"'Then if you wants to look at nothin',' says she with a short laugh, 'you can go and stare at the kiddy there, not at me.' And she jerked her head towards the settle, where the baby was a-lying.
"'Ah, poor little thing,' says mother, getting up, 'it don't seem natural for it to lie there that quiet. I'll bring it to the fire and warm it a drop o' milk.'
"She bent down over the baby and was just about to take it in her arms, when she give a scream that startled me off my stool, and stood up, her face as white as death. For it was nothing but a shawl or two rolled round something stiff and heavy as was lying on the settle, and no child at all.
"I was a-looking at mother, and I had no eyes for the woman until I see mother's face change and an awful look of fear come over it. And when I turned to see what she was staring at with them wild eyes, the woman had flung off her shawl and the wrap she wore round her head, and was stood up with a horrid, mocking smile on his face. For it was no woman, sir, as you'll have guessed, but a man.
"'Well, mistress,' he says, coming forward a pace or two, 'I didn't mean to let the cat out of the bag so soon; but what's done's done. There's a little trifle of rent-money put by for the agent, as I've taken a fancy to; and that's what's brought me here. If you hand it over quietly, so much the better for you; if not.... I'm not one to stick at trifles; I've come for that money, and have it I will.'
"'I have not got it,' mother said, plucking up what heart she could, and speaking through her white and trembling lips.
"'That don't go down with me,' said the fellow with an oath. 'I didn't sleep under the lee of Tom Regan's hayrick for nothin' last night, and I heard every word that was spoken between him and your Jim. You'd better tell me where you've got it stowed, or you'll be sorry for it. You're a woman, mind you, and alone.'
"Mother's lips went whiter than ever, but she said never a word. I had begun to cry.
"'Hold your row, you snivelling brat,' the fellow said with a curse. 'Come, mistress, you'd best not try my patience too long.'
"Now, mother was a brave woman, as I've said, and I don't believe, if the money had been left in her charge, as she'd have given it up tamely and without so much as a word. But of course, as things were, she could do no more than say, over and over again, as she hadn't got it. Then the brute began to threaten her, with threats that made her blood run cold; for she was only a woman, sir, and alone, except for me, a child as could do nothing in the way of help. With a last horrid threat on his lips the fellow turned towards the settle—there was a pistol hid in the clothes of the sham baby we found out afterwards—when he was stopped by something as come soft and noiseless out of the corner beyond and got right in his way. I see what it was after a minute. Between him and the settle where the pistol was lying there was standing that dog.