“That was Roselle Upman that hollered,” remarked Janey Wilcox, breaking the agitated silence which had fallen upon the supper table. “You can tell it’s him because he’s had all his front teeth pulled out.”
“I wasn’t born in the woods to be skeert by an owl!” replied Abner, with a great show of tranquillity, helping himself to another slice of bread. “Miss, you ain’t half makin’ out a supper!”
But this bravado could not maintain itself. In another minute there came a loud chorus of angry yells, heightened at its finish by two or three pistol-shots. Then Abner pushed back his chair and rose slowly to his feet, and the rest sprang up all around the table.
“Hurley,” said the farmer, speaking as deliberately as he knew how, doubtless with the idea of reassuring the others, “you go out into the kitchen with the women-folks, an’ bar the woodshed door, an’ bring in the axe with you to stan’ guard over the kitchen door. I’ll look out for this part o’ the house myself.”
“I want to stay in here with you, Abner,” said M’rye.
“No, you go out with the others!” commanded the master with firmness, and so they all filed out with no hint whatever of me. The shadow of the lamp-shade had cut me off altogether from their thoughts.
Perhaps it is not surprising that my recollections | of what now ensued should lack definiteness and sequence. The truth is, that my terror at my own predicament, sitting there with no covering for my feet and calves but the burdock leaves and that absurd shawl, swamped everything else in my mind. Still, I do remember some of it.
Abner strode across to the bookcase and took up the gun, his big thumb resting determinedly on the hammers. Then he marched to the door, threw it wide open, and planted himself on the threshold, looking out into the darkness.
“What’s your business here, whoever you are?” he called out, in deep defiant tones.
“We’ve come to take you an’ Paddy out for a little ride on a rail!” answered the same shrill, mocking voice we had heard at first. Then others took up the hostile chorus. “We’ve got some pitch a-heatin’ round in the backyard!”
“You won’t catch cold; there’s plenty o’ feathers!”
“Tell the Irishman here’s some more ears for him to chaw on!”
“Come out an’ take your Copperhead medicine!”
There were yet other cries which the howling wind tore up into inarticulate fragments, and then a scattering volley of cheers, again emphasized by pistol-shots. While the crack of these still chilled my blood, a more than usually violent gust swooped round Abner’s burly figure, and blew out the lamp.
Terrifying as the first instant of utter darkness was, the second was recognizable as a relief. I at once threw myself out of the chair, and crept along back of the stove to where my stockings and boots had been put to dry. These I hastened, with much trembling awkwardness, to pull on, taking pains to keep the big square old stove between me and that open veranda door.
“Guess we won’t take no ride to-night!” I heard Abner roar out, after the shouting had for the moment died away.
“You got to have one!” came back the original voice. “It’s needful for your complaint!”
“I’ve got somethin’ here that’ll fit your complaint!” bellowed the farmer, raising his gun. “Take warnin’—the first cuss that sets foot on this stoop, I’ll bore a four-inch hole clean through him. I’ve got squirrel-shot, an’ I’ve got buckshot, an’ there’s plenty more behind—so take your choice!”
There were a good many derisive answering yells and hoots, and some one again fired a pistol in the air, but nobody offered to come up on the veranda.
Emboldened by this, I stole across the room now to one of the windows, and lifting a corner of the shade, strove to look out. At first there was nothing whatever to be seen in the utter blackness. Then I made out some faint reddish sort of diffused light in the upper air, which barely sufficed to indicate the presence of some score or more dark figures out in the direction of the pump. Evidently they had built a fire around in the back yard, as they said—probably starting it there so that its light might not disclose their identity.
This looked as if they really meant to tar-and-feather Abner and Hurley. The expression was familiar enough to my ears, and, from pictures in stray illustrated weeklies that found their way to the Corners, I had gathered some general notion of the procedure involved. The victim was stripped, I knew, and daubed over with hot melted pitch; then a pillow-case of feathers was emptied over him, and he was forced astride a fence-rail, which the rabble hoisted on their shoulders and ran about with. But my fancy balked at and refused the task of imagining Abner Beech in this humiliating posture. At least it was clear to my mind that a good many fierce and bloody things would happen first.
Apparently this had become clear to the throng outside as well. Whole minutes had gone by, and still no one mounted the veranda to seek close quarters with the farmer—who stood braced with his legs wide apart, bare-headed and erect, the wind blowing his huge beard sidewise over his shoulder.
“Well! ain’t none o’ you a-comin’?” he called out at last, with impatient sarcasm. “Thought you was so sot on takin’ me out an’ havin’ some fun with me!” After a brief pause, another taunt occurred to him. “Why, even the niggers you’re so in love with,” he shouted, “they ain’t such dod-rotted cowards as you be!”
A general movement was discernible among the shadowy forms outside. I thought for the instant that it meant a swarming attack upon the veranda. But no! suddenly it had grown much lighter, and the mob was moving away toward the rear of the house. The men were shouting things to one another, but the wind for the moment was at such a turbulent pitch that all their words were drowned. The reddened light waxed brighter still—and now there was nobody to be seen at all from the window.
“Hurry here! Mr. Beech! We’re all afire!” cried a frightened voice in the room behind me.
It may be guessed how I turned.
The kitchen door was open, and the figure of a woman stood on the threshold, indefinitely black against a strange yellowish-drab half light which framed it. This woman—one knew from the voice that it was Esther Hagadorn—seemed to be wringing her hands.
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CHAPTER IX—ESTHER’S VISIT
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CHAPTER XI—THE CONQUEST OF ABNER
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