"Not now, Richard, not now," she said, eagerly. "He alluded to your father, Sir Richard Conway; but the very allusion drove me half wild; and I am afraid that I showed myself such a dragon that you would never wish to marry me, if you had seen me then." I took up the papers, and tore them into a thousand pieces, and then said, with as big a look as I could put on--I can hardly think of it without smiling--"Leave the room, sirs! and do not venture to come back again!" The old man got up and drew back; but the younger kept his chair, saying coldly,--
"The papers are soon re-written; and, though sorry to prevent you from sleeping, we shall bring them back in about a quarter of an hour."
"Then mark me, Mr. Robert Thornton," I answered, taking out the pistol; "the first man who attempts to intrude into this room again, I will shoot before his foot crosses the threshold, and these fragments will show the reason why. Leave the room, sirs, instantly." They did leave the room--the elder gentleman with a considerable degree of trepidation. But, my dear Richard, I was a mere bully all the time; and although, I am sure, I looked twice as tall as I really am, and talked twice as loud as I ever did in my life before, I was frightened out of my wits all the time. The next unpleasant thing was to hear them lock the door; but, thank Heaven, there was a great bolt in the inside; and if they kept me in, I was determined to keep them out, or I believed that help must come soon, as too many people knew that I was there for concealment to be long kept up. I need not tell you all the little incidents of that night. I would let nobody into the room but the servant-girl, and made quite sure that only one step had come up the stairs, before I would open the door to her. But the discomforts of that evening were nothing to the horrors of the next morning. What the hour was, I do not know; for my watch was left behind at poor Mr. Stringer's; but I suppose it must have been about nine or ten o'clock; when, seated behind the blind at the open window, I saw five or six negro-men coming up towards the house. When they came near, I recognized several of them at once as poor Aunt Bab's servants, and I saw a great tall man, whom I knew very well, come forward and knock at the door, after which he retreated five or six steps from the house; and I heard old William Thornton's voice speaking to him out of a window on the same floor as the room in which I was.
"Go away, go away this instant," cried the old man; "go away, or I'll shoot you. Not one of you ruffians shall get into my house. Here, Pat Macrea, bring me my gun, and get your own. Bob, Bob," he continued, calling across the passage; "here are a whole heap of the Beavors niggers come to rescue her."
"Fire into them--fire into them!" cried my worthy Cousin Robert, with an oath. "You can say you thought they came to attack the house. I'll be with you in a minute." You may judge how terrified I was, Richard; but, putting my head out, I saw old Mr. Thornton and one of his Irishmen leaning forth from two of the windows with guns in their hands. Just at the same moment, poor Hercules exclaimed,--
"For Heaven's sake, don't shoot us, Mas'r Thornton! We only want to speak with Miss Bessy."
"Go along!" cried the old man. "She's not here, I tell you."
"Why I see her there now," cried the negro. At the same moment, Robert Thornton came to the window, crying,--
"March off, you scoundrels!" Then, adding something in a low voice to his father, he put a gun to his shoulder.
"For shame, Mr. Thornton--for shame!" I cried, as loud as I could speak. But it had no effect. All the guns went off almost together, and three of the poor negroes fell. Two started up again immediately; but poor Hercules remained upon the ground till the rest carried him off. I thought I should have fainted; and the dreadful deed they had done seemed to have awed and terrified the other people in the house. I heard them talking loudly and eagerly; and, from fragments of their conversation which I caught, I easily comprehended that what terrified them most was the fact of my having witnessed their proceedings.