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.

"The creature had showed neither sight nor sound of itself since the
woman had come in, and we'd forgotten about it altogether, mother and
me. There it stood now, though, still as a stone, but all on the watch,
the lips drawn back from the sharp white teeth, and its eyes fixed, with
a savage gleam in them, on the fellow's face. I was nothing but a child,
and no thought of anything beyond had come to me then; but