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Madam and I sat on opposite sides of the large hearth, a small round table, drawn close to the fire for comfort and covered with the supper things, occupied part of the space between us, but there was plenty of room for action. When Brocton had stretched out his rapier towards me in threat and command, the point was perhaps three feet from my breast, and he could master my slightest movement.
Then there was the sergeant's tuck, and I shouted with a schoolboy's glee at having for the first time in my life a sword at my side. Of how to use it I knew nothing, unless many bouts at single-stick with Jack should be some sort of apprenticeship in swordcraft. I practised pulling it out, and then, imitating Brocton, made the forty-inch blade twist and tang in the air, which pleased me greatly.
In order to connect the Oil Creek Railroad with the line of its purchasers an extension northward, styled the Cross-Cut Railroad, was built from Corry to Brocton, on the Buffalo and Erie Railroad, a distance of forty-two miles, by Dr. Streator, for the New York Central Railroad Company. This was the last of Dr. Streator's railroad building undertakings.
O God! Brocton! My father is taken! And by Brocton!" She spoke aloud in her agitation, and I saw that she was cut to the quick. And I rejoiced, so strange is the human heart, that it was Lord Brocton's name that came in anguish off her tongue. Oh for one blow at the man whose father had harried mine into an untimely grave! In sharp, frosty air sound travels far across the meadows of the Hanyards.
I saw no other person till nightfall of the third day, when the door opened and the little dog hopped through his accustomed gap into the room, and was followed by his master carrying a lighted tallow candle in a rusty iron candlestick. This imported something unusual, as I was not allowed a light, and it turned out to be a visit from my Lord Brocton.
I had been head of the school, not because of any special cleverness, but because I would burst rather than be second to anybody in anything. I had fought and fought, at all hazards, until not a boy in school or town dare come near me. So now, since my Lord Brocton and many a lord beside, I doubted not had failed, I must needs step in and say, "I will please her, whether she like it or not."
"Here she comes! Here she comes!" announced Nettie Brocton. "And look, girls! she isn't even whistling. Something is wrong with our sunny Jane." There was no mistake about it, something was wrong, for Jane Allen swung along the path, calling greetings to friends grouped in knots and colonies with an evident half heartedness foreign to her usual buoyant, cheerful personality.
Brocton, not in the least to my surprise, made no attempt to interfere. Jack couldn't, for I was in the way. His father began to splutter helplessly. I shot out my foot, and swept the Major heavily to the floor. I plucked him up by his collar as if he were a rabbit, and choked him till his face was nearly black. Then I put him back in his chair, where he sat huddled up and gasping.
Brocton's dragoons would have turned up hours ago if there was any intention of trying to recapture me. Freake had sent one of his men down the road to give us time to clear off if Brocton did pursue. That was why I was content to stay on at the inn." "Weir knows who you are, sir, I take it?" said I. "Exactly. He's a notorious Government spy, and is busy here worming into our local plans.
"The smith is probably very busy to-day." "Busy! Why so?" "The dragoons may have found him much work," said I, merely my way of explaining the delay. But the words stabbed her. She laid a hand on my arm and cried gaspingly, "Dragoons! What do you mean? Quick!" "The Duke of Cumberland is marching north from Lichfield against the Stuart, and Lord Brocton's dragoons are in the village." "Brocton!
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