444
WYLDER'S HAJVD.
again, as it seemed, very amicably. Captain Lake seemed
to have most to say.
"He's awful cowed, he is; I never did think to see Mr.
Wylder so affeard of Lake; he is affeard, yes he is —
that he is."
And indeed there was an indescribable air of subservi-
ence in the demeanor of the square-built gentleman very
different from what Mark Wylder once showed.
He saw the Captain take from the pocket of his paletot
a square box or packet, it might be jewels or only papers,
and hand them to his companion, who popped them into
his left-hand surtout pocket, and kept his hand there as
if the freightage were specially valuable.
Then they talked earnestly a little longer, standing to-
gether by the pond; and then, side-by-side, they paced
down the broad walk by its edge. It was a long walk.
Honest Larcom would have followed if there had been any
sort of cover to hide his advance; but there being nothing
of the kind he was fain to abide at his corner. Thence
he beheld them come at last slowly to a stand-still, talk
evidently a little more, and finally they shook hands — an
indefinable something still of superiority in Lake's air —
and parted.
The Captain was now all at once walking at a swift
pace, alone, towards Larcom's post of observation, and his
secret confederate nearly as rapidly in an opposite direc-
tion. It would not do for the butler to be taken or even
seen by Lake, nor yet to be left at the outside of the door
and barred out. So the Captain had hardly commenced
his homeward walk, when Larcom, though no great runner,
threw himself into an agitated amble, and reached and
entered the little door just in time to escape observation.
He had not been two minutes in his apartment again when
he once moro beheld the figure of his master cross the