“You’ve made love to her, behind my back! You’ve turned her head! She ain’t no eyes left in her for anybody but you, —— you! And I’ve ben keepin’ company with her for four years. You’ve got my girl away from me, and you’d oughter drown for it. Drownin’ ’s too good for you!”
“Look here, Ben,” said Bayard. “Are you drunk?”
“We don’t drink—me, nor my father. And you know it. We ain’t such —— fools!”
“It is a waste of the English language to add,” observed the preacher, with an accession of his natural dignity, which was not without its effect upon Ben Trawl, “that I have never regarded Miss Granite—for a moment—in the extraordinary light which you suggest. It seems to me unnecessary to point out to you the unnaturalness—I may be frank, and say the impossibility—of such a supposition.”
“—— you!” raved Ben, “ain’t she good enough for you, then?”
“Ben Trawl,” said the minister imperiously, “this nonsense has gone far enough. If you have nothing more reasonable to say to me, we may as well stop talking, for I’m going home. If you have, I’ll stay and hear it out.”
Bayard calmly seated himself upon the base of Ragged Rock, and took off his hat.
“What a warm, pleasant night it is!” he said in a tone so changed that Ben Trawl stared.
“Plucky, anyhow,” thought Ben. But he said: “I ain’t got half through yet. I’ve got another score ag’in’ you. You’ve took the girl, and now you’re takin’ the business.”