s
exceedingly unreasonable, for he did not intermit his hammering long
enough to ascertain whether any one was coming to the door or not. What
was not more than five minutes in fact, might have seemed to be half an
hour to him. Within as short a time as could have been properly
expected, I heard the door of my uncle's library open, and uneasily I
listened for the result. The bolt on the front door creaked and grated.
The door opened with difficulty, and while my uncle was tugging at it, I
lifted the sash of my window a couple of inches, that I might hear what
passed.

The door swung back, and I put my head to the window to catch the first
words that were spoken. Of course my uncle was not the first to utter
them; he seldom spoke, and never was surprised into speaking, even on an
emergency.

"Well, governor," said the messenger, crustily, "you sleep like a rock.
Where is that confounded boy of yours?"

"In bed," replied my uncle.

"Rout him out; I want him," continued the visitor, pushing his way into
the house.

This movement prevented me from hearing what followed immediately; but I
hastened to my door, hoping to catch a word which would enable me to
determine who the person was.

"The young villain has run away with Mrs. Loraine's step-daughter," I
heard him say, as I opened the door wide enough to permit me to catch
the sound. "I tell you, governor, you must get rid of the young
vagabond, or he will swamp the whole of us."

"Hush! he will hear you," said uncle Amos.

"No matter. I have pounded away hard enough to wake the dead. If that
didn't rouse him, nothing will," added the messenger, gruffly.

"Silence!"

"I have had about enough of this thing," continued the rough visitor.
"You insist on keeping the whelp here, when you know he is a bombshell
in your path and mine. Why don't you send him to sea, and let him get
drowned?"

"Be still, Thomas," replied my uncle, in a whisper.

"I won't be still, governor. The vagabond has run away with that girl,
and--"

They passed into the dining-room, and I could not hear the rest of the
sentence. The visitor was Tom Thornton, for my uncle called him Thomas.
I was a vagabond, and a bombshell in the path of both of them. Tom
called my uncle "governor," and this indicated that he was his son. I
half suspected this before, but it was news to me to learn that I was
regarded as a dangerous young man. Why was I dangerous? I had not done
anything to imperil the life