Page:Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey (1st edition), Volume 3 (Agnes Grey).djvu/90

82 and uncle Robson would be angry. Ha, hah! I've caught you there, Miss!"

"I shall do what I think right in a case of this sort, without consulting any one. If your papa and mamma don't happen to approve of it, I shall be sorry to offend them, but your uncle Robson's opinions, of course, are nothing to me."

So saying—urged by a sense of duty—at the risk of both making myself sick, and incurring the wrath of my employers—I got a large flat stone, that had been reared up for a mousetrap by the gardener, then, having once more vainly endeavoured to persuade the little tyrant to let the birds be carried back, I asked what he intended to do with them. With fiendish glee he commenced a list of torments, and while he was busied in the relation, I dropped the stone upon his intended victims, and crushed them flat beneath it.

Loud were the outcries, terrible the execrations, consequent upon this daring outrage; uncle Robson had been coming up the walk with his gun, and was, just then, pausing to kick his dog. Tom flew towards him, vowing he would make him kick me instead of Juno.