--Pietro and the padrone!" exclaimed Phil, pale with
affright.

Mrs. McGuire took in the situation at once.

"Run upstairs," she said. "Pat's up there on the bed. He will see they
won't take you."

Phil sprang upstairs two steps at a time, and dashed into the chamber.
Mr. McGuire was lying on the outside of the bed, peacefully smoking a
clay pipe.

"What's the matther?" he asked, repeating his wife's question.

"They have come for me," said Phil.

"Have they?" said Pat. "Then they'll go back, I'm thinkin'. Where are
they?"

But there was no need of a reply, as their voices were already audible
from below, talking with Mrs. McGuire. The distance was so trifling that
they had seen Phil enter the house, and the padrone, having a contempt
for the physical powers of woman, followed boldly.

They met Mrs. McGuire at the door.

"What do you want?" she demanded.

"The boy," said the padrone. "I saw him come in here."

"Did ye? Your eyes is sharp thin."

She stood directly in the passage, so that neither could enter without
brushing her aside.

"Send him out," said the padrone.

"Faith, and I won't," said Bridget. "He shall stay here as long as he
likes."

"I will come in and take him," said the padrone, furiously.

"I wouldn't advise ye to thry it," said Mrs. McGuire, coolly.

"Move aside, woman, or I will make you," said the Italian, angrily.

"I'll stay where I am. Shure, it's my own house, and I have a right to
do it."

"Pietro," said the padrone, with sudden thought, "he may escape from the
front door. Go round and watch it."

By his sign Bridget guessed what he said, though it was spoken in
Italian.

"He won't run away," she said. "I'll tell you where he is, if you want
to know."

"Where?" asked the padrone, eagerly.

"He's upstairs, thin."

The padrone would not be restrained any longer. He made a rush forward,
and, pushing Mrs. McGuire aside, sprang up the stairs. He would have
found greater difficulty in doing this, but Bridget, knowing her husband
was upstairs, made little resistance, and contented herself, after
the padrone had passed, with intercepting Pietro, and clutching him
vigorously by the hair, to his great discomfort, screaming "Murther!" at
the top of her lungs.

The padrone heard the cry, but in his impetuosity he did not heed it. He
expected to gain an easy victory over Phil, whom he supposed to be alone
in the chamber. He sprang toward him, but had barely seized him by t