The answer came without hesitation, steadily, frankly:
“On Stark's Mountain, as nearly as I can make out.”
Billy held his breath and wondered what was coming next. He caught his hands on the window ledge and chinned himself again, his eyes and the fringe of his dishevelled brown hair appearing above the window sill, but the startled session was not looking out the window just then. Mr. Harricutt looked slightly put out. Stark's Mountain had nothing to do with this matter, and the young man was probably trying to prove an alibi. He sat up jerkily and placed his elbows on the chair arms, touching the tips of his long bony fingers, fitting them together carefully and speaking in aggravated detached syllables in rhythm with the movement of his fingers.
“Young—man! An—swer me!—Ware—you—or ware you—not—at—the—Blue—Duck—Tavern—last—evening?”
Blue and red lights seemed to flicker in the cold steel eyes of the young man.
“I was!”
“A—hemmm!” The elder glanced around triumphantly, and went on with the examination:
“Well,—young man!—Ware you—or—ware you not—accompanied—by a young wumman—of—notorious—I may say—infamous character? In other words—a young girl—commonly called—Cherry? Cherry Fenner I believe is her whole name. Ware you with her?”
Mark's face was set, his eyes were glaring. The minister felt that if Harricutt had dared look up he would almost be afraid, now.
But after an instant's hesitation when it almost looked as if Mark were struggling with desire to administer corporal punishment to the little old bigot, he lifted his head defiantly and replied in hard tones as before: