During Peter Gladden’s explanations and Mr. Wilson’s condemnation of his own carelessness, the thunder-storm had burst over the old house. Great lightning cracks streamed across the sky; the wind labored and gathered itself into spasmodic and mournful gusts; the tall trees battled one with another; rain rattled on the broad-leaved laurels and hollies. The very deeps of the old house seemed to quiver beneath the mighty reverberations of the heavens. Gray sheets of rain dimmed the landscape, and shrouded the struggling and wind-tossed trees.
Gladden, querulous and uneasy, moved to the library window and closed it against the rain. Jeffray was standing motionless in the centre of the room, looking at the bands of blood-blotched linen about Dick Wilson’s head. He turned to the table abruptly, picked up the pistols the painter had used so clumsily, and glanced at the flints and the priming-pans. Going to an old armoire that stood in the far corner, he opened it and took out a leather belt that carried a powder-flask, a bag of bullets, and a hunting-knife. He loaded and primed the empty pistol, buckled the belt about his body, and then spoke to Gladden in a quiet and determined voice.
“Order the mare to be saddled,” he said; “she will stand the thunder better than Brown Will.”
Gladden stared at his master incredulously.
“Do you hear me, Gladden?”
“I do, sir.”
“Then obey my orders. Quick with you, and see that the brandy flask is filled and strapped to the saddle with the holsters.”
The butler slouched away, unbuttoning and buttoning his coat in agitation. Wilson, who was weak from loss of blood, and had been listening to Jeffray’s orders, staggered up from his chair, and faced his friend.
“Where are you going, sir?” he asked, almost roughly.
“To Pevensel, Dick.”