"I always am!" said Wildeve angrily.And shaking the glowworms from the leaf he ranged them with a trembling hand in a circle on the stone, leaving a space in the middle for the descent of the dice-box, over which the thirteen tiny lamps threw a pale phosphoric shine.The game was again renewed.It happened to be that season of the year at which glowworms put forth their greatest brilliancy, and the light they yielded was more than ample for the purpose, since it is possible on such nights to read the handwriting of a letter by the light of two or three.
The incongruity between the men's deeds and their environment was great.Amid the soft juicy vegetation of the hollow in which they sat, the motionless and the uninhabited solitude, intruded the chink of guineas, the rattle of dice, the exclamations of the reckless players.
Wildeve had lifted the box as soon as the lights were obtained, and the solitary die proclaimed that the game was still against him.
"I won't play any more--you've been tampering with the dice,"he shouted.
"How--when they were your own?" said the reddleman.
"We'll change the game: the lowest point shall win the stake--it may cut off my ill luck.Do you refuse?""No--go on," said Venn.
"O, there they are again--damn them!" cried Wildeve, looking up.The heath-croppers had returned noiselessly, and were looking on with erect heads just as before, their timid eyes fixed upon the scene, as if they were wondering what mankind and candlelight could have to do in these haunts at this untoward hour.
"What a plague those creatures are--staring at me so!"he said, and flung a stone, which scattered them;when the game was continued as before.
Wildeve had now ten guineas left; and each laid five.
Wildeve threw three points; Venn two, and raked in the coins.
The other seized the die, and clenched his teeth upon it in sheer rage, as if he would bite it in pieces.
"Never give in--here are my last five!" he cried, throwing them down.
"Hang the glowworms--they are going out.Why don't you burn, you little fools? Stir them up with a thorn."He probed the glowworms with a bit of stick, and rolled them over, till the bright side of their tails was upwards.
"There's light enough.Throw on," said Venn.
Wildeve brought down the box within the shining circle and looked eagerly.He had thrown ace."Well done!--Isaid it would turn, and it has turned." Venn said nothing;but his hand shook slightly.
He threw ace also.
"O!" said Wildeve."Curse me!"
The die smacked the stone a second time.It was ace again.
Venn looked gloomy, threw--the die was seen to be lying in two pieces, the cleft sides uppermost.
"I've thrown nothing at all," he said.
"Serves me right--I split the die with my teeth.
Here--take your money.Blank is less than one.""I don't wish it."
"Take it, I say--you've won it!" And Wildeve threw the stakes against the reddleman's chest.Venn gathered them up, arose, and withdrew from the hollow, Wildeve sitting stupefied.
When he had come to himself he also arose, and, with the extinguished lantern in his hand, went towards the highroad.
On reaching it he stood still.The silence of night pervaded the whole heath except in one direction; and that was towards Mistover.There he could hear the noise of light wheels, and presently saw two carriagelamps descending the hill.Wildeve screened himself under a bush and waited.
