'
'Will you come down?' cried Hugh.
'Will you give me my daughter, ruffian?' cried the locksmith.
'I know nothing of her,' Hugh rejoined. 'Burn the door!'
'Stop!' cried the locksmith, in a voice that made them
falter--presenting, as he spoke, a gun. 'Let an old man do that. You can
spare him better.'
The young fellow who held the light, and who was stooping down before
the door, rose hastily at these words, and fell back. The locksmith ran
his eye along the upturned faces, and kept the weapon levelled at the
threshold of his house. It had no other rest than his shoulder, but was
as steady as the house itself.
'Let the man who does it, take heed to his prayers,' he said firmly; 'I
warn him.'
Snatching a torch from one who stood near him, Hugh was stepping forward
with an oath, when he was arrested by a shrill and piercing shriek, and,
looking upward, saw a fluttering garment on the house-top.
There was another shriek, and another, and then a shrill voice cried,
'Is Simmun below!' At the same moment a lean neck was stretched over
the parapet, and Miss Miggs, indistinctly seen in the gathering gloom
of evening, screeched in a frenzied manner, 'Oh! dear gentlemen, let me
hear Simmuns's answer from his own lips.
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