“What are you sinkin’ in my brook?” repeated Ellen.
No answer came. Angered by their silence, the woman stepped nearer.
“What you got in that bag?” she demanded sternly.
Still there was no reply.
“You ain’t got nothin’ good in it, I’ll be bound,” went on the tormentor. “If you had, you wouldn’t be so mighty anxious to get rid of it. Come now, long’s you’re intendin’ to heave it into the water on my side of the wall, s’pose you let me have a peep inside it.” 103
Striding forward, she seized a corner of the canvas roughly in her hand.
There was a scream from the three Howes.
“Don’t touch it!”
“Keep away!”
“You’d better leave it be, Miss Webster,” Jane said in a warning voice. “It’s gunpowder.”