Then the boy laughed maliciously; he enjoyed her confusion and alarm. ‘The weak-eyed Leah is away, quieting Laban,’ he said; ‘Leah shall have her Jacob, but Rachel shall get Esau, the gay, the handsome, whose hand is against every man, or rather one against whom every man’s hand is raised. I am going to jump into your room.’ ‘Keep away!’ cried Eve in the greatest alarm. ‘If you cry out, if you rouse Leah and bring her here, I will make such a hooting and howling as will kill the old man downstairs with fear.’ ‘In pity go. What do you want?’ asked Eve, backing from the window to the farthest wall. ‘Take care! Do not run out of the room. If you attempt it, I will jump in, and make my fiddle squeal, and caper about, till even the sober Barbara—Leah I mean—will believe that devils have taken possession, and as for the old man, he will give up his ghost to them without a protest.’ ‘I entreat you—I implore you—go!’ pleaded Eve, with tears of alarm in her eyes, cowering back against the wall, too frightened even to think of the costume she wore. ‘Ah!’ jeered the impish boy. ‘Run along down into the room where your sister is reading and praying with the old man, and what will they suppose but that a crazy opera-dancer has broken loose from her caravan and is rambling over the country.’ He chuckled, he enjoyed her terror. ‘Do you know how I have managed to get this little talk with you uninterrupted? I hooted in at the window of your father, and when he woke made faces at him. Then he screamed for help, and Barbara went to him. Now here am I; I scrambled up the old pear-tree trained against the wall. What is it, a Chaumontel or a Jargonelle? It can’t be a Bon Chrétien, or it would not have borne me.’ Eve’s face was white, her eyes were wide with terror, her hands behind her scrabbled at the wall, and tore the paper. ‘Oh, what do you want? Pray, pray go!’ ‘I will come in at the window, I will caper and whistle, and scream and fiddle. I will jump on the bed and kick all the clothes this way, that way. I will throw your Sunday frock out of the window; I will smash the basin and water-bottle, and glass and jug. I will throw the mirror against the wall; I will tear down the blinds and curtains, and drive the curtain-pole through the windows; I will throw your candle into the heap of clothes and linen and curtain, and make a blaze which will burn the room and set the house flaming, unless you make me a solemn promise. I have a message for you from poor Martin. Poor Martin! his heart is breaking. He can think only of lovely Eve. As soon as the sun sets be on the Raven Rock to-morrow.’ ‘I cannot. Do leave the window.’ ‘Very well,’ said the boy, ‘in ten minutes the house will be on fire. I am coming in; you run away. I shall lock you out, and before you have got help together the room will be in a blaze.’ ‘What do you want? I will promise anything to be rid of you.’ ‘Promise to be on the Raven Rock to-morrow evening.’ ‘Why must I be there?’