It was after tea and they were all in the parlor; for it was a cool evening, cloudy and occasionally drizzling a little.
Mary had scarcely ceased speaking when a loud peal from the door-bell startled every one. Harold stepped out to the hall to answer it. There stood a tall, broad-shouldered man, who accosted him with, “How do you do, sir? I understand that this is the house occupied by Mrs. Travilla, Captain Raymond, and others.”
“Mrs. Travilla is here; Captain Raymond is not,” returned Harold. “May I inquire what is your errand to either of them?”
“Yes. I understand that they are harboring here a daughter of mine, considerably under age, who ran away from me some months ago. I have come to take possession of her; and let me say I intend to do so, let who will object.”
“She is not here,” answered Harold.
At that the man pushed him suddenly and rudely aside and walked boldly and defiantly into the parlor. Mr. Lilburn instantly rose and faced him. “William McAlpine, what brings you here?” he asked in stern tones.
“Is it you, Ronald Lilburn?” exclaimed the other in astonishment. “I thought you were in auld Scotland and probably under the sod long ere this. And is it you that’s carried off my bairn?”
“I have never seen Mormon land and didna carry her off,” was Mr. Lilburn’s reply in a tone full of scorn and contempt; “but if I’d had the chance I wad hae rescued her at the risk o’ my life from sic a fate as you—unnatural beast o’ a mon that ye are—had prepared for her. You are worse than a heathen, William McAlpine, wi’ your three or four wives; and you broke the heart o’ Marian’s mither, my ain sweet cousin, who demeaned hersel’ to marry you—a mean fellow not fit to wipe the dust from her shoon.”
At that the man turned white with passion and lifted his clinched fist as if about to strike the old gentleman down. But his son Hugh sprang in between them, and at the same instant Edward and Harold sprang forward and each seized an arm of the stalwart stranger, while Herbert and Calhoun showed themselves ready to assist in preventing him from harming their old friend.