Helen shivered. "I can't tolerate that man around," she replied. "Once in a while he comes here to see Deforrest or to sell something, and I can't get him away quickly enough."
"He's a good spy, though. That's all I want. He and the Skinner girl ought to produce that dwarf between them."
"I hope so for your sake, dear," murmured Helen.
Waldstricker took out his watch and glanced at it hurriedly.
"It's time for me to go, sweetheart," said he. "I want to get home before dark. Come as far as the lane with me--do!"
"The twilight is lovely, isn't it?" whispered the girl, when they were traversing the pear orchard.
"Made more lovely because of you," replied Waldstricker, sentimentally.
"How romantic you are tonight, dearest!" Helen laughed.
They had turned slowly up the hill, when suddenly Helen stopped and slipped her hand into Ebenezer's arm.
"There is that old woman you heard read from the fortune pot!" she exclaimed. "Let's step one side until she's passed us? She rarely lets a person go by without speaking."
Waldstricker threw up his head arrogantly.
"I'm not afraid of the hag," he replied pompously.
Together they advanced up the hill. Mother Moll, leaning on her cane, crept slowly down toward them. When her faded, nearsighted eyes caught sight of the two approaching figures, she halted in the middle of the road until they were almost upon her. She stared at Waldstricker fully fifteen seconds, while he looked steadily back at her. Then her withered lips spread wide in a sneering, cackling laugh.
"So he air aready been settin' on yer head an' layin' on yer heart, mister," she greeted him, "the leetle man like this, huh, ain't he?"
She shook her cane at the tall man and clacked at him again. Helen was conscious that at Moll's insults, Ebenezer's anger was rising by the minute. She was herself greatly moved by a kind of superstitious awe of the old woman's cryptic utterances. But seeking to avoid any further unpleasantness, she smiled in a friendly manner and asked,
"How do you do, Mother Moll?"
The hag thrust forward her face and raised one withered arm,
"I air fine, young lady," she screamed, crooking her fingers at the girl, "an' feel finer'n you can do this day, or ye'll ever with him."
She pointed her cane at the scowling, dark-faced man; and slowly bobbed her head back to Helen. "Yer life'll draw out long an' terrible, till ye'll wish ye hadn't never seen 'im. He'll set up a knot hole an' drag ye livin' through it. Then he'll turn yer heart inside out an' haul ye back again."
She paused, while Waldstricker's face grew darker and darker. The frown on his brow roused Helen to action.
"Let's go on, dear," she whispered. "Don't pay any attention to her foolish talk."
"Not yet," returned Waldstricker, ominously. "Not yet!"
Moll laughed discordantly, shaking her head until the wisps of gray hair fell in strings about her face.
"He knows I ain't done tellin' ye what'll happen if ye line yer life with his'n," she croaked. "Lady, he air wicked, awful wicked, an'
nothin' but misery, deep an' plentiful, air a goin' to make him any better. Every one he loves--"
Incoherently, she rambled on and the man's countenance took on an expression of such rage that Helen Young uttered a cry of dismay. She had never seen Ebenezer in one of his savage moods. Before she could draw him away, he had lifted his riding whip and a sudden twist of his arm brought it sharply down on the grandam's thin bent shoulders.
"Ebenezer!" screamed Helen, horrified.
"Drat ye, ye brute!" cried Moll, tottering back, "an' twice drat ye!"
She swayed forward on her cane. "Ye can lick me till I die, an' 'twon't change yer own life any. It'll only add to the sufferin' ye got to go through yerself."
Waldstricker's arm went up again, but Helen grasped it frantically.
"Ebenezer, don't!... Don't strike her any more. Please!... Go home, Mother Moll.... Please go! Oh, do!"
The old woman leaned heavily on her stick, tearless sobs shaking her emaciated frame. For a space of sixty seconds her watery, faded eyes stared into Waldstricker's flashing dark ones--then she drew a long, convulsive breath.
"It air like ye to hit the awful young an' the awful old," she shrilled at him, "but, 'twon't do ye no good. Curls'll bring yer to yer knees, hair'll make yer heart bleed blood redder'n the sun, an' the leetle man'll jerk 'em tight 'bout yer throat till ye thunder out fer mercy."
"Come along," muttered Ebenezer, roughly, to Helen. "If she torments me any more, I fear I'll kill her."
His words were not so low but they caught the quick ear of the old woman.
"Kill me, yep, kill me, ye proud whelp! Go 'long; do it, ye big coward!
Before ye're done with life, ye'll hate yerself worse'n uther folks hate ye."
She hobbled a little distance, reaching backward to rub her shoulders.
Then she twisted completely around, facing the other two.
"Mind my word, pretty miss," she croaked in half grunt, half yelp. "Let 'im go like ye would a snake; like ye would a slimy worm a crawlin' at yer feet." Still snarling in pain, she lifted one shaking arm and pointed a crooked forefinger at Waldstricker. "She won't always stay with ye, ye skunk ye!" Then she staggered away, Helen and Ebenezer staring after her until she was lost in the gloom of the gully.
"Isn't she dreadful?" Ebenezer said, with a rueful laugh.
"She's so old," was Helen's gentle reproof. "She's not accountable for anything. Deforrest says she's very good to the other squatters."
"They're an unseemly mess." The man struck at an overhanging bough savagely. "And your brother has power enough to remove the worst of them if he wanted to. That old hag, for instance--"
"Deforrest wouldn't do it," interjected Helen.
"He may if I make it worth his while," replied Waldstricker. "But there, I was foolish to let 'er get on my nerves so. I beg your pardon, dear.
My only excuse is I dislike to see the laws of God broken in such an iniquitous way. Why, I felt when I struck her the righteous indignation the Master must have felt when he drove the money changers from the temple."
Helen looked at him, startled. She was shocked at his words, as she had been terrified by his act.... A dreadful doubt darted into her mind. Was Mother Moll right? Could she be? Instantly she dismissed the suggestion, condemning herself for paying any attention to the empty vaporings of the half-witted, childish, old woman. She was sorry for Moll, of course, and grieved and hurt because Ebenezer had lost his temper and struck her. But her loving heart excused him. Certainly the provocation had been great. Old Moll was unusually impertinent.
Intent to repair the momentary disloyalty of her doubt, she pressed his arm lovingly.
"There, dear, let's not speak of it again. It's over now and we'll forget all about it."
A little later, when Waldstricker was moodily riding toward Ithaca, Mother Moll's hateful prophecies repeated themselves in his mind.
CHAPTER VIII