“Your ears ought to be better than other folks’ at any rate, if you make so little of the chance of being struck blind,” he said, retreating from the door and shading his eyes with his hands as the jagged lightning came again. “What were you going past for, eh?” he added, as he closed the door and led the way along a passage to a room behind.
“We didn’t see the house, sir, till we heard you calling,” Nell replied.
“No wonder,” said the man, “with this lightning in one’s eyes, by the by. You had better stand by the fire here, and dry yourselves a bit. You can call for what you like if you want anything. If you don’t want anything, you’re not obliged to give an order, don’t be afraid of that. This is a public-house, that’s all. The Valiant Soldier is pretty well known hereabouts.”
“Is this house called the Valiant Soldier, sir?” asked Nell.
“I thought everybody knew that,” replied the landlord. “Where have you come from, if you don’t know the Valiant Soldier as well as the church catechism? This is the Valiant Soldier by James Groves—Jem Groves—honest Jem Groves, as is a man of unblemished moral character, and has a good dry skittle ground. If any man has got anything to say again Jem Groves, let him say it to Jem Groves, and Jem Groves can accommodate him with a customer on any terms from four pound a side to forty.”
With these words, the speaker tapped himself on the waistcoat to intimate that he was the Jem Groves so highly eulogized, sparred scientifically at a counterfeit Jem Groves, who was sparring at society in general from a black frame over the chimneypiece, and applying a half-emptied glass of spirits and water to his lips, drank Jem Groves’s health.
The night being warm, there was a large screen drawn across the room, for a barrier against the heat of the fire. It seemed as if somebody on the other side of this screen had been insinuating doubts of Mr. Groves’s prowess, and had thereby given rise to these egotistical expressions, for Mr. Groves wound up his defiance by giving a loud knock upon it with his knuckles and pausing for a reply from the other side.
“There an’t many men,” said Mr. Groves, no answer being returned, “who would ventur’ to cross Jem Groves under his own roof. There’s only one man, I know, that has nerve enough for that, and that man’s not a hundred mile from here neither. But he’s worth a dozen men, and I let him say of me whatever he likes in consequence—he knows that.”
In return for this complimentary address, a very gruff hoarse voice bade Mr. Groves “hold his noise and light a candle.” And the same voice remarked that the same gentleman “needn’t waste his breath in brag, for most people knew pretty well what sort of stuff he was made of.”
“Nell, they’re—they’re playing cards,” whispered the old man, suddenly interested. “Don’t you hear them?”
“Look sharp with that candle,” said the voice; “it’s as much as I can do to see the pips on the cards as it is; and get this shutter closed as quick as you can, will you? Your beer will be the worse for tonight’s thunder I expect.—Game. Seven-and-sixpence to me, old Isaac. Hand over.”
“Do you hear, Nell, do you hear them?” whispered the old man again, with increased earnestness, as the money chinked upon the table.
“I haven’t seen such a storm as this,” said a sharp cracked voice of most disagreeable quality, when a tremendous peal of thunder had died away, “since the night when old Luke Withers won thirteen times running, upon the red. We all said he had the Devil’s luck and his own, and as it was the kind of night for the Devil to be out and busy, I suppose he was looking over his shoulder, if anybody could have seen him.”
“Ah!” returned the gruff voice; “for all old Luke’s winning through thick and thin of late years, I remember the time when he was the unluckiest and unfortunatest of men. He never took a dice-box in his hand, or held a card, but he was plucked, pigeoned, and cleaned out completely.”
“Do you hear what he says?” whispered the old man. “Do you hear that, Nell?”
The child saw with astonishment and alarm that his whole appearance had undergone a complete change. His face was flushed and eager, his eyes were strained, his teeth set, his breath came short and thick, and the hand he laid upon her arm trembled so violently that she shook beneath its grasp.
“Bear witness,” he muttered, looking upward, “that I always said it; that I knew it, dreamed of it, felt it was the truth, and that it must be so! What money have we, Nell? Come, I saw you with money yesterday. What money have we? Give it to me.”
“No, no, let me keep it, grandfather,” said the frightened child. “Let us go away from here. Do not mind the rain. Pray let us go.”
“Give it to me, I say,” returned the old man fiercely. “Hush, hush, don’t cry, Nell. If I spoke sharply, dear, I didn’t mean it. It’s for thy good. I have wronged thee, Nell, but I will right thee yet, I will indeed. Where is the money?”
“Do not take it,” said the child. “Pray do not take it, dear. For both our sakes let me keep it, or let me throw it away—better let me throw it away, than you take it now. Let us go; do let us go.”
“Give me the money,” returned the old man, “I must have it. There—there—that’s my dear Nell. I’ll right thee one day, child, I’ll right thee, never fear!”
She took from her pocket a little purse. He seized it with the
