As we left the room, the landlord fell and carried down with a crash a table on which a tray of glasses was standing. I would have stayed to help him, but I knew that other help was near, and to tell the truth I was beginning to fear the consequences of even so slight a part as mine had been in the ghastly happenings of the night. So I followed the others, and we noiselessly slipped away through the orchard, just as the men sent to guard the back door came hurrying round the house and took their stations.
With the distant fire flaming against the sky, with the smell of smoke stinging in our nostrils, and with the clamor of the aroused town sounding on every side, we hurried, unobserved, through dark fields and orchards, to my uncle's house, where Arnold and Sim and Abe were impatiently waiting.
They started up from beside the wagon as we drew near, and crowded round us with eager questions. But there was no time for mere talking. Already we could hear voices approaching, although as yet they were not dangerously near.
"Come, boys," my uncle cried, "into the wagon, every one. Come, Neil, come—for heaven's sake—"
"Be still, Seth, I am sober."
"Sober!" Uncle Seth put a world of disgust into the word.
"Yes, sober, curse you."
"Very well, but do climb in—"
"Climb in? I'll climb in when it suits my convenience."
Jostling and scrambling, we were all in the wagon at last. Uncle Seth held reins and whip; Neil Gleazen, who was squeezed in between him and me on the seat, snored loudly; and the others, finding such seats as they could on boxes or the bed of the wagon, endured their discomfort in silence.