“Dead Man’s Lane,—that’s where I live. It’s easily enough found; and so is the police-station in Yeoborough,—as you and your damned kidnappers shall discover before you’ve done with me!”
Uttering these words in a voice so menacing that the old man shook like an aspen-leaf, Mr. Quincunx took the girl by the hand, and, ascending the grassy slope, walked off with her across the field.
Old Flick seemed reduced to a condition bordering upon imbecility. He staggered up out of that unpropitious hollow, and stood stock-still, like one petrified, until they were out of sight. Then, very slowly and mumbling incoherently to himself, he made his way back towards the village.
He did not even turn his head as he passed Mr. Quincunx’s cottage. Indeed, it is extremely doubtful how far he had recognized him as the person they encountered on their way, and still more doubtful how far he had heard or understood, when the tenant of Dead Man’s Lane indicated the place of his abode.
The sudden transformation of the timid recluse into a formidable man of action did not end with his triumphant retirement to his familiar domain. Some mysterious fibre in his complicated temperament had been struck, and continued to be struck, by the little Dolores, which not only rendered him indifferent to personal danger, but willing and happy to encounter it.
The event only added one more proof to the sage dictum of the Chinese philosopher,—that you can never tell of what a man is capable until he is stone-dead.