Page:Mehalah 1920.djvu/47

Rh Her knock met with no response, so she thrust the door open and entered, followed by her mother. The room she stepped into was large and low. It was lighted by but one window to the south, fitted with lead lattice. The floor was of brick, for the cellarage was vaulted and supported a solid basement. There was no ceiling, and the oak rafters were black with age and smoke. The only ornaments decorating the walls were guns and pistols, some of curious foreign make. The fire-place was large; on the oak lintel was cut deep the inscription: —

Mehalah had scarce time to notice all this, when a trap-door she had not observed in the floor flew up, and the head, then the shoulders, and finally the entire body, of Elijah Rebow emerged from the basement. Without taking notice of his tenants, he leisurely ran a stout iron bolt through a staple, making fast the trap at the top, then he did the same with a bolt at the bottom. At the time, this conduct struck Mehalah as singular. It was as though Rebow were barring a door from within lest he should be broken in on from the cellar. Elijah slowly drew a leather armchair over the trap-door, and seated himself in it. The hole through which he had ascended was near the fire-place, and now that he sat over it he occupied the ingle nook.

"Well, Glory!" said he suddenly, addressing Mehalah. "So you have not brought the rent. You have come with your old mother to blubber and beg compassion and delay. I know it all. It is of no use. Tears don't move me, I have no pity, and I grant no delay. I want my money. Every man does. He wants his money when it's due. I calculated on it, I've a debt which I shall wipe off with it, so there; now no excuses, I tell you they won't do. Sheer off." "Master Rebow" began the widow. "You may save your speech," said Elijah, cutting her short. "Faugh! when I've been down there"—he pointed with his thumb towards the cellar—"I need a smoke." He drew forth a clay pipe and tobacco-box and