Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/116

104 that very second, she would have flown at them with a shriek of triumph. I had always known that one of her worst faults was a fondness for what she called “a bit of a scrimmage,” and that in an argument very few people got the better of her; but I had never dreamed that she would go so far as she was going then. She seemed as if she were perfectly burning for someone to attack her.

Down the staircase she went, brandishing the poker over her head. I could not keep so close to her as I should have liked for fear of it. She stamped so as she descended that near the bottom she put her foot clean through one of the steps. No doubt the wood was rotten, but still she need not have insisted on treading as heavily as she possibly could. And as soon as she reached the passage, without giving me an opportunity to say a word, she dashed at the door of the room, which was locked, and hit it with all her might with the end of the poker. I expected to see her go right through it, but, instead of that, she gave a sort of groan, and down fell the poker with a clatter to the floor.

“Pollie, what is the matter? What have you done?”

The expression of her countenance had changed all in an instant. A startled look, a look almost of pain, had come upon her features. She was rubbing her arms and feeling her shoulder-blades.

“More than I intended. If you had exerted all your strength to drive a poker through what seemed a panel of ordinary wood, and discovered that it was sheet iron instead, you’d find that you’d done more than you intended—it sort of jars.”

She picked up the poker again, and tapped it, much more gingerly, against the door. It gave forth a metallic ring.

“Iron, real iron! Not a shadow of a doubt of it. Pity I was not aware of the fact before I dislocated