“Out of the room, then, all of you,” she ordered them, and drove them before her like so many hens; they protested with many oaths; she screaming at them in kind so berated them that they were out at last. She paused by the door to take the key from the lock. Of a sudden Oliver leaped forward and thrust her after them; banged the door with a crash, and turned the key. Her cry of rage was shrill as the wind itself; she plunged against the door and beat upon it like a madwoman, screaming out, “Break it down! Break it down! They’re tricking us!”
Oliver set the bar in its place, and turned back to us grinning.
My uncle smiled his approval, “I never gave you credit for any wit,” he said; “I offer you apology. I confess I was at a loss,—I thank you for having given me the opportunity of a little talk with my nephew. Be sure of the bar, Oliver; the door will hold them out, I trust, till Bradbury returns.”
Oliver, coming back to the hearth, growled, “Help me first to lift the old man. Is he to lie here longer in this blood?”
“Nay, nay,” said my uncle hastily; and among us, we lifted my grandfather’s body and laid it upon the bed, and drew the curtains; all the while the clamour at the door continued; the winds yet beat upon the house. My uncle, returning to the fireside, sat down in his father’s chair—for all the raging of the rogues without seeming as indolent and unruffled as in the arbour.
“Nephew,” he said, “I would our conversation could have been conducted with proper privacy. Oliver, oblige me by withdrawing to the door.”
Oliver answered boldly, “I stay here!”
“You heard me, Oliver!”
“I heard you, sir! And you have never heard me ere this night. By God, sir, you should have taught me by now to be ashamed at nothing; yet—yet—to know the part that you have played this night,—you to have raised these rogues against my cousin and the old man there!”
My uncle smiling, though his brow grew black, cried out, “If I’d my cane, sir, I’d discipline you now. Are you drunk yet from dinner? Or do you think to win your cousin’s patronage at my expense? You think him heir to Craike and all my father had. I having nothing, you range yourself beside him!”