"She'd send him going if she didn't like it," declared Susan, and I reminded her that my sister had actually talked of doing so. But it died down again, and Bob held on, and I had speech with Noah Sweet and his wife; and they said that Mary was just as usual and Bob as busy as a bee.
However, my sister spoke of it off and on, and when I asked her if the man persecuted her, and if she wanted my help to thrust him out once for all, she answered thus:
"You can't call it persecution," she told me, "but often he says of a night, speaking in general like, that an Englishman never knows when he's beat, and things like that; and when he went to Plymouth, he spent a month of his money and bought me a ring, with a proper precious blue stone in it for my sixty-sixth birthday. And nothing will do but I wear it on my rheumatic finger. In fact you can't be even with the man, and I feel like a bird afore a snake."
All the same she wouldn't let me speak a word to him. She wept a bit, and then she began to laugh and, in fact, went on about it like a giglet wench of twenty-five. But my firm impression continued to be that she was suffering and growing feared of Battle, and would soon be in the doctor's hands for her nerves, if something weren't done.
I troubled a good bit and tried to get a definite view out of her, but I failed. Then I had a go at Bob too; but for the first time since I had known him, he was a bit short and sharp like, and what I had to say didn't interest him in the least. In fact he told me in so many words to mind my own business and leave him to mind his.
Then another busy spring kept us apart a good bit, till one evening Noah Sweet came up, all on his own, with a bit of startling news.
"I wasn't listening," he said, "and I should feel a good bit put out if you thought I was; but passing the parlour door last Sunday, I heard the man at her again! I catched the words, 'We're neither of us growing any younger, Mary Blake,' and then I passed on my way. And coming back a bit later, with my ear open, out of respect for the missis, I heard the man kiss her—I'll swear he did—for you can't mistake the sound if once you've heard it. And she made a noise like a kettle bubbling over. And so of course, I felt that it would be doing less than my duty if I didn't come over and tell you, because your sister's eyes was red as fire at supper table, and 'twas very clear she'd been weeping a bucketful about it. And me and my wife feel 'tis an outrageous thing and something ought to be done against the man."
Well, I went over next morning, and Mary wouldn't see me! For the only time in all our lives, she wouldn't see me. And first I was properly angry with her, and next, of course, I thought how 'twas, and guessed the man had forbidden her to speak to me for fear of my power over her. Him I couldn't see neither, because he was gone to Plymouth. Of course he'd gone for craft, that I shouldn't tackle him. So I left it there, and walked home very much enraged against Bob Battle. Because I felt it was getting to be a proper struggle between him and me for Mary; and that it was about time I set to work against him in earnest.
The climax happened a week later, when the Lord's Day came round again, and we went to church as usual. Then a proper awful shock fell on me and my wife.
For at the appointed time, if the Reverend Batson didn't ax 'em out! "Robert Battle, bachelor, and Mary Blake, spinster, both of this parish," he said; and so I knew the old rascal had gone too far at last and guessed it was time I took him in hand like a man. I remember getting red-hot all over and feeling a rush of righteous anger fill my heart; and an angry man will do anything, so I got up in the eye of all the people—an act very contrary to my nature, I'm sure. The place swam before my eyes and I was only conscious of one thing: my wife tugging at my tail to drag me down. But nought could have shut me up at that tragical moment, and I spoke with a loud and steady voice.