, in defence of his girl--with not only that
girl, her own self, but also his second best--I mean another girl
friend (of his mother's) looking out at him from the wall, just like
the beautiful Jewess Rebecca, and Rowena the Saxon, and all that lot.

So I charged round, knowing that the eyes of Elsie and the Caw girls
were on me. And there in front of the house was a whole mob of
Geordies and Paddies, navvies, and all the general riff-raff, with here
and there an angry Bewicker who knew no better--all calling for Elsie
to be given up to them. My father was up on a flat part of the roof,
and was haranguing them, as if he had been brought up to the business.
They were flinging dirt and stones at him, too, and one had clipped him
on the side of his head, so that the blood was trickling down his
temple, which made me mad to watch. Morning had come by this time, so
that was how I could see so well. It comes precious early at
Breckonside this time of the year, as you would know if your father
started you out as early as mine did. We have lots of winter there,
but when the light time does arrive, it comes along early and stays to
supper.

Well, you see, ever since my father took so stiffly to Elsie, I had
been pretty much gone on the governor. I suppose, even before that, I
would not have seen him mishandled without shaking a stick for him.
But now, it just made my blood boil, and I am not one of your furious
heroes either. I always think well before I let my courage boil over.
As you may have noticed from this biography, I do not profess to be one
of your fetch-a-howl-and-jump-into-the-ring heroes.

But, as father's spring sale advertisements say, this was an
opportunity which might never occur again. (It didn't, as a fact.)

So I got right between the crowd and our varnished front door, over
which stood my father with his broken head, still holding forth as to
what he would do to every man present. "Twenty years hard" was the
least that even the back ranks would get.

There was not a real armed man among them. So, when I stepped up on
the stone stoop with the morning sun glinting down my revolver and my
warlike eye squinting t'other way along the sights, one hand behind my
back as I had seen them do in pictures of duellists in the _Graphic_
(when they do half-page pictures to illustrate what father calls
"bloodthirsty yarns." I never read the small print, of course, but the
pictures are prime for sticking up