His words and stolid bumpkin air threw me into a frenzy of rage.
"Then," cried I, "may the devil's curse light on you and yours! That horse was left with you in trust. You have dinned the word into my ears; there's no gainsaying it. And I claim the fulfilment of your trust. Understand, fellow!" I went on, shaking my hand at him, for I saw his mouth open and his whole face broaden out into a laugh. "It's not a horse you are stealing; it is a life--a man's innocent life!"
Thereupon he broke in upon my passion with a great gust of mirth that shook him from head to foot.
"Lord, master!" said he, "that be mighty fine play-acting. I don't know that I ever saw better in Newberry Market"--and he slapped a great fist upon his thigh. "No, I'll be danged if I did. Go on! go on! Lord, I could sit here and laugh till dinner." And he thrust his feet forward, plunged his hands in his breeches pockets, and rolled back against the wall. I watched him in an utter vacancy of mind. For his stupid laughter had quenched me like a pailful of cold water. I searched for some device by which I might outwit his stubbornness. Not the smallest seed of a plan could I discover. I sent my thoughts back to the morning of the fourteenth, and cudgelled my memory in the hope that Swasfield might have dropped some hint which had passed unnoticed. But he had said so little, and I remembered his every word. Then in a twinkling I recollected the charms which I had found upon his person. Perchance one of them was the needed token. No idea was too extravagant for me to grasp at it. What had I done with them? I thought. I clapped my hand into the pocket of my coat, and my fingers closed, not on the charms, but on the barrel of the pistol which Larke had handed to me at the moment of my setting out. In an instant my mind was made up. I must have that horse, cost what it might. 'Twas useless to argue with my landlord. Money I had made trial of the night before. And here were the minutes running by, and each one of them, it might be, a drop of Julian's blood!
I walked quickly to the door, at once to disengage the pistol secretly and to hide any change in my countenance. But the cock must needs catch in the flap of my pocket as I drew the weapon out. I heard a startled cry behind me, a rattle of the corn-bin, and a clatter of heavy shoes on the ground. I took one spring out of the stable, turned, and levelled the barrel through the doorway. For a moment we stood watching one another, he crouched for a leap, I covering his eyes with the pistol.
"Saddle that horse," I commanded, "and bring it out into the road!"
It was his turn now to argue and entreat, but I had no taste at the moment for "play-acting."
"Be quick, man!" I said. "You have wasted time enough. Be quick, else I'll splatter your head against the wall!"
The fellow rose erect and did as I bid, while I stood in the doorway and railed at him. For, alas! I was never over-generous by nature.
"Hurry, you potatoe!" I exclaimed. Why that word above all other and more definite terms of abuse should have pained him I know not. But so it was; "Potatoe" grieved him immeasurably, and noting that, I repeated it more often, I fear me, than fitted my dignity. At length the horse was saddled.