CHAPTER VIII.
Panic At Dippleford Admiral.
I.
George left Dippleford Admiral that night.
He left at great speed. There was no sadness of farewell. There was no farewell.
Returning at seven o'clock to his sitting-room at the inn, melancholy beneath a hungry and brooding day in the woods with the Rose tethered to a tree by the length of two handkerchiefs, he ordered supper—milk, fish, and chops.
Mrs. Pinner asked him if that would be all. She and 'usband were going to a chapel meeting; the servant girl was out; there would only be a young man in the bar.
George took the news gratefully. His nerves had been upon the stretch all day. It was comforting to think that for a few hours he and this vile cat would have the house to themselves.
Immediately Mrs. Pinner left the room he greedily fell to upon the chops. All day he had eaten nothing: the Rose must wait. Three parts of a tankard of ale was sliding at a long and delectable draught down upon his meal when the slam of a door, footsteps and a bawling voice in the yard told him that Mrs. Pinner and 'usband had started, chatting pleasantly, for their chapel meeting.
The dish cleared, George arranged his prisoner's supper; stepped to the basket to fetch her to it. As he lifted her splendid form there came from behind him an exclamation, an agitated scuffling.
In heart-stopping panic George dropped the cat, jumped around. The red-headed Pinner boy, whom that morning he had seen in the bar-parlour, was scrambling from beneath the sofa, arms and legs thrusting his flaming pate at full-speed for the door.
“Stop!” George cried, rooted in alarm.
The red-headed Pinner boy got to Ms feet, hurled himself at the door handle.
“Stop!” roared George, struggling with the stupefaction that gripped him. “Stop, you young devil!”
The red-headed Pinner boy twisted the handle; was half through the door as George bounded for him.
“Par-par!” screamed the flaming head, travelling at immense speed down the passage. “Par-par! It ain't a hairship. It's a cat!”
George dashed.
“Par-par! Par-par! It's a cat!” The redheaded Pinner boy took the first short flight of stairs in a jump; rounded for the second.
George lunged over the banisters; gripped close in the flaming hair; held fast.
For a full minute in silence they poised—red-headed Pinner boy, on tip-toe as much as possible to ease the pain, in acute agony and great fear; George wildly seeking the plan that must be followed when he should release this fateful head.
Presently, with a backward pull that most horribly twisted the red-headed face: “If you speak a word I'll pull your head off,” George said. “Come up here.”
The pitiful procession reached the sitting-room. “Sit down there,” George commanded. “If you make a sound I shall probably cut your head clean off. What do you mean by hiding in my room?”
Between gusty pain and terror: “I thought it was a hairship.”
“Oh!” George paced the room. What did the vile boy think now? “Oh, well, what do you think it is now?”
“I believe it's the cat wot's in the piper.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” Yes, this was a very horrible position indeed. “Oh, you do, do you? Now, you listen to me, my lad: unless you want your head cut right off you sit still without a sound.”
The red-headed Pinner boy sat quite still; wept softly. Life, at the moment, was a bitter affair for this boy.