stir he was in the act of the embrace; but it was never
accomplished: for he saw her colour fade, heard crackling twigs, a step!
as someone emerged from the wood ten yards away-- Richard.
The thought in Margaret's mind was this: "Father in Heaven, whatever

will he think of me here with this Jew?"
Hogarth stopped, staring at this couple; did not understand: Margaret
should have been home from "class-meeting"...only, he observed her
heaving bosom; then twisted about and went, his walk rapid, in his
hand a hunting-crop, by which, with a very sure aim, he batted away
pebbles from his path, stooping each time.
III
THE HUNTING-CROP
Along the towing-path to the farmhouse. He did not look behind: was
like a man who has received a wound, and wonders whence.
A pallor lay under his brown skin, brown almost as an Oriental's, and
he was called "the Black Hogarth"--the Hogarths being Saxon, on the
mantel in the dining-room being a very simple coat--a Bull on Gules.
But Richard was a startling exception. His hair grew away flat and
sparse from his round brow; on his cheeks three moles, jetblack in their
centre. Handsome one called his hairless face: the nose delicate, the lips
negroid in their thick pout, the left eye red, streaked with bloodshot, the
eyes' brown brightness very beautiful and strange, with a sideward stare
wild as that sideward stare of the race-horse; and the lids had a way of
lifting largely anon.
He passed through Lagden Dip orchard into the old homestead, into the
dining-room, where cowered the old Hogarth, smoking, his hair a mist
of wool-white.
He glanced up, but said nothing; and Richard said nothing, but walked
about, his arms folded, frowning turbulently, while the twilight
deepened, and Margaret did not come.
Now he planted a chair near the old man, sat, and shouted: "Listen,
sir!"
Up went the old Hogarth's hand to push forward the inquiring ear,

while Richard, who, till now, had guarded him from all knowledge of
the Circular, snatched it from his breast-pocket, and loudly read.
As the sense entered his head, up the old man shot his palms, shaking
from them astonishment and deprecation, with nods; then, with opening
arms, and an under-look at Richard: "Well, there is nothing to be said:
the land is his...."
Hogarth leapt up and walked out; he muttered: "The land is his, but he
is mine...."
The question at the bottom of his mind had been this: "Does Margaret,
too, go with the land?" But he did not utter it even to himself: went out,
fingering the crop, stalking toward the spot where he had left the man
and the woman. But Margaret was then coming through the wood;
Frankl had gone up to the Hall; and Hogarth crossed the bridge and
went climbing toward the mansion.