The Roof Tree

by Charles Neville Buck

This man, she told herself in her ignorance of the truth, had sacrificed himself without complaint. She knew of only one greater sacrifice, and of that she could never think without a cloud of dread shutting off the sunlight of her happiness.

Even Bas would hardly have done what her husband had done for his sister: assumed a guilt of murder which made of himself an exile and a refugee whom the future always threatened.

Then somehow, as Bas sat silent, she saw again that hunger in his eyes, a hunger so wolf-like that it was difficult to harmonize it with his record of generous self-effacement; a hunger so avidly rapacious that a dim and unacknowledged uneasiness stirred in her heart.

But at that moment they heard a shout from the front, and Peanuts Causey came hurriedly around the corner of the house. His great neck and fat face were fiery red with heat and excitement, and he panted as he gave them his news.

"Old Jim Rowlett's done been shot at from ther bresh!" he told them. "He escaped death, but men says ther war's like ter bust, loose ergin because of hit."

"My God!" exclaimed Bas Rowlett in a tone of shocked incredulity; "old Jim hain't got no enemies. A man would hev need ter be a fiend ter harm him! I've got ter git over thar straightway."

Yet the crater did not at once burst into molten up-blazing. For a while yet it smouldered—held from eruption by the sober counsel of the man who had been fired on and who had seemingly escaped death by a miracle.

Adherents of the two factions still spoke as they met on the road, but when they separated each turned his head to watch the other out of sight and neither trusted an unprotected back to the good faith of any possible adversary.

To the house of Aaron Capper, unobtrusively prompted by Sim Squires, went certain of the Harper kin who knew not where else to turn—ignoring Parish Thornton as a young pretender for whom they had little more liking than for the enemy himself.

The elderly clansman received them and heard their talk, much of which was wild and foolish. All disclaimed, and honestly disclaimed, any knowledge of the infamy that had been aimed at old Jim Rowlett, but even in their frothy folly and yeasty clamour none was so bereft as to deny that the Harpers must face accountability. If war were inevitable, argued the hotheads, it were wisdom to strike the first blow.