The McIntyre family was seated at
breakfast on the morning which followed the first
visit of Raffles Haw, when they were surprised to
hear the buzz and hum of a multitude of voices in the
village street. Nearer and nearer came the tumult,
and then, of a sudden, two maddened horses reared
themselves up on the other side of the garden hedge,
prancing and pawing, with ears laid back and eyes ever
glancing at some horror behind them. Two men
hung shouting to their bridles, while a third came
rushing up the curved gravel path. Before the
McIntyres could realise the situation, their maid,
Mary, darted into the sitting-room with terror in
her round freckled face:
“If you please, miss,”
she screamed, “your tiger has arrove.”
“Good heavens!” cried
Robert, rushing to the door with his half-filled teacup
in his hand. “This is too much. Here
is an iron cage on a trolly with a great ramping tiger,
and the whole village with their mouths open.”
“Mad as a hatter!” shrieked
old Mr. McIntyre. “I could see it in his
eye. He spent enough on this beast to start me
in business. Whoever heard of such a thing?
Tell the driver to take it to the police-station.”
“Nothing of the sort, papa,”
said Laura, rising with dignity and wrapping a shawl
about her shoulders. Her eyes were shining, her
cheeks flushed, and she carried herself like a triumphant
queen.
Robert, with his teacup in his hand,
allowed his attention to be diverted from their strange
visitor while he gazed at his beautiful sister.
“Mr. Raffles Haw has done this
out of kindness to me,” she said, sweeping towards
the door. “I look upon it as a great attention
on his part. I shall certainly go out and look
at it.”
“If you please, sir,”
said the carman, reappearing at the door, “it’s
all as we can do to ’old in the ’osses.”
“Let us all go out together then,” suggested
Robert.
They went as far as the garden fence
and stared over, while the whole village, from the
school-children to the old grey-haired men from the
almshouses, gathered round in mute astonishment.
The tiger, a long, lithe, venomous-looking creature,
with two blazing green eyes, paced stealthily round
the little cage, lashing its sides with its tail, and
rubbing its muzzle against the bars.
“What were your orders?” asked Robert
of the carman.
“It came through by special
express from Liverpool, sir, and the train is drawn
up at the Tamfield siding all ready to take it back.
If it ’ad been royalty the railway folk couldn’t
ha’ shown it more respec’. We are
to take it back when you’re done with it.
It’s been a cruel job, sir, for our arms is
pulled clean out of the sockets a-’olding in
of the ’osses.”
“What a dear, sweet creature
it is,” cried Laura. “How sleek and
how graceful! I cannot understand how people
could be afraid of anything so beautiful.”
“If you please, marm,”
said the carman, touching his skin cap, “he out
with his paw between the bars as we stood in the station
yard, and if I ‘adn’t pulled my mate Bill
back it would ha’ been a case of kingdom come.
It was a proper near squeak, I can tell ye.”
“I never saw anything more lovely,”
continued Laura, loftily overlooking the remarks of
the driver. “It has been a very great pleasure
to me to see it, and I hope that you will tell Mr.
Haw so if you see him, Robert.”
“The horses are very restive,”
said her brother. “Perhaps, Laura, if you
have seen enough, it would be as well to let them go.”
She bowed in the regal fashion which
she had so suddenly adopted. Robert shouted the
order, the driver sprang up, his comrades let the horses
go, and away rattled the waggon and the trolly with
half the Tamfielders streaming vainly behind it.
“Is it not wonderful what money
can do?” Laura remarked, as they knocked the
snow from their shoes within the porch. “There
seems to be no wish which Mr. Haw could not at once
gratify.”
“No wish of yours, you mean,”
broke in her father. “It’s different
when he is dealing with a wrinkled old man who has
spent himself in working for his children. A
plainer case of love at first sight I never saw.”
“How can you be so coarse, papa?”
cried Laura, but her eyes flashed, and her teeth gleamed,
as though the remark had not altogether displeased
her.
“For heaven’s sake, be
careful, Laura!” cried Robert. “It
had not struck me before, but really it does look
rather like it. You know how you stand.
Raffles Haw is not a man to play with.”
“You dear old boy!” said
Laura, laying her hand upon his shoulder, “what
do you know of such things? All you have to do
is to go on with your painting, and to remember the
promise you made the other night.”
“What promise was that, then?”
cried old McIntyre suspiciously.
“Never you mind, papa.
But if you forget it, Robert, I shall never forgive
you as long as I live.”