"Ma'am! You venture to stand there before my face and tell me
composedly that you permitted Miss Black to go off alone in the face of
such a storm as this?" roared Old Hurricane.
"Sir, I could not help it!" said the old lady.
"Demmy, mum! You should have helped it! A woman of your age to stand
there and tell me that she could not prevent a young creature like
Capitola from going out alone in the storm!"
"Major Warfield, could you have done it?"
"Me? Demmy, I should think so; but that is not the question! You----"
He was interrupted by a blinding flash of lightning, followed
immediately by an awful peal of thunder and a sudden fall of rain.
Old Hurricane sprang up as though he had been shot off his chair and
trotted up and down the floor exclaiming: "And she--she out in all this storm! Mrs. Condiment, mum, you deserve
to be ducked! Yes, mum, you do! Wool! Wool! you diabolical villain!"
"Yes, marse, yes, sir, here I is!" exclaimed that officer, in
trepidation, as he appeared in the doorway. "De windows and doors, sir,
is all fastened close and de maids are all in the dining-room as you
ordered, and----"
"Hang the maids and the doors and windows, too! Who the demon cares
about them? How dared you, you knave, permit your young mistress to
ride, unattended, in the face of such a storm, too! Why didn't you go
with her, sir?"
"'Deed, marse----"
"Don't ''deed marse' me you atrocious villain! Saddle a horse quickly,
inquire which road your mistress took and follow and attend her home
safely--after which I intend to break every bone in your skin, sirrah!
So----"
Again he was interrupted by a dazzling flash of lightning, accompanied
by a deafening roll of thunder, and followed by a flood of rain.
Wool stood appalled at the prospect of turning out in such a storm upon
such a fruitless errand.
"Oh, you may stare and roll up your eyes, but I mean it, you varlet! So
be off with you! Go! I don't care if you should be drowned in the rain,
or blown off the horse, or struck by lightning. I hope you may be, you
knave, and I shall be rid of one villain! Off, you varlet, or----" Old
Hurricane lifted a bronze statuette to hurl at Wool's delinquent head,
but that functionary dodged and ran out in time to escape a blow that
might have put a period to his mortal career.