After relighting the lamp, Glaves had carried his sore bones back to the lounge, and when Flynn entered he found the terrible old fellow glowering upon the dead. His wife's hysteria had slackened to a strained sobbing, and, answering Flynn's question, he tartly replied: "No, 'tain't Mrs. Carter. Had her fainting-spell an' kem to without any fuss, like a sensible girl. She's in there tending to that old fool." Then, beetling again on the dead, he forecast the verdict of the sheriff's jury. "Ye'll bear witness, Flynn, that this man kem to his death through running into a charge of buckshot after my winder 'd been shot in an' door battered down."
XXIV
WITHOUT THE PALE
"I really believe that I ought to resign!"
When, one morning a week later, Helen delivered herself of certain secret misgivings at breakfast, the trustee looked up, startled, from his eggs and mush, then proceeded to fish for motives.
"Scairt? You needn't to be. We've got this settlement by the short hairs at last."
His rude metaphor roughly set forth the truth. Without ties, the bachelors of the charivari party had scattered west through the territories, while Shinn, MacCloud, and other married men had gone into such close hiding that the sheriff had been unable to subpoena one for the inquest. But though she neither feared nor anticipated further violence, Helen now knew that she never would be able to live down the settlers' prejudice; and without the children's love, parents' confidence, her day of usefulness was past.
Glaves snorted at this altruistic reason. "Love? Confidence? What's their market value? You kedn't hope to compete with a dollar note for the first; as for the second— Danvers hit it off exactly when he stuck that sign on his stable door—'No more trading here!' Now, from my p'int of view, it isn't a question of love or confidence, but one of faith."
"Faith?" she echoed.
Nodding, he went on. "Me and Flynn backed you up—stood by you through all, didn't we?"