“They may be mere travellers, or may be coming without any thought of Dio, but it will be prudent, in case of accident, to be prepared for them,” observed my father; “we will go in and stow away the black.”
We entered as we spoke. Kathleen had taken her usual place on a chair with a book in her hand while several others lay scattered before her. Dio was seated on the ground, his eyes level with the page from which she read, he endeavouring to repeat the words after her. Biddy was engaged at the other end of the room in making a cake, and did not observe us enter. My father, afraid of alarming the little girl, did not speak, but beckoned Dio who just then looked up, to come to him. Biddy, seeing that something was amiss, hurried out of the room after us.
“Not a moment to lose,” he whispered, “run back to your room, jump into bed, and draw the clothes over your head; take care that nothing belonging to you is left in sight. Mike will carry away your shoes and anything else you have. Some suspicious persons are coming this way.”
“I should not be surprised, Biddy, if they are your old friends,” I observed; “you will treat them with due hospitality if they enter the house.”
“Sure the cap’n won’t be lettin’ thim in at all at all,” she said, when she observed the three men on horseback approaching, two of whom she recognised as her former opponents.
“Biddy is right,” observed my father, “and our safest plan will be to keep them outside until we ascertain their business. Let your mother know, call Mr Tidey and Dan, and close the window-shutters as fast as you can.”
The latter order Biddy set about zealously executing, aided by Dan and my mother, while my father and I, joined by Mr Tidey, stood at the front door to receive our unwelcome guests.
“What brings you here?” asked my father; “I should have thought after the way you behaved at your last visit that you would have been ashamed to show your faces.”
“That’s neither here nor there, captain,” answered one of the men; “we have notice that you are hiding a runaway slave, and we have come to demand him from you; if you don’t give him up, you will learn that we have the power to take him by force.”
“No man shall enter my house unless I invite him,” said my father calmly, “as to taking any one out of my house by force, you can only do that when you have conquered me. Whether you can conquer me or not is to be seen.”