"This," said Miss Orrin, "is the house of Mr. Stennis, and to him you shall answer. Meantime, I am in charge, and shall defend to the last——"
But a score of voices interrupted her. "Where is your brother? Where is Mad Jeremy? Where is Mr. Stennis?"
"I know not where my brother may be," she answered. "In his bed, most likely. You are at liberty to go and look. But as for my master, to whom you shall answer, he is in the City of Edinburgh in connection with some law business. If you seek him there I warrant he will be easy enough found."
But I remembered the flitting shadow I had seen, and crying out, "Search the house, boys! I will take the blame!" I launched myself behind the black hangings which fell behind me like the curtain in a theatre. A door opened to my hand, and I fell down a flight of steps, the shrill shrieks of the mad women behind me resounding keen and batlike to my ears.
CHAPTER XIX
I HOOK MY FISH
I had not fallen far. As is the wont of boys and cats, I was on my feet again in a moment. Something like a tall Lochaber axe—with the hook but without the axe part—had fallen on me, and the steel fetched me a sound clip over the bridge of the nose. Did you ever get a proper clout there when you were least expecting it? Well, if you have, you know how angry it makes you. I wanted somebody's blood. Hardly that, perhaps, for I had been decently brought up.
But the thought of my mother, of my father's disappearance, and the stupefying clink on my nose, all taken together, made me wild to be at somebody. Oh, it is easy to say "How wicked—yet so young!" and so on; but just try it yourself.
Anyway, this is how it happened to me. I was up again, and tearing like mad down the passage, quicker than a wink. I did not care, at that moment, whether it was Jeremy Orrin or Mr. Stennis himself. One of the two I knew it must be. But the iron hook on its six-foot pole gave me confidence. I could feel the point of it sharp even in the darkness. I found out afterwards it was used to pull down the hanging lamps which the mad women and Miss Aphra—who was only half mad—used in their mystic ceremonies. I expect they were trying to raise the devil. Which was quite a work of supererogation—I think that is the word, but Elsie knows—considering that their own brother, Mad Jeremy, was on foot—and healthy, thank'ee kindly!