To a stranger no visible signs of disturbance would have been apparent. Looking up and down the long street that constituted the main portion of Brownsville, he might have noticed that there were no women to be seen, but the feminine fraction of the population, insignificant in number, was at no time obtrusive.
Such social functions as were in vogue with the female sex consisted mostly of long-range conversations between women who stood, each at her own door, or leaned out, each at her own window. And the subject-matter of these conversations would have been totally devoid of interest to the stranger.
At the moment when the action of this tale was about to begin, there was no sound of conversation, nor appearance of a petticoat. There was, instead, an ominous hush, though the stranger might not have recognized the omen.
It was yet early in the forenoon, and the only interruption to the unwonted silence of the morning had come from a crash in Long Mike’s house half-way up the street. It was such a noise as might have been made by an angry man who should survey his breakfast-table, and, finding nothing on it to his liking, should upset it with such violence as to send some of the dishes against the walls of the room and others through the front window.
The strained attention of Brownsville had caught no further sound for half an hour, and though at every other door but his and one other, men stood as if prepared for observation or action, as the case might be, they had heard nothing further, nor seen anything.
Suddenly Long Mike’s door flew open. What force impelled it cannot be stated positively, but Stumpy, whose house was almost opposite, saw the recumbent figure of a man several feet back from the doorway, where it might have fallen after an energetic kick and a sudden recoil.
Slowly and with evident effort the man arose to his feet, and after some minutes stepped uncertainly forward. Steadying himself by the lintels, he gazed out, as if dubious of the result of further effort.
Up and down the street he looked for a long time, with as much earnestness as was compatible with a confusion of ideas that seemed to be buzzing around his head, seeking entrance as bees might endeavour to enter a sealed hive.
Presently his eyes fell on the one doorway, not far from his own, where no man stood. The faces he saw at the other doors were all mistily familiar to him, but he gave no sign of recognition, and no man spoke to him. The alert but motionless figures might have been graven images, so far as any emotion could be detected, and they stirred him not.
But the empty doorway fixed his unsteady look. His eye cleared, and with a mighty lurch he sallied forth, saying nothing when he started but gurgitating violently as he strove to arouse his vocal organs to action.