“Oh!” exclaimed Aunt Lydia, “why didn’t I hold on to that coat while I had the chance!”
“I know now why he was so willing that ‘our young friend’ should stay in the sitting–room,” remarked Walter.
“But how did he get out?” inquired Uncle Boardman. “We did not hear the door–bell ring.”
“There!” shouted the Squire, pointing at an opened window. “He was cunning enough not to ring that door–bell.”
“Then he’s used to climin’ through folks’ winders,” said Aunt Lydia sarcastically.
“Why didn’t I arrest him on the spot? Scatter, everybody, and chase hard! Come out here!” cried the Squire, and his gray hairs led off in the scramble made for the store door. The little bell rang violently now, and out they rushed, Aunt Lydia as forward as any.
“He didn’t take any sleigh, you see, for we would have noticed that from the windows of the sitting–room. You come too!” said the Squire to Don Pedro, who, bare–headed, chanced to be coming from the direction of the kitchen. He had been almost asleep in a snug warm corner back of the stove, but the late banging of the door and that violent ringing of the door–bell had fully aroused him. He had hastily come out to see what the matter was. Wishing to avoid the company in the sitting–room, he had not tried to reach the store from that quarter, and trying another way, he succeeded in meeting the company by the doorstep.
“What fur?” asked Don Pedro, with widening eyes.
“To chase that rascal, Baggs,” said Squire Tuck.
“Dis moment I’m ready! I’ll go for him! Whar?”
Interpreting a hat as meaning any hat, Don Pedro went into the store, and took the first hat he saw in the line where Baggs and others had hung their wearing apparel.
“Mr. Blake,” said Squire Tuck, “you go along the road through the woods, rousing neighbors and making inquiries. I’ll take my team and dash down to The Harbor and rouse them there. Walter, you take the woods themselves, striking in at the left; and you, boy,” (addressing Don Pedro) “take the woods over here at the right. If you see Baggs, grip him and then shout for help, but hold him!”
Off went this police force, Uncle Boardman impressing into his constabulary force his patient old mare that chanced to be already harnessed to a red pung, and standing in a shed at the rear of the house. Squire Tuck sprang into his sleigh, eagerly caught up the reins and was about to dash off, when he said to Varney, “The counsel on the other side can join in the pursuit, if he wishes.”
