He leaned on his duck-gun, and glared from under his penthouse brows and thatch of black hair at a girl who stood behind, leaning on the back of her mother's chair, and who returned his stare with a look of defiance from her brown eyes.
The girl might have been taken for a sailor boy, as she leaned over the chairback, but for the profusion of her black hair. She wore a blue knitted guernsey covering body and arms, and across the breast, woven in red wool, was the name of the vessel, Gloriana. The guernsey had been knitted for one of the crew of a ship of this name, but had come into the girl's possession. On her head she wore the scarlet woven cap of a boatman.
The one-pane window at the side of the fireplace faced the west, and the evening sun lit her brown gipsy face, burnt in her large eyes, and made coppery lights in her dark hair.
The old woman was shivering with the ague, and shook the chair on which her daughter leaned; every now and then she raised a white faltering hand to wipe the drops of cold sweat away that hung on her eyebrows like rain on thatching.
"I did not ketch the chill here," she said. "I ketched it more than thirty years ago when I was on Mersea Isle, and it has stuck in my marrow ever since. But there is no ague on the Ray. This is the healthiest place in the world, Mehalah has never caught the ague on it. I do not wish ever to leave it, and to lay my bones elsewhere."
"Then you will have to pay your rent punctually," said the man in a dry tone, looking at her daughter.
"Please the Lord so we shall, as we ever have done," answered the woman; " � but when the chill comes on me � "
"Oh, curse the chill," interrupted the man; "who cares for that except perhaps Glory yonder, who has to work for both of you. Is it so, Glory?"
The girl did not answer, but folded her arms on the chairback, and leaned her chin upon them. She seemed like a wary cat watching a threatening dog, and ready to show her claws in desperate battle, not out of malice, but in self-defence.
"Why, but for you sitting there, sweating and jabbering, Glory would not be bound to this place, but would go out and see the world, and taste life. She grows here like a mushroom; she does not live. Is it not so, Glory?"
The girl's face was no longer lit by the declining sun, which had glided further north-west, but the flames of the driftwood flickered in her large eyes that met those of the man, and the cap was still illuminated by the evening glow, a scarlet blaze against the indigo gloom.
"Have you lost your tongue, Glory?" asked the man.
"Why do you not speak, Mehalah?" said the mother, turning her wan wet face aside, to catch a glimpse of her daughter.
"I've answered him fifty times," said the girl.
" No," protested the old woman feebly, "you have not spoken a word to Master Rebow."
"By God, she is right," broke in the man. "The little devil has a tongue in each eye, and she has been telling me with each a thousand times that she hates me. Eh, Glory?"
The girl rose erect, set her teeth, and turned her face aside, and looked out at the little window on the decaying light.
Rebow laughed aloud.
"She hated me before, and now she hates me worse, because I have become her landlord. Mistress Sharland, you will have to pay me the rent. I am your landlord, and Michaelmas is next week."
"The rent shall be paid, Elijah!" said the widow.
"The Ray is mine, " pursued Rebow, swelling with pride. "I have bought it with my own money � eight hundred pounds. All here is mine, the Ray, the marshes, and the saltings, the creeks, the fleets, and the farm. That is mine," said he, striking the wall with his gun, "and that is mine," dashing the butt end against the hearth; "and you are mine, and Glory is mine."
"That never," said the girl stepping forward, and confronting him.
"Eh! Gloriana! have I roused you?" exclaimed Elijah Rebow, with a flash of exultation in his fierce eyes. "I said that the house and the marshes, and the saltings are mine. I have bought them."
"We are your tenants, Elijah," observed the widow nervously interposing. "Do not let Mehalah anger you. She has been reared here in solitude, and she does not know the ways of men. She means nothing by her manner."
"I do," said the girl, "and he knows it."
"She is a headlong child, "pursued the old woman. "Do not mind her, master."
The man paid no heed to the woman's words, but fixed his attention on the girl. Neither spoke. It was as though a war of wills was proclaimed and begun. He sought to beat down her defences with the force from his dark eyes, and she parried it with her pride.
"By God!" he said at last, "I have never seen a girl of your sort. There is none elsewhere. I like you."
"I knew it," said the mother with feeble triumph in her palsied voice, "She is a right good girl at heart."
"I have bought the house and the pasture, and the marshes and the saltings," said Elijah sulkily, "and all that thereon is. You are mine, Glory! Give me your hand."
She remained motionless, with folded arms. He laid his heavy palm on her shoulder.
"Give me your hand; I will help you."
She did not stir.
"The wild fowl that fly here are mine, the fish that swim in the fleets are mine," he went on; "I can shoot and net them."
"The fowl are free for any man to shoot, the fish are free for any man to net," said the girl scornfully.
"That is not my doctrine," answered Elijah. "What is on my soil and in my waters is mine. I may do with them what I will." Returning with doggedness to his point, "As you live in my house and on my land, you are mine."
"Mother," said the girl, "give him notice, and quit the Ray."
"I could not do it, Mehalah," answered the woman. "I've lived all my life on the marshes. This is a healthy spot, and not like the marshes of Dairy House where I ketched the chill."
"You cannot go till you have paid me the rent," said Rebow.
"That," answered Mehalah, " we will do assuredly."
"So you promise, Glory!" said Rebow. "But should you fail to do it, I could take every stick here. I could tear that defiant red cap off your head. I could drive you both out without a cover into the wind and frost. "
"I tell you, we can and we will pay."
"But should you not be able at any time, I warn you what to expect. I've a fancy for that jersey you wear. I'll pull it off and draw it on myself." He ground his teeth.
"I tell you we will pay."
"I will rip the tiling off the roof and fling it down between the rafters, if you refuse to stir. And yet you say, I am not your master."
"I tell you we will pay," repeated the girl passionately, as she wrenched her shoulder from his iron grip.
"You don't belong to me!" jeered Elijah. Slapping the arm of the widow's chair, and pointing over his shoulder at Mehalah, he said scornfully: "She says she does not belong to me, as though she believed it. I've bought the Ray and all that is on it for eight hundred pounds. I saw it on the paper. Lawyers scripture binds as Bible scripture. I will stick to my rights, to every thread and breath of them. She is mine."
"But, Elijah, be reasonable," said the widow, lifting her hand appealingly. The fit of ague was passing away. "We are not slaves to be bought and sold like cattle."
"If you cannot pay the rent, I can take everything from you."
"We will pay him, mother, and then he cannot open his mouth against us." At that moment the door flew open, and two men entered, one young, the other old.
"There