Chapter 24

Dan Lowrie's Return

Not a pleasant road to travel at any time--the high road to Riggan, it was certainly at its worst to-night.

Between twelve and one o'clock, the rain which had been pouring down steadily with true English pertinacity for two days, was gradually passing into a drizzle still more unpleasant,--a drizzle that soaked into the already soaked clay, that made the mud more slippery, that penetrated a man's clothing and beat softly but irritatingly against his face, and dripped from his hair and hat down upon his neck, however well he might imagine himself protected by his outside wrappings. But, if he was a common traveller--a rough tramp or laborer, who was not protected from it at all, it could not fail to annoy him still more, and consequently to affect his temper.

At the hour I have named, such a traveller was making his way through the mire and drizzle toward Riggan,--a tramp in mud-splashed corduroy and with the regulation handkerchief bundle tied to the thick stick which he carried over his shoulder.

"Dom th' rain;--dom th' road," he said.

It was not alone the state of the weather that put him out of humor.

"Th' lass," he went on. "Dom her handsome face. Goin' agin a chap--workin' agin him, an' settin' hersen i' his road. Blast me," grinding his teeth--"Blast me if I dunnot ha' it out wi' her!"

So cursing, and alternating his curses with raging silence, he trudged on his way until four o'clock, when he was in sight of the cottage upon the Knoll Road--the cottage where Joan and Liz lay asleep upon their poor bed, with the child between them.

Joan had not been asleep long. The child had been unusually fretful, and had kept her awake. So she was the more easily awakened from her first light and uneasy slumber by a knock on the door. Hearing it, she started up and listened.

"Who is it?" she asked in a voice too low to disturb the sleepers, but distinct enough to reach Lowrie's hearing.

"Get thee up an' oppen th' door," was the answer. "I want thee."

She knew there was something wrong. She had not responded to his summons for so many years without learning what each tone meant But she did not hesitate.

When she had hastily thrown on some clothing, she opened the door and stood before him.

"I did not expect to see yo' to-neet," she said, quietly.

"Happen not," he replied. "Coom out here. I ha' summat to say to yo'."

"Yo' wunnot come in?" she asked.

"Nay. What I ha' to say mowt waken th' young un."

She stepped out without another word, and closed the door quietly behind her.

There was the faintest possible light in the sky, the first tint of dawn, and it showed even to his brutal eyes all the beauty of her face and figure