Spinning on his heel, Matterson, his jaw out-thrust, stood squarely in the path of Gideon North.
"You are hasty," I said. "I came in to get my shoes."
"Ah," said Bud O'Hara, in biting sarcasm, "and then 't was in the eyes of us that you was looking for trouble."
"It was, indeed," I retorted.
"And perhaps you didn't see what was going on," he persisted.
"I did not," I replied, not knowing what he meant.
They looked doubtfully at one another, and then at me, and presently Gleazen said, "Then we're sorry we used you rough, Joe."
Meanwhile, I now perceived, the handful of stones had disappeared.
All this time my uncle had sat in his chair, looking like a man in a nightmare, and had raised neither hand nor voice to help me. In a way, so amazing was his silence, it seemed almost as if he himself had struck me. I could scarcely believe it of him. When I looked at him in mingled wonder and grief, his eyes fell and he slightly moistened his lips.