“If y’u say another impertinence word I will arrest you!” was the policeman’s threat. “Now de whole of you walk right off! Right off, I say, or I teck you all to jail!” He included the crowd with one comprehensive sweep of his arm, perceiving that his edifying attempt to awaken in his audience a sense of respectability had not been favourably received.
There was no disputing his authority, especially as he had begun to get angry. Susan knew, too, that she had mortally offended him by claiming to belong to a better class than his: which remark had also lost her the sympathy of the greater part of the crowd. So she was the first to take advantage of his command, and Maria followed her example by disappearing as quickly as she could. In another minute or two the normal activity of the street had been resumed, and the policeman had again started upon his beat, hoping that he would no more be disturbed that night. But both Susan and Maria knew that the fight would have a sequel. For war had now openly been declared between them.
CHAPTER III
THE CASE IN COURT
“I will have to bring ’er up!”
It was Susan who spoke. She had returned to the house, where the news of the fight had preceded her. The whole family had been on the point of issuing forth to her rescue when she appeared, and now they were again assembled in full conclave to discuss at length this new aspect of the situation.
“ ‘Vengeance is mine,’ ” quoted her aunt; “but there is a time for all things. An’ if y’u don’t teach a gurl like Maria a lesson, she will go far wid you.”
“She is a very rude young ooman!” exclaimed Mr. Proudleigh with indignation, following up his sister’s remark; he felt that he must lend his daughter his moral support. “Ef I was a younger man,” he went on, “I would . . . I would . . . well, I don’t know what I wouldn’t do! But Mother Smit is a dangerous female to interfere wid, and de cramps is troubling me in me foot so badly dat I wouldn’t like ’er to put ’er hand ’pon me at all.”
“Ef she ever touch you,” his wife broke in, “old as I is, she an’ me would have to go to prison.”
“You was always a courigous gal, Mattie,” said the old man approvingly; “but I don’t want to see y’u get into any quarrel; an’ to tell you de trute, I don’t t’ink I could help you at all. Susan is goin’ to bring up Maria, an’ that is a satisfaction. I are going to de court-house wid ’er to encourage her.”
“But suppose Susan lose the case?” Catherine suggested. She had been a witness of the encounter, and though she fully intended to forget every fact that would make against Susan in the court-house, she was sagacious enough to realize that Maria’s friends would not do likewise.