"It isn't my fancy, it isn't," cried the girl, the tears starting to her eyes. "If anything dreadful happens, then it is me that has injured the master—the best master that a poor girl could have." And with her apron to her eyes Fanny left the room.
She came back a minute later to see Patty examining the priming of her rifle. "Miss Patty," she whispered aghast, "you ain't never going to shoot at it!"
"I am going to sit in that room all the afternoon," said Patty calmly, "and if that pack moves while my eyes are on it I'll fire into that pack even if by so doing I riddle every garment in it." And without another word Patty stalked out of the room with her rifle on her shoulder.
At the door of the breakfast-room she set her teeth hard, and opened the door.
The pack had moved since she saw it.
It was with a face destitute of all colour that Patty seated herself upon the table to mount guard over that black object now lying several yards away from the corner. Her eyes were glued to the bundle; they grew large and glassy, and a film seemed to come over them as she gazed, without daring even to wink. How the minutes passed—if they revolved themselves into half hours—she did not know. No one called her, no one approached the door, she sat on with one fixed stare at the pedlar's pack.
Was she dreaming? Was it fancy? No, the pack was moving! Slowly, very slowly it crept—it could hardly be called moving, and Patty watched it fascinated. Then it stopped, and Patty, creeping nearer, stood over it, and watched more closely. Something was breathing inside! Something inside that pack was alive! Patty could now clearly see the movement that each respiration made. She had made up her mind, and now she took her courage in both hands.
She retreated softly to the opposite side of the room, and raising the rifle to her shoulder fired.
There was a loud, a deafening report, a shrill scream, and a stream of blood trickled forth from the pack. Fanny was in the room crying hysterically, Mrs. Tucker and cook were looking over her shoulder with blanched faces.
Patty, with her face not one whit less white than any of the others, laid the smoking rifle on the table, and spoke with a tremulousness not usual to her.