In the midst of the tumult a knock came to the door, and Pete made a plunge towards the porch.
“Wait,” cried Cæsar. “Nobody else comes here to-night except the girl herself. Another wind like the last and we'll have the roof off the house too.”
Then he called to the new-comer, with his face to the porch door, and the answer came back to him in a wail like the wind itself.
“Who's there?”
It was Joney from the glen.
“We're like herrings in a barrel—we can't let you in.”
She wasn't wanting to come in. But her roof was going stripping, and half her house was felled, and she couldn't get her son (the idiot boy) to leave his bed. He would perish; he would die; he was all the family she had left to her—wouldn't the master come and save him?
“Impossible!” shouted Cæsar. “We've our own missing this fearful night, Joney, and the Lord will protect His children.”
Was it Kate? She had seen her in the glen——
“Let me get at that door,” said Pete.