"Don't kill me, and I'll own up! I did put on some on't, that's a fact. Ropes would a' killed me if I hadn't, and now you kill me fur doin' of it. He did knock me down, 'cause he said I didn't rub it on hard enough; and arter that he rubbed it himself."
"What next, you scoundrel?"
"Next, they rolled him in the feathers, and sent me, as I told ye, to tote the kittle home. Now don't, don't go fur to hang me, Mr. Stackridge! Help me, men! help me, Withers,—Devit! For he means to be the death of me, I'm shore!"
Indeed, Stackridge was in a tremendous passion, and would, no doubt, have done the man some serious injury but for the timely interposition of Carl.
"O, you're a good boy, Carl!" cried Dan, in an exstasy of terror and gratitude. "You know they druv me to it, don't ye? You know I wouldn't have gone fur to do it no how, if 't hadn't been to save my life. And as fur rubbing on the tar, I know'd they'd rub harder 'n I did; so I took holt, if only to do it more soft and gentle-like."
Carl testified to Dan's apparent unwillingness to participate in the outrage; and Stackridge, finding that nothing more could be got out of the terror-stricken wretch, flung him off in great rage and disgust.
"We must find what they have done with Hapgood," he said. "We're losing time here. We'll go to his boarding-place first."
As Pepperill fell backwards upon some stones, and lay there helplessly, Carl ran to him to learn if he was hurt.
"Wal, I be hurt some," murmured Dan; "a good deal in my back, and a durned sight more in my feelin's. As if I wan't sufferin' a'ready the pangs of death—wus'n death!—a thinkin' about the master, and what's been done to him, arter he'd been so kind to me—and thinkin' he'd think I'm the ongratefulest cuss out of the bad place!—and then to have it all laid on to me by Stackridge and the rest! that's the stun that hurts me wust of any!"
Carl thought, if that was all, he could not assist him much; and he ran on after the men, leaving Pepperill snivelling like a whipped schoolboy on the stones.