"Are you waiting for anything, Homer?" Mr. Warner could not refrain from calling out before starting.
"Yes. What of it?" said Homer, turning round sharply. His brows were knit, his lips firm; an interrogation, not defiant, but direct, was expressed in every line of face and figure. "Yes," he said again, and unmistakable interrogation this time made the answer a question.
Mr. Warner shook the reins hastily over his horses.
"Oh, nothing—nothing," he said, "I was only wondering."
Homer turned away abruptly. "Better keep his wonderment to himself," he muttered, with a frown. "They better all keep their amazement to themselves or——" his hand clinched in a very suggestive fashion. Then he had gone for the buffalo robe for Myron to stand on, and as he gazed at her forlorn figure his anger changed to deep and abiding pity, to stern and righteous wrath. So Homer drove Myron home to the empty cottage, with Clem Humphries sitting in the bottom of the wagon, with his feet dangling over the tailboard, a quid of tobacco in his mouth, peace within his bosom. Clem was, as he expressed it, "a dollar to the good," and he was meditating unctuously upon the quantity of good Canadian Rye he could buy with the money, and speculating where he could beg, borrow, or (be it admitted) steal a jug. He had no mind to pay for one out of the dollar.
Mr. Prew, the minister, passed. He regarded Homer and Myron with incredulous horror, and returned Homer's somewhat brusque greeting in a very scandalized way. Clem took off his hat with a labored flourish; Mr. Prew returned his salute with condescending affability, and drove on to Mrs. Deans', where, presently, over hot soda-biscuits, doughnuts, and other good things, he praised Clem as "an humble, but very worthy old man."
"Humbugging old hypocrite!" ejaculated the "worthy old man," as soon as his pastor was out of hearing. "Miserable, designing old cuss he is. I'd like to use him for bait!" Then this humble follower relapsed into his reverie upon the modus operandi of getting a jug.
No other words were uttered during the ride. Homer and Myron were both silent; both knew that Homer had flung down the gauntlet to the gossips; both realized the import of the step; both pondered upon its significance from the village point of view.
Clem jumped off nimbly when they were opposite Mr. Muir's verdant veranda.
"You are not angry with me, Myron?" asked Homer.