Laddie Part 61

This is my only sisteh. Heh people are mine----"

"The relations.h.i.+p is apparent," said father. "There is a striking likeness between you and your sister, and I can discern traces of your parents in your face, speech and manner."

"If you know my father," said Robert, "then you undehstand what happened to me when I was found with his money on my pehson, in the presence of our best friends and the police. He went raving insane on the instant, and he would have killed me if he hadn't been prevented; he tried to; has he changed any since, Pam?"

The Princess was clinging to him with both hands, staring at him, wonder, joy, and fear all on her lovely face.

"Worse!" she cried. "He's much worse! The longer he broods, the more mother grieves, the bitterer he becomes. Mr. Stanton, he is always armed. He'll shoot on sight. Oh what shall we do?"

"Miss Pamela," said Leon, "did your man Thomas know your brother in England?"

"All his life."

"Well, then, we'd better be doing something quick. He tied the horses and was walking up and down the road while he waited, and he saw us plainly when we crossed the wood yard a while ago. He followed us and stared so, I couldn't help noticing him."

"Jove!" cried Robert. "I must have seen him in the village this morning. A man reminded me of him, then I remembered how like people of his type are, and concluded I was mistaken. Mr. Stanton, you have agreed that the evidence I hold is sufficient. Pam cawn tell you that while I don't deny being full of tricks as a boy, they weh not dirty, not low, and while father always taking Emmet's paht against me drove me to recklessness sometimes, I nevah did anything underhand or disgraceful. She knows what provocation I had, and exactly what happened. Let heh tell you!"

"I don't feel that I require any further information," said father.

"You see, I happen to be fairly well acquainted with Mr. Pryor."

"Pryor?"

"He made us use that name here," explained the Princess.

"WELL, HIS NAME IS PAGET!" said Robert angrily.

Laddie told me long ago he didn't believe it was Pryor.

"Then, if you are acquainted with my father, what would you counsel?

Unless I'm prepahed to furnish the central figyah of interest in a funeral, I dare not meet him, until he has seen this evidence, had time to digest it, and calm himself."

Sh.e.l.ley caught him by the arm. No wonder! She hadn't been proposed to, or even had a kiss on her lips. She pulled him.

"You come straight to the house," she said. "Thomas may tell your father he thought he saw you."

That was about as serious as anything could be, but nothing ever stopped Leon. He sidled away from father, repeating in a low voice:

"'For sore dismayed, through storm and shade His child he did discover; One lovely hand she stretched for aid, And one was round her lover--'"

Sh.e.l.ley just looked daggers at him, but she was too anxious to waste any time.

"Would Thomas tell your father?" she asked the Princess.

"The instant he saw him alone, yes. He wouldn't before mother."

"Hold one minute!" cried father. "We must think of our mother, just a little. Sh.e.l.ley, you and the girls run up and explain how this is.

Better all of you go to the house, except Mr. Paget. He'll be safe here as anywhere. Mr. Pryor will stop there, if he comes. So it would be best for you to keep out of sight, Robert, until I have had a little talk with him."

"I'll stay here," I offered. "We'll talk until you get Mr. Pryor cooled off. He can be awful ragesome when he's excited, and it doesn't take much to start him."

"You're right about that!" agreed Robert.

So we sat under the greening and were having a fine visit while the others went to break the news gently to mother that the Pryor mystery had gone up higher than Gilderoy's kite. My! but she'd be glad! It would save her many a powerful prayer. I was telling Robert all about the time his father visited us, and what my mother said to him, and he said: "She'd be the one to talk with him now. Possibly he'd listen to her, until he got it through his head that his own son is not a common thief."

"Maybe he'll have to be held, like taking quinine, and made to listen,"

I said.

"That would be easy, if he were not a walking ahsenal," said Robert.

"You have small chance to reason with a half-crazy man while he is handling a pistol."

He meant revolver.

"But he'll shoot!" I cried. "The Princess said he'd shoot!"

"So he will!" said Robert. "Shoot first, then find out how things are, and kill himself and every one else with remorse, afterward. He is made that way."

"Then he doesn't dare see you until he finds out how mistaken he has been," I said, for I was growing to like Robert better every minute longer I knew him. Besides, there was the Princess, looking like him as possible, and loving him of course, like I did Laddie, maybe. And if anything could cure Mrs. Pryor's heart trouble, having her son back would, because that was what made it in the first place, and even before them, there was Sh.e.l.ley to be thought of, and cared for.

CHAPTER XVIII

The Pryor Mystery

"And now old Dodson, turning pale, Yields to his fate--so ends my tale."

It didn't take me long to see why Sh.e.l.ley liked Robert Paget. He was one of the very most likeable persons I ever had seen. We were sitting under the apple tree, growing better friends every minute, when we heard a smash, so we looked up, and it was the sound made by Ranger as Mr. Pryor landed from taking our meadow fence. He had ridden through the pasture, and was coming down the creek bank. He was a spectacle to behold. A mile away you could see that Thomas had told him he had seen Robert, and where he was. Father had been mistaken in thinking Mr.

Pryor would go to the house. He had lost his hat, his white hair was flying, his horse was in a lather, and he seemed to be talking to himself. Robert took one good look. "Ye G.o.ds!" he cried. "There he comes now, a chattering madman!"

"The Station," I panted. "Up that ravine! Roll back the stone and pull the door shut after you. Quick!"

He never could have been inside, before Mr. Pryor's horse was raving along the embankment beside the fence.

"Where is he?" he cried. "Thomas saw him here!"

I didn't think his horse could take the fence at the top of the hill, but it looked as if he intended trying to make it, and I had to stop him if I could.

"Saw who?" I asked with clicking teeth.

"A tall, slender man, with a handsome face, and the heart of a devil."

"Yes, there was a man here like that in the face. I didn't see his heart," I said.

"Which way?" raved Mr. Pryor. "Which way? Is he at your house?"

Then I saw that he had the reins in his left hand, and a big revolver in his right. So there was no mistake about whether he'd really shoot.