"Yes, indeed! There's one of the best women I ever knew, my dear."
Miss Clarkson drew herself up proudly, and bent upon him an icy glance. By now they had approached the corner of public square. "I think I must say good night, Mr. Rawlins!" said she, with icy emphasis.
"Good night, my dear," said the old minister, sighing.
Not far ahead of Ben McQuaid and merchant Newman walked two other citizens, J.B. Saunders, leading grocer and prominent Knight Templar, and Nels Jorgens, village blacksmith—the same whose shop was across the way from the home of Aurora Lane. It was said of Mr. Saunders that it would have been difficult to surprise him at any hour of the day or night when he was not in his uniform of a Knight Templar, or carrying his sword case and hat. For some reasons best known to himself, and anticipating all possible surprises, he had taken with him to the meeting this evening the two latter accessories of his wardrobe, which now he carried as he walked on in conversation.
His neighbor wore an alpaca coat and no necktie whatever—a reticent, gray-whiskered man, whose bank account had a goodliness perhaps not to be suspected from first look at its owner. The two talked of many things, but naturally came around to the only topic which was in the mind of all.
"What'll he do—old Eph Adamson," asked Saunders. "It looks like he couldn't stand for what's been handed to him. That young fellow has pounded him up a couple of times. If I was Adamson I certainly would have the law on him good and plenty."
"Well," said Old Man Jorgens, comfortably, "I don't know much about it anyway, but it looks to me Adamson has got pretty near enough already. He pays a lawyer to get him clear, and when he gets out of that court already he gets licked once more again. And he knows the boy can lick him."
"You think he'll like enough lick him again?"
"Yeh, that's like enough, yeh. I heard things have been said of his mother by Adamson. Oh, yes, the news is out now—she couldn't hide it no more now—there is the boy she said was dead. But, you know, after all, my friend, a mother is a mother, and men is men. When they say things of how we was born, you would fought, I hope? Me, I hope too. No man likes to hear his mother called of names. And she is his mother. Too bad it is—a bad business all around."
"But then—why, Nels, we know——"