“I tell you I want more money than that,” said the man in a hoarse, terrible voice. “I want enough money to keep me for the rest of my days. Do you think I like to sleep on the ground and eat bread and water? I tell you I want my rights. Why should you be rich and me poor? Why should you be dressed in silks while my wife wears rags?”
As he raved, he jerked his hand away from the woman, almost throwing her forward in his violence, and gesticulated wildly.
The two girls were both very pale and calm, but the poor tramp woman was crying bitterly.
Barbara’s lips were moving, but she said nothing, and only Mollie knew it was her mother’s prayer she was repeating.
“Don’t be frightened, young ladies,” sobbed the woman, “I will see that no harm comes to you, even if he kills me.”
“Do you call this a free country,” continued the tramp, “when there are thousands of people like me who have no houses and must beg for food? I would like to kill all the rich men in this country and turn their children loose to beg and steal, as we must do to get a living! Do you think I would ever have come to this pass if a rich man had not brought me to it? Do you think I was always a tramp like this, and my wife yonder a tramp, too?”
At this point the drunken wretch began to cry, but he still held the two girls tightly by the wrists.
“I tell you I’ll take a ransom for you and nothing less. I’ll get out of the world all it’s taken from me, and your father will have to do the paying. Come on!” he cried in a tone of command, to his trembling wife.
At this critical moment Miss Stuart and the motor cyclist came running to the scene.
There was a look of immense relief on Miss Sallie’s face when she saw the courteous stranger at her heels. She had been about to speak, but was silent.