CHAPTER VI

MASTER AND MAN

The two men, left alone, turned each toward the interior of the store, and their eyes met.  Alike in gray eyes and in dark blue there was laughter.  “Kittle folk, the Quakers,” said the storekeeper, with a shrug, and went to put away his case of pins and needles.  Haward, going to the end of the store, found a row of dusty bottles, and breaking the neck of one with a report like that of a pistol set the Madeira to his lips, and therewith quenched his thirst.  The wine cellar abutted upon the library.  Taking off his riding glove he ran his finger along the bindings, and plucking forth The History of a Coy Lady looked at the first page, read the last paragraph, and finally thrust the thin brown and gilt volume into his pocket.  Turning, he found himself face to face with the storekeeper.

“I have not the honor of knowing your name, sir,” remarked the latter dryly.  “Do you buy at this store, and upon whose account?”

Haward shook his head, and applied himself again to the Madeira.

“Then you carry with you coin of the realm with which to settle?” continued the other.  “The wine is two shillings; the book you may have for twelve-pence.”

“Here I need not pay, good fellow,” said Haward negligently, his eyes upon a row of dangling objects.  “Fetch me down yonder cane; ’t is as delicately tapered and clouded as any at the Exchange.”

“Pay me first for the wine and the book,” answered the man composedly.  “It’s a dirty business enough, God knows, for a gentleman to put finger to; but since needs must when the devil drives, and he has driven me here, why, I, Angus MacLean, who have no concerns of my own, must e’en be faithful to the concerns of another.  Wherefore put down the silver you owe the Sassenach whose wine you have drunken and whose book you have taken.”

“And if I do not choose to pay?” asked Haward, with a smile.

“Then you must e’en choose to fight,” was the cool reply.  “And as I observe that you wear neither sword nor pistols, and as jack boots and a fine tight-buttoned riding coat are not the easiest clothes to wrestle in, it appears just possible that I might win the cause.”

“And when you’ve thrown me, what then?”

“Oh, I would just draw a rope around you and yonder cask of Jamaica, and leave you to read your stolen book in peace until Saunderson (that’s the overseer, and he’s none so bad if he was born in Fife) shall come.  You can have it out with him; or maybe he’ll hale you before the man that owns the store.  I hear they expect him home.”

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?”