Well, I knocked and I shouted, but never an answer got I.
At last, at the window of the sleeping-room that was Rob Kingsman's, I saw a white blob which I made out to be the occupant's face.
"Hey, Rob!" I cried; "let me in, Rob. They are after me—at my heels!"
"Reason the mair for you bidin' where ye are," said Rob, whose strong point was certainly not courage, "if they have done ye no harm as yet, just keep quiet and they will do ye none whatever. Ye are no Stennis. The Stennises are a' weel-faured!"
"But I want to help—I want to get in! De'il tak' ye, Rob, let me in!"
I think even the vicar, good Churchman as he is (though not in Mr. Ablethorpe's sense) would have forgiven me the strength of the last expression—considering the provocation, that is. As also the fact that, living so near Scotland, where there are so many "Presbies" about, the very best Churchman is sometimes seduced into their rough, but picturesque, habit of speech.
"Here, Joe!" said Rob, after a while, taking pity on me. He opened a little wicket—just one pane of his iron-barred window, for my father had had everything about the place strengthened at the first scare about Riddick of Langbarns and the other lost farmers and drovers; "here, lad, tak' haud o' this! There's a barrel that had sugar intil't doon by the weighing machine. Creep into that. And mind—dinna shoot onybody. Use the pistol only in self-defence. There's nae law again' that!"
The next moment I had a revolver in one hand and a pouch of cartridges in the other—yellow bag, waist belt and all! I tell you I felt the citizen of no mean city as I buckled them on. I would not have changed places with the Prince of Wales going to open an Aquarium. For, you see, I had never been allowed to go near the little room where my father kept the firearms for sale, the sporting ammunition, and the other touch-and-go truck, which interested me more than anything in the place. Of course, when father was lost for so long, I could have gone and helped myself. But, though you mayn't think it, I had a sort of pride about that.
I wasn't going to do when he was away what I durstn't do when he was stamping about the yard and stores. So I didn't. But to have a real, real revolver given me, with proper cartridges—and me outside and all the others inside—why, it was just the primest thing that ever happened to me in all my life.
When I reached the outer gate (that by which Dapple had entered, Mad Jeremy, no doubt, riding her to the door) Rob McKinstrey shouted that if I looked sharp he would let me in and have the yard door shut again before ever one of the Paddies could get his nose inside.