Audrey

Haward laughed, and abstracting another bottle from the shelf broke its

neck. "Hand me yonder cup," he said easily, "and we'll drink to his

home-coming. Good fellow, I am Mr. Marmaduke Haward, and I am glad to find

so honest a man in a place of no small trust. Long absence and somewhat

too complaisant a reference of all my Virginian affairs to my agent have

kept me much in ignorance of the economy of my plantation. How long have

you been my storekeeper?"

Neither cup for the wine nor answer to the question being forthcoming,

Haward looked up from his broken bottle. The man was standing with his

body bent forward and his hand pressed against the wood of a great cask

behind him until the finger-nails showed white. His head was high, his

face dark red and angry, his brows drawn down until the gleaming eyes

beneath were like pin points.

So sudden and so sinister was the change that Haward was startled. The

hour was late, the place deserted; as the man had discovered, he had no

weapons, nor, strong, active, and practiced as he was, did he flatter

himself that he could withstand the length of brawn and sinew before him.

Involuntarily, he stepped backward until there was a space between them,

casting at the same moment a glance toward the wall where hung axe and

knife and hatchet.

The man intercepted the look, and broke into a laugh. The sound was harsh

and gibing, but not menacing. "You need not be afraid," he said. "I do not

want the feel of a rope around my neck,--though God knows why I should

care! Here is no clansman of mine, and no cursed Campbell either, to see

my end!"

"I am not afraid," Haward answered calmly. Walking to the shelf that held

an array of drinking vessels, he took two cups, filled them with wine, and

going back to his former station, set one upon the cask beside the

storekeeper. "The wine is good," he said. "Will you drink?"

The other loosened the clasp of his hand upon the wood and drew himself

upright. "I eat the bread and drink the water which you give your

servants," he answered, speaking with the thickness of hardly restrained

passion. "The wine cup goes from equal to equal."

As he spoke he took up the peace offering, eyed it for a moment with a

bitter smile, then flung it with force over his shoulder. The earthen

floor drank the wine; the china shivered into a thousand fragments. "I

have neither silver nor tobacco with which to pay for my pleasure,"

continued the still smiling storekeeper. "When I am come to the end of my

term, then, an it please you, I will serve out the damage."