"Hurt! not half so much as he deserves to be," answered the man, roughly. "Why, that horse may be laid up for a month; besides, at his best, there isn't a day's farm-work under his shining hide. The lad cheated us in the buying of him, a hunter past his prime--that is what has been put upon me, and serves me right for trusting him."

"But you will not tell me, is our Richard hurt?" cried the woman, in a voice naturally mild, but now sharp with anxiety.

"Hurt! not he. Only made a laughing-stock for the grooms and whippers-in who saw him cast head over heels into a ditch, and farther on in the day trudging home afoot."

The woman fell back in her chair with a deep sigh of relief.

"Then he was not hurt. Oh, father! why could ye not tell me this at first?"

"Because ye are aye so foolish o'er the lad, cosseting a strapping grown-up loon as if he was a baby; that is what'll be his ruin in the end."

"He is our only son," pleaded the mother.

"Aye, and thankful I am that we have no more of the same kind."

"Oh, father!"

"There, there; don't anger me, woman. The things I heard down yonder have put me about more than a bit. The lad will be coming home, and a good sound rating he shall have."

Here farmer Storms thrust his feet still farther out on the hearth, and sat watching the fire with a sullen frown growing darker and darker on his face.

As the time wore on, Mrs. Storms saw that he became more and more irritated. His hands worked restlessly in his pockets, and, from time to time, he cast dark looks at the door.

These signs of ill humor made the woman anxious.

"It is going on to twelve," she said, looking at the brazen face of an old upright clock that stood in a corner of the kitchen. "I am tired."

"What keeps ye from bed, then? As for me, I'll not quit this chair till d.i.c.k comes home."

Mrs. Storms drew back into her chair and folded both hands on her lap.

She was evidently afraid that her husband and son should meet while the former was in that state of mind.

"I wonder where he is stopping," she said, unconsciously speaking aloud.

"At the public. Where else can he harbor at this time of night? When d.i.c.k is missing one is safe to look for him there."

"It may be that he has stopped in at Jessup's. I am sure that pretty Ruth could draw him from the public any day."

"But it'll not be long, as things are going, before Jessup 'll forbid him the house. The girl has high thoughts of herself, with all her soft ways, and will have a good bit of money when her G.o.d-mother dies and the old gardener has done with his. If d.i.c.k goes on at this pace some one else will be sure to step in, and there isn't such another match for him in the whole county."

"But he may be coming from the gardener's cottage now," suggested the mother. "Young men do not always give it out at home when they visit their sweethearts. You remember--"

Here a smile, full of pleasant memories, softened the old man's face, and his hard hand stole into his wife's lap, searching shyly for hers.

"Maybe I do forget them times more than I ought, wife; but no one can say I ever went by your house to spend a night at the ale-house--now, can they?"

"But d.i.c.k may not do it either," pleaded the mother.

"I tell you, wife, there is no use blinding ourselves: the young man spends half his time treating the lazy fellows of the neighborhood, for no one else has so much money."

The old lady sighed heavily.

"Worse than that! he joins in all the low sports of the place. Why, he is training rat-terriers in the stable and game-chickens in the barnyard. I caught him fighting them this very morning."

"Oh, John!" exclaimed the woman, ready to accuse any one rather than her only child; "if you had only listened to me when we took him out of school, and given him a bit more learning."

"He's got more learning by half than I ever had," answered the old man, moodily.

"But you had your way to make and no time for much study; but we are well-to-do in the world, and our son need not work the farm like us."

"I don't know but you are right, old woman. d.i.c.k never will make a good farm-hand. He wants to be master or nothing."

"Hark--he is coming!" answered the wife, brightening up and laying her hand on the old man's arm.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SON'S RETURN.

When Richard Storms entered his father's house that night it was with the air of a man who had some just cause of offence against the old people who had been so long waiting for him. His sharp and rather handsome features were clouded with temper as he pushed open the kitchen door and held it while two ugly dogs crowded in, and his first words were insolently aggressive.

"What! up yet, sulking over the fire and waiting for a row, are you?

Well, have it out; one of the men told me that brute of a horse had got home with his leg twisted. I wish it had been his neck. Now, what have you got to say about it?"

The elder Storms started up angrily, but his wife laid a hand on his shoulder and besought silence with her beseeching eyes. Then she was about to approach the young man, but one of the dogs snapped fiercely at her, and when the son kicked him, retreated, grinding a piece of her dress in his teeth.

"You had better take care, mother! The landlord of the 'Two Ravens'

has had him in training. He's been in a grand fight over yonder, and killed more rats than you'd want to count. That makes him savage, you know."

Mrs. Storms shrunk away from the danger, and in great terror crouched down by the oaken chair from which her husband had risen. The old man started forward, but before he could shake off the hold of his wife, who seized his garments in a spasm of distress, Richard had kicked both dogs through the door.

"Take that for your impudence," he said, fiercely. "To the kennel with you! it's the only place for such curs. Mother, mother, I say, get up; the whelps are gone. I didn't expect to find you out of bed, or they shouldn't have come in."

Mrs. Storms stood up, still shaking with fear, while Richard dropped into his father's chair and stretched his limbs out upon the hearth.

The old man took another seat, frowning darkly.

"We have been talking about you--father and I," said the old woman, with a quiver of the pa.s.sing fright in her voice.

"No good, I'll be sworn, if the old man had a hand in it," answered the son.

"You are wrong," said the mother, pressing her hand on the young man's shoulder. "No father ever thought more of a son, if you would only do something to please him now and then. He was speaking just now of letting you have more charge of the place."

"Well, that will come when I am my own master."

"That is, when I am dead!" broke in the old man, with bitter emphasis.