"Murder." That meant death, prison, everything that was hateful. Even to Fayette's dull brain there penetrated some realization of what his present deed implied. For this was he who had waylaid an "enemy" on the highroad and beaten him into unconsciousness.
Then he remembered his own wrongs, and his anger flamed afresh.
"Thought you could do all the lickin', did ye? How many times did you have me thrashed? What did you care if the man who thrashed me 'bout killed me? What was I, only 'Bony,' out o' the poor farm! Ugh, you old rascal! Take that, and that, and that. Huckleberries! but it's fun to settle such scores."
The old horse which Mr. Wingate drove stood quiet in the road, else the matter might have had a different ending; for had she run and dragged her now helpless master, he would surely have been killed. As it was, she did not move, so there was nothing to deaden the sound of the sharp blows Fayette administered; and in the silence of the place and night this sound carried far.
It reached the ears of a foot passenger, toiling up the mill road toward Fairacres and quickened his pace. So that when the half-wit finally paused for breath, he felt himself caught by his collar and heard a stern voice demanding:—
"What's this? Hold! Stop! This—here, in Ardsley?"
Fayette looked up. The man who had gripped him was much taller than he, and seemed in that dim light a giant for strength. The capture brought back all those visions of punishment and the prison. In a twinkling the agile lad had writhed himself free from his short coat and leaped away into the darkness.
The newcomer heard a sound of retreating footsteps and mocking laughter, then turned his attention to the injured man in the phaeton.
"An old fellow, too, he seems. Hello! Are you alive? Hey! Can't you speak? That's serious."
The stranger's actions were alert and decided. He gently raised the bent figure of the unconscious Mr. Wingate to as comfortable a position as he could, stepped into the vehicle, and took up the reins.