“I'm sure I'm much obliged to you, sir,” Madelon said, and got her hood and cloak from the back of the gallery with no more parley.
The young man cast admiring glances after her as she went out, with her young brother at her heels.
“I'm going home with you,” Richard said to her as they went down the gallery stairs.
“Not a step,” said she. “You've just been after the fiddle, and they're going to dance the Fisher's Hornpipe next.”
“You'll be afraid in that lonesome stretch after you leave the village.”
“Afraid!” There was a ring of despairing scorn in the girl's voice, as if she faced already such woe that the supposition of new terror was an absurdity.
They had come down to the ball-room floor, and were standing directly in front of the musicians' gallery. The young fiddler, Jim Otis, leaned over and looked at them.
“I don't care,” said Richard, “I won't let you go alone unless you take my knife.”
Madelon laughed. “What nonsense!” said she, and tried to pass her brother.
But Richard held her by the arm while he rummaged in his pocket for the great clasp-knife which he had earned himself by the sale of some rabbit-skins, and which was the pride of his heart and his dearest treasure, and opened it. “Here,” said he, and he forced the clasp-knife into his sister's hand. Otis, leaning over the gallery, saw it all. Many of the dancers had gone to supper; there was no other person very near them. “If you should meet a bear, you could kill him with that knife—it's so strong,” said the boy. “If you don't take it I'll go home with you, and it's so late father won't let me come out again to-night.”