Mrs. Stangrove, poor lady, had been keeping close with the older children, flattering herself that this precious infant, then taking the air in his nurse’s arms, was safe from the marauders. She was speedily undeceived by the piercing cry which reached her ears, as the affrighted babe, just old enough to “take notice” of the stranger, proclaimed distrust of his awkward, though not unkind, dandling.
Rushing in with frantic eagerness, and the “wrathful dove” expression which the gentlest maternal creature assumes at any “intromitting” with her young, as old Dugald Dalgetty phrases it, Mrs. Stangrove suddenly confronted the audacious intruder, and, seizing the child, tore it out of his arms with so deft a promptitude that the delinquent had no time for resistance. Looking half startled, half sullen, he stood in the same position for a moment, with so ludicrous an expression of defeat and mortification that his companions burst into a fit of unrestrained laughter, while Mrs. Stangrove, in the reaction from her unaccustomed ferocity, clasped the child to her bosom in a paroxysm of tears.
“This here’s all very well,” said Redcap, “but we didn’t come for foolery. If these rifles ain’t turned up in five minutes you’ll be sorry for it. If some of ’em gets to the brandy, Miss,” here he lowered his voice and looked significantly at Maud, “there’s no saying what will happen. Better deal with us while we’re in a good temper.”
Maud believed that the coveted weapons were somewhere upon the premises, although she had spoken truly at the first demand when she averred that she was ignorant of their precise locality. She was aware that a moment might change the mood of the robbers from one of amused toleration to that of reckless brutality. Not wholly ignorant of the terrible legends, still whispered low and with bated breath, of wrongs irrevocable suffered by defenceless households, her resolution was quickly taken.
“Jane,” she said to Mrs. Stangrove, who, helpless and unnerved, was still sobbing hysterically, “if you know where these guns are tell me at once, and I will go for them. It can’t be helped. These men have behaved fairly, and as we can neither fight nor run away, we must give up our money-bags, or what they consider an equivalent. Where are the rifles?”
“Oh, what will Mark say?” moaned out the distracted wife. “If he were only here I should not care. And yet, perhaps, it’s better as it is. If they do not hurt the dear children I don’t care what they take. You know best. The rifles are in Mark’s dressing-room, in the shower-bath.”
Maud went out, and presently reappeared with the beautiful American repeaters, one of which had the desirable peculiarity of being able to discharge sixteen cartridges in as many seconds, if needful; the other was a light and extremely handy Snider—“a tarnation smart shooting-iron,” as one of the station hands, who hailed from the Great Republic, had admiringly expressed himself.
Redcap’s eyes glistened as he possessed himself of the “sixteen-shooter,” and handed the Snider to the Doctor.
“All’s well that ends well,” growled that worthy, “we’ll be a match for all the blessed traps between here and Sydney with these here tools; but for two pins I’d put a match in every gunyah on the place, just to learn Stangrove not to be in such a hurry to run in a mob of pore fellers as had got tired of being messed about by those infernal troopers.”
“You’ll just do what I tell you, Doctor,” said Redcap, savagely, “and if I catch one of you burning or shooting without orders he’ll have to settle with me. Hallo! it can’t be dinner-time.”