“I do,” said Amos.
“Should I be disposed to use this by way of compulsion, what would you say?”
“That I am in God’s hands and not in yours,” replied Amos, looking Vivian full in the face, who quailed before the calm, steady gaze of the young man.
Neither spoke for half a minute; then the unhappy stroller stepped back, and began to raise his right arm. The next instant the disused door was dashed open, and Walter sprang upon his astounded brother-in-law with the fury of a tiger. The pistol flew from Vivian’s hand, and he fell to the ground. Walter, who was full of vigour and activity, pinned him down, and called to Amos to give him one of the bell ropes. With this, being assisted by his brother, he pinioned the prostrate man so that he was utterly helpless.
“Now,” said Walter, “let us search the villain’s pockets.” He did so, and discovered a second revolver. “What’s to be done now?” he asked; “shall we hand him over at once to the police?”
At this moment his sister, having heard the scuffle, tried the door. Amos unlocked it. What a sight presented itself! “Oh, what does it all mean?” she cried.
“Why, just this,” exclaimed her brother. “This dastardly villain—I must call him so—has been threatening to shoot Amos because he would not give him the money that was sent by my father to you.”
“Oh, misery! misery!” cried the unhappy wife, hiding her face with her hands.
“Let me get up; untie the rope,” wailed the unhappy Vivian, now utterly crestfallen and abject. “I meant your brother no harm; I only intended to frighten him. The pistols are neither of them loaded.”
“It may be so,” said Walter. “Well, get up,” and he helped him to rise. “Now sit down in that chair and listen to me. You’ve behaved like a brute, and worse than a brute, to my poor sister; you have cruelly trapped my dear noble brother, and would have murdered him if you had dared. The simplest thing would just be to send for a policeman and give you into his charge. But I don’t want to do this for my poor sister’s sake and the family’s sake. But now I’ve made up my mind—come what may, disgrace or no disgrace, if you show your face amongst any of us again, the constable shall have you, and you shall get your deserts. We’ve got a home for our sister at the old place, and Amos has got a home for the children. Now if, after I’ve set you free, you turn up anywhere near us or the children, we’ll make no more bones of the matter; you shall get your deserts, and these will be the deserts of a mean, cowardly, rascally wife-beater, to say the best of you.”