And while I stood thus, trembling violently, with that dreadful woman gripping my wrists so that she hurt them, Jeremy came leisurely up with his hands in his pockets—sauntering is the word that will best express it. He bent down and looked at me. For he was very tall. And I looked up at him with, I dare say, wide and terrified eyes. How indeed, could they be otherwise?
"Where is your knife?" cried Aphra Orrin. "Quick! Make an end—do as with the others! This is the last seed of iniquity. She will take from us our riches—all that should be ours—hard earned, suffered for, all that lies under the green turf—all you have won, Jeremy, and I have paid for twice over with weary nights of penance. That old man would steal it from us, from us who gained it for him, to give it all to this pretty china doll he calls his granddaughter!"
Had it been the will of Aphra Orrin at that moment, the opportunity would have been wanting for me to fill this copybook with these notes, to pass the weary time. For she loosened one hand, and snatched at the knife in Mad Jeremy's belt—the same we had once seen in his teeth when he swam the Deep Moat to get at Joe and me.
But happily, or so it appeared at the time, Mad Jeremy was in another humour. He thrust his sister off, and, as it seemed, with the lightest jerk of one hand he took me out of her clutches.
"Na, na," he said; "this dainty queen is far ower bonnie for a man like me to be puttin' the knife into as if she were a yearling grice. The knife for the lads that winna pay the ransom, if ye like. But a bonnie lass, and the heiress to a' the riches at the Grange—auld Hobby's hoards—I tell ye, her and me will do fine, Aphra! Let her be, Sis, or you and me will quarrel. Ay, ay, and maybe ye will find oot what the blade o' my gully knife is for. We will see if ye hae ony bluid o' your ain in your veins, Sis—you that's sae fond o' seein' the colour o' ither folks'!"
"Never—never! You lie, Jeremy!" cried Aphra. "I know nothing about that. I swear I am ignorant. As to Elsie Stennis, I did but jest. At any rate, she must not see her grandfather. He is in a foolish mood, and might take us from house and manor, roof and shelter, house and bedding—ay, all that by right belongs to us. Besides"—here she moved up closer to her brother—"she knows too much. She might prove a telltale, and then you, Jeremy, would be hanged—hanged by the neck till you were dead!"
She repeated the words with a space between each, sinking her voice till it ended in a hoarse whisper.
"Na, na!" cried Jeremy. "I but helpit the puir craiturs oot o' their misery. They cried na long. And then they wad be that pleased to hae nae mair trouble, but juist to lie doon agang the lily beds and forget a' the cares o' the warl'!"
"Hush, hush, Jeremy!" cried Aphra. "Think what you are saying, brother. But bethink yourself, brother dear, you must make an end now. The girl has heard too much, and that from your own lips."
Mad Jeremy ran his fingers through his long, glossy ringlets with something like a smirk.