saucy and irritating
replies; but I could not well help it then. Tom Thornton was a villain,
by his own confession. My uncle had declared that he had stained his
soul with crime for his son's sake. Whichever was the greater villain,
it was clear that the son was the more obdurate, graceless, and
unrepentant of the two. I had no patience with him. I had no respect for
him, and I certainly had no fear of him. Even policy would not permit me
to treat him with a consideration I did not feel.

"For your insults we will settle by and by; at present my business
relates to this girl," said he, smarting under my charge.

"Well, Mr. Tom Thornton, so far as Miss Loraine is concerned, your
business with me is finished," I replied.

"Not yet; before I have done you will be glad to tell me where the girl
is."

"I will tell you nothing in regard to her."

"I command you to tell me where she is."

"You may command, if you choose."

"And I will be obeyed," said he, furiously.

"You will see whether you are or not."

"Who are you, young man, that have the impudence to enter the house of a
lady, and entice away her daughter?" foamed he.

"I am Ernest Thornton. I did not enter the house after you rode off with
the lady; I did not entice the girl away, and she is not the lady's
daughter."

"Silence! Don't you contradict me. You ran away with the girl!"

I whistled a popular air, simply to prove that I was not intimidated,
and that Tom was not getting along very rapidly.

"Once more, and for the last time," roared Tom, foaming with passion,
"will you tell me where the girl is, or will you take the
consequences?"

"If it's all the same to you, I'll take the consequences," I answered.

"Very well; you will take them, or you will tell me the whole truth,"
said he, savagely, as he rushed to the door.

There was a key in the lock, which I seldom or never used. He took it
out, left the room, and locked the door behind him. He was evidently so
much in earnest that he did not intend I should escape the fiery furnace
he was preparing for me. I could not but laugh at his folly in thinking
to confine a live boy of sixteen in the chamber of a cottage. I
concluded that he had gone for a stick, a club, or some other weapon,
with which to reduce me to subjection.

Though I felt able with the base-ball bat to defend myself from the
assaults of Tom, I did not court the conflict. There was room for an
accident which might deprive me of