The Vast Abyss

“Wish I’d a stick,” thought the boy, as the viper now slowly raised its head; a couple of coils were in motion, and for the moment it seemed about to glide away, but the head sank again, and once more the little creature lay perfectly still.

“They’re dangerous things, and the bite is very painful,” thought Tom; but he did not stir to get a stick to kill the reptile, for he was interested in its peculiar form, and the dark, velvety markings along its body, which glistened in the sun.

And there he stood, peering over into the little opening, in profound unconsciousness that he was being silently stalked, till, just as he had made up his mind to go to the nearest fir-tree and cut a stick, in the hope of finding the adder still there on his return, there was a sharp snuffling sound.

Tom started round, to find Pete’s ill-looking dog close at hand, but ready to spring away over the bushes as if expecting a blow.

Tom’s next glance showed him the disturbed viper, with its head raised, eyes glittering as if filled with fire, and its body all in motion. Then it was gone; but another pair of eyes were gazing into his, for Pete Warboys slowly raised himself from where he had crawled to the other side of the furze clump.

Chapter Thirty Four

“Hulloo!” said Pete, with a sneering grin; “got you then, have I? Who gave you leave to come and pick them?”

“Hulloo, Pete!” said Tom quietly, ignoring the question, for the recollection of his thoughts during the past few days came up strongly, and all that the Vicar, his uncle, and David had said.

“Who are you a hulloo Peteing?” snarled the fellow. “Yer ain’t got no guns now to go shooting at people.”

“What nonsense!” said Tom; “that wasn’t a gun – it was an explosion.”

“Yer needn’t tell me; I know,” said Pete, edging round slowly to Tom’s side of the bush.

“I don’t believe you were half so much hurt as I was,” continued Tom.

“Serve yer right. Yer’d no business to shoot at a fellow.”

“I didn’t,” cried Tom. “Don’t I tell you it wasn’t a gun?”

“Oh, yer can’t cheat me. Here! hi! Kerm here, will yer, or I’ll scruntch yer!” he roared to his dog. “Leave that ’ere rarebut alone. Want him to go sneaking an’ telling the perlice, and purtendin’ it was me.”

The dog gave up chasing an unfortunate rabbit through the bushes, and came trotting up, with hanging head and tail, to his master’s side, where he crouched down panting and flinching as Pete raised his hand and made believe to strike.

“I’ll half smash yer if yer don’t mind,” he snarled.

Then, turning to Tom —

“What yer got there – blackb’rys and mash-eroons?”

“Yes; there are plenty about,” replied Tom.

“Know that better than you do.”

“I dare say you do,” said Tom good-humouredly, as he watched the unpleasant looks directed at him, the fellow’s whole aspect being such as we read was assumed by the wolf who sought an excuse for eating the lamb.

All the same, though, Tom’s aspect partook more of the good-humoured bulldog than that of the lamb; though Pete kept to his character well, and more and more showed that he was working himself up for a quarrel.

“Yah!” he exclaimed suddenly, after edging himself up pretty closely, and with his hands still in his pockets, thrusting out his lower jaw, and leaning forward stared over his raised shoulder at Tom. “Yah! I feel as if I could half smash yer!”

“Do you?” said Tom quietly.

“Yes, I do. Don’t you get a-mocking me. Ain’t yer feared?”

“No,” said Tom quietly, “not a bit. Have sixpence?”

Pete stared, and leaned over out of the perpendicular, so as to get his face closer to Tom’s. “Whort say?”

“Will you have sixpence?” said Tom, thrusting his right hand into his pocket, and withdrawing the above coin.

“Yerse; ’course I will,” cried Pete, snatching the piece, spitting on it, and thrusting it into his pocket. “Thought your sort allus telled the truth.”

“Well, so we do,” said Tom, smiling.

“None o’ yer lies now, ’cause it won’t do with me,” said the fellow menacingly. “Yer said yer warn’t afeard, and yer are. All in a funk, that’s what yer are: so now then.”

“No, I’m not,” said Tom, in the coolest way possible, for he had made up his mind to try and carry out the Vicar’s plan.

“I tell yer yer are. What yer got here? Yer wouldn’t ha’ give me sixpence to let yer alone if yer hadn’t been afeard. What yer got here, I say?”

“You can see,” said Tom, without showing the slightest resentment at the handle of his basket being seized, even though Pete, in perfect assurance that he was frightening his enemy into fits, grew more and more aggressive.

“Yes, I can see,” cried Pete. “I’ve got eyes in my head, same as you chaps as come from London, and think yerselves so precious sharp. Yer’ve no right to come down and pick what’s meant for poor people. Give ’em here.”

He wrenched the basket from Tom’s arm, and scattered its contents away amongst the furze-bushes, sending the basket after them.

“There, that’s what you’ll get if yer comes picking and stealing here. How d’yer like that, young blunt ’un?”

“Not at all,” said Tom, who looked very white, and felt a peculiar tingling about the corners of his lips and in his temples.

“Course yer don’t; but yer’ve got to like it, and so I tell yer. Smell that.”

He placed his fist within an inch of Tom’s nose, and the boy could not help smelling it, for it was strong of pulling onions, or peeling them with his nails.

“Now, then, how much money have yer got with yer?”

“Only another sixpence,” said Tom a little huskily.

“Hand it over, then, and look sharp about it, ’fore it’s the worse for yer.”

He caught hold of Tom’s jacket as he spoke, and gave it a shake, making his dog sidle up and growl, “Hear that? You give me more of yer sarce, and I’ll set the dorg at you, and see how yer like that. Now, then, where’s that sixpence?”

“I’ll give it to you if you’ll leave go,” said Tom quietly. “Look here, Pete, I don’t want to quarrel with you.”

“That yer don’t. I should like to see you. Give it here.”

“I want to be friends with you, and try to do something for you.”

“Yes, I knows you do. You’ve got to bring me a shillin’ every week, or else I’ll give it yer, so as you’d wish yer’d never been born. I’ll larn yer. Give me that sixpence.”

“Leave go first.”