"Jim," responded the man in a whisper, so light that it could reach no ear but his own.
"Don't make no noise, not even if I sh'd make consid'able," said Jim.
Then, grasping the bars with both hands, he gave the door a sudden pull, into which he put all the might of his huge frame. A thousand pounds would not have measured it, and the door yielded, not at the bolt, but at the hinges. Screws deeply imbedded were pulled out bodily. A second lighter wrench completed the task, and the door was noiselessly set aside, though Jim was trembling in every muscle.
Benedict stood at the door.
"Here's the robe that Abram sent ye," said Jim, throwing over the poor man's shoulders an ample blanket; and putting one of his large arms around him, he led him shuffling out of the hall, and shut and bolted the door.
He had no sooner done this, than the bedlam inside broke loose. There were yells, and howls, and curses, but Jim did not stop for these. Dizzied with his effort, enveloped in thick darkness, and the wind which preceded the approaching shower blowing a fierce gale, he was obliged to stop a moment to make sure that he was walking in the right direction. He saw the lights of the village, and, finding the road, managed to keep on it until he reached the horse, that had become uneasy under the premonitory tumult of the storm. Lifting Benedict into the wagon as if he had been a child, he wrapped him warmly, and put the boy in behind him, to kneel and see that his father did not fall out. Then he turned the horse around, and started toward Number Nine. The horse knew the road, and was furnished with keener vision than the man who drove him. Jim was aware of this, and letting the reins lie loose upon his back, the animal struck into a long, swinging trot, in prospect of home and another "pail iv oats."
They had not gone a mile when the gathering tempest came down upon them. It rained in torrents, the lightning illuminated the whole region again and again, and the thunder cracked, and boomed, and rolled off among the woods and hills, as if the day of doom had come.
The war of the elements harmonized strangely with the weird fancies of the weak man who sat at Jim's side. He rode in perfect silence for miles. At last the wind went down, and the rain settled to a steady fall.
"They were pretty angry about my going," said he, feebly.
"Yes," said Jim, "they behaved purty car'less, but I'm too many for 'em."