The Doings of Raffles Haw/Chapter VI
Chapter VI: A Strange Visitor.
[edit]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."