With a short laugh he held out his big, knotted hand.
"Good—by," he said, " and don't be a damned fool."
"Good—by," answered Will, clinging desperately to his outstretched arm. Then an ashen pallor overspread his face, and he slunk nervously toward the kitchen, for there was the sound of footsteps on the little porch outside, followed by a brisk rap on the front door.
"Go!" whispered Christopher, hardly taking breath, and he stood waiting while Will ran along the wooden platform and past the stable toward the pasture.
The rap came again, and he turned quickly. "Quit your racket and let me get on my clothes!" he shouted, and hesitated a little longer.
As he stood alone there in the center of the room, his eyes, traversing the walls, fell on the portrait of Bolivar Blake, and with one of the fantastic tricks of memory there shot into his head the dying phrase of that gay sinner: "I may not sit with the saints, but I shall stand among the gentlemen."
"Precious old ass!" he muttered, and unbarred the door.
As he flung it open the first rays of sunlight splashed across the threshold, and he was conscious, all at once, of a strange exhilaration, as if he were breasting one of the big waves of life.
"This is a pretty way to wake up a fellow who has been planting tobacco till he's stiff," he grumbled. "Is that you, Tom?" He glanced carelessly round, nodding with a kind of friendly condescension to each man of the little group. "How are you, Matthew? Hello, Fred!"
Tom drew back, coughing, and scraped the heel of his boot on the topmost step.