Fiction > Book editions > London, 1886 - Kidnapped

1 BUN A GREAT DANGER IN THE HOUSE OF SHAWS.  29
mistake is." He sat a while and shook, blinking in his
plate: "He was all the brother that ever I had," he
added, but with no heart in his voice; and then he
caught up his spoon and fell to supper again, but still
shaking.
Now this last passage, this laying of hands upon my
person and sudden profession of love for my dead father,
went so clean beyond my comprehension that it put me
into both fear and hope. On the one hand, I began to
think my uncle was perhaps insane and might be dan-
gerous; on the other, there came up into my mind
(quite unbidden by me and even discouraged) a story
like some ballad I had heard folk singing, of a poor lad
that was a rightful heir and a wicked kinsman that tried
to keep him from his own. For why should my uncle
play a part with a relative that came, almost a beggar,
to his door, unless in his heart he had some cause to fear
him ?
With this notion, all unacknowledged, but neverthe-
less getting firmly settled in my head, I now began to
imitate his covert looks; so that we sat at table like a
cat and a mouse, each stealthily observing the other.
Not another word had he to say to me, black or white,
but was busy turning something secretly over in his
mind; and the longer we sat and the more I looked at
him, the more certain I became that the something was
unfriendly to myself.
When he had cleared the platter, he got out a single
pipeful of tobacco, just as in the morning, turned round