“Well, sir, I’ll tell you just as it befel, and, if you don’t believe me, it’ll not be my fault, nor yet I’ll not be blamin’ ye. I thought strange of those two youngsters, coming all by their two selves that way; and, after Miss Stewart took them up-stairs, I went out on the steps and looked up and down the street a couple o’ times. ‘It might be like this,’ says I to myself, ‘that somebody wanted to get shut on ’em,’ I says, ‘and has turned ’em over, poor dumb things, where they’ll be taken care of, and now stealin’ off wid himself!’ I says. And that minute, if I didn’t catch sight of a feller skulkin’ behind the corner, and eyein’ me round it, for all the world like a sneakin’ spy, Miss Stewart, ma’am. I’ll not deceive you, sir, that I didn’t like the look of him at all. If he’d been a common mortal man, like you and me, sir, and no offence, I’d ha’ had him out o’ that by the collar before he could wink, and asked his business. But he was an on’arthly piece; I don’t know what he was like, at all; but his face was all patches, and his mouth the whole way round it, so it was; and the way he looked out of his two eyes,—well! I thought I’d be goin’ in, whether he was a man or a pixy, the way we see thim in Ireland. But I couldn’t turn round, till he was up on the steps, and had me by the collar, and the two eyes of him gogglin’ in my face, fit to turn me to stone. And he put his face up close to mine, that never was near such an ugly thing before, God be good to me! and he says, and it half a whisper and half a yell,—
“‘You’ll take care of that young lady!’ he says. ‘Are you the boss here?’ and me no chance to answer, wid his hand in the neck of me, and me voice choked in me throat,—‘You’ll take care of that young lady!’ he says, ‘I want you to know,’ he says, ‘that she’s not alone, that young lady ain’t. There’s them as is watchin’ over her, and that’ll know if she ain’t treated good. And if they find out she ain’t, see here! I’ll come here myself, and I’ll wring your neck!’ he says. ‘I could do it as easy as I would a chicken’s, and ’twould be nothing but a pleasure. So now you know. That young lady’s name is Heron: Isly Heron her name is, and she’s wuth more money than there is in your city and Noo York wropped together! I know Herons, and you’d better know ’em too, and treat ’em as is right and proper. And my name’s Brazybone, and don’t you forget the sound of it; Brazybone, do ye hear? And when Heron’s near, just you be sure Brazybone ain’t fur off! You be sure of that, and mind your lobster-pots! That’s what I say to you!’
“And then, Mr. Upton, he give my collar a twist, sir, as near broke my neck, it did; and shook his fist in my face, and put his own ugly mug right up, grinnin’ at me till I thought the eyes would rowl out of his head. And then dropped me, and goes shamblin’ off round the corner. There! Now I’ve told it, Miss Stewart, and don’t ask me to tell it again no more, for the chills go down my back, they do, when I think of it.”
James was soothed and dismissed, and went off, muttering, to his den.
“It is true that he was terribly frightened, poor fellow,” said Miss Stewart, laughing. “We found him as white as a sheet, and for a long time he would not say a word about what had happened. Indeed, I have never heard the whole of it before. Do you think the man was a lunatic?”
“Perhaps; or perhaps some Caliban of an islander, who had been sent to guard the two children. My curiosity is thoroughly roused about them, I confess. Can I have a peep at them before I go, or are they already in bed?”
Miss Stewart led the way up-stairs.
“We have given them a room together,” she said apologetically. “It is hardly according to rules, but they have never been separated in their lives, and it seemed so terrible a thing to them, that we thought we might strain a point, and let them be together for a while, till they grew accustomed to the new surroundings. There was a vacant room, which was not in use.”
The trustee nodded. “I like india-rubber in my cast-iron, too!” he said, sympathetically. “It wears much better.”
They went silently up the second flight. At the landing, Miss Stewart paused, and beckoned to her companion to come up; unconsciously she put her finger to her lips, which was absurd, if there were none but deaf children near by. The trustee came up, and looked over her shoulder.