“Ye warn’t in?” repeated his bewildered relative.
“That’s what I said. I wasn’t in. When you crawled up stairs last night and took all that trouble with the clothes line, I wasn’t in my room at all. I expected some such delicate attention as that on your part, uncle, so I took the trouble to remove my things to the spare room at the other end of the hall, and slept there.”
The farmer fairly gnashed his teeth in rage.
“Where be yeou goin’?” he demanded, planting himself between his nephew and the door.
“Why, uncle, I thought you knew that,” said Brandon, raising his eyebrows in apparent surprise. “I told you last night that I was going to New York. I haven’t changed my mind since then, though I’ve modified my plans somewhat. It’s such a pleasant morning, I believe I’ll walk down to Rockland, take the stage from there to Hope, and go to town on the train.”
“Yeou will, hey? Wal, I guess not!”
Old Arad backed up against the door as though to guard that way of escape. His lean form was trembling with excitement, and he was really in a pitiable state for so old a man.
“Think not, eh?” said Brandon coolly.
He came into the kitchen and deposited his traveling bag on a chair, and then stepped across the room and took his rifle down from the two hooks upon which it rested.
Old Arad uttered a shout of alarm and darted away from the door to the opposite side of the table.