fe uplifted, and but for
my ducking and running in, there would have been an end of me on the
spot. We fell, and his weapon now being in his way, he let go, and I
felt the grip of immense hands about my neck. That had almost been my
last memory on earth. For though Elsie had seized the knife and was
about to kill the madman, it would have been too late so far as I was
concerned.

But out of the undergrowth, as if he had been watching, came a little
quick-tripping old man, bow-backed and wizened, who called, "Jeremy!
Jeremy!" in a high, piping key.

At the sound the madman lifted himself up from my neck, as if moved by
a spring, and stood before the little man smiling and sucking his
thumb--for all the world like a child caught stealing sugar.

The little old man pointed to the moat. "Go back as you came!" he said.

The "mounster" threw himself into the black water without a complaint.
I saw him come out on the opposite side dripping, and with long threads
of green scum trailing about him. He never looked round once, but made
for the house.

Then the little old man turned fiercely upon Elsie and me, with a kind
of cold hateful sneer on his face.

"And now, my pretties," he said, "what may you be seeking in Deep Moat
Hollow?"

CHAPTER VI

THICKER THAN WATER

Now I do not deny that I was frightened out of my life by the sudden
appearing of the Golden Farmer. But it was different with Elsie.
Perhaps it ran in the blood. For, though most people in Breckonside
were feared of my father and his long arm, I am not--no, nor ever could
be. And so, in that moment of panic, it was given to Elsie to be able
to speak serenely to her grandfather.

Yet I could see that the little man was all in a fume of anger, and
kept it badly down, too.

"What are the two of you doing here?" he cried, dancing about and
shaking his stick at us. "Where do you belong, and what ill purpose
fetched ye to Deep Moat Grange?"

"One question at a time," said Elsie, standing quietly before him, with
one thumb tucked in a leather strap about her waist. "'Who are we?'
say you. I will tell you, grandfather----"

"Grandfather----!"

You should have seen the little wizened man jump at the word.

"Grandfather!" he repeated in a kind of skirl, or scream, as of a
bagpipe. "Ye are no blood kin of mine---!"

"Am I no?" said Elsie. "I am Bell Stennis's daughter, and a daughter,
too, of one Ensign Stennis, a British officer----"