Page:In the Roar of the Sea.djvu/333

Rh to him, and ordered him to fulfil his commission, to deliver the note.

"Look you here, Jamie," was Mr. Menaida's parting injunction to the lad as he left the house, "there's no reason for you to be idle when at Pentyre. You can make friends with some of the men and get birds shot. I don't advise your having a gun, you are not careful enough. But if they shoot birds you may amuse your leisure in skinning them, and I gave Judith arsenic for you. She keeps it in her workbox, and will let you have sufficient for your purpose as you need it. I would not give it to you, as it might be dangerous in your hands as a gun. It is a deadly poison, and with carelessness you might kill a man. But go to Judith when you have a skin ready to dress and she will see that you have sufficient for the dressing. There, good-by, and bring me some skins shortly."

Oliver accompanied the boy as far as the gate that led into the lane between the walls enclosing the fields of the Pentyre estate. Jamie pressed him to come farther, but this the young man would not do. He bade the poor lad farewell, bid him divert himself as his father had advised, with bird stuffing, and remained at the gate watching him depart. The boy's face and feebleness touched and stirred the heart of Oliver. The face reminded him so strongly of his twin sister, but it was the shadow, the pale shadow of Judith only, without the intelligence, the character, and the force. And the helplessness of the child, his desolation, his condition of nervous alarm roused the young man's pity. He was startled by a shot, that struck his gray hat simultaneously with the report.

In a moment he sprang over the hedge in the direction whence the smoke rose, and came upon Cruel Coppinger with a gun.

"Oh, you!" said the latter, with a sneer, "I thought I was shooting a rabbit."

"This is the second time," said Oliver.

"The first," was Coppinger's correction.

"Not so—the second time you have levelled at me. The first was on the wreck when I struck up your hand."

Coppinger shrugged his shoulders. "It is immaterial. The third time is lucky, folks say."

The two men looked at each other with hostility.