“Took some time for him to let us know he heard, didn't it,” he observed. “Cal'late he had to say 'Judas priest' four or five times afore he answered. If you cut all the 'Judas priests' out of that boy's talk he'd be next door to tongue-tied.”
Thankful turned to her relative.
“There, Emily,” she said, with a sigh of relief. “I guess likely we'll make the hotel this tack. I begun to think we never would.”
Captain Bangs shook his head.
“You won't go to no hotel this night,” he said, decidedly. “It's a long ways off and pretty poor harbor after you make it. You'll come right along with me and Kenelm to his sister's house. It's only a little ways and Hannah's got a spare room and she'll be glad to have you. I'm boardin' there myself just now. Yes, you will,” he added. “Of course you will. Suppose I'm goin' to let relations of Eben Barnes put up at the East Wellmouth tavern? By the everlastin', I guess not! I wouldn't send a—a Democrat there. Come right along! Don't say another word.”
Both of the ladies said other words, a good many of them, but they might as well have been orders to the wind to stop blowing. Captain Obed Bangs was, evidently, a person accustomed to having his own way. Even as they were still protesting their new acquaintance led them to the kitchen door, where Winnie S. and a companion, a long-legged person who answered to the name of “Jabez,” were waiting on the front seat of a vehicle attached to a dripping and dejected horse. To the rear of this vehicle “General Jackson” was tethered by a halter. Winnie S. was loaded to the guards with exclamatory explanations.
“Judas priest!” he exclaimed, as the captain assisted Mrs. Barnes and Emily into the carriage. “If I ain't glad to see you folks! When I got back here and there wa'n't a sign of you nowheres, I was took some off my pins, I tell ye. Didn't know what to do. I says to Jabez, I says—”
Captain Obed interrupted. “Never mind what you said to Jabez, Win,” he said. “Why didn't you get back sooner? That's what we want to know.”
Winnie S. was righteously indignant. “Sooner!” he repeated. “Judas priest! I tell ye right now I'm lucky to get back at all. Took me pretty nigh an hour to get to the village. Such travelin' I never see. Tried to save time by takin' the short cut acrost the meadow, and there ain't no meadow no more. It's three foot under water. You never see such a tide. So back I had to frog it and when I got far as Jabe's house all hands had turned in. I had to pretty nigh bust the door down 'fore I could wake anybody up. Then Jabe he had to get dressed and we had to harness up and—hey? Did you say anything, ma'am?”
The question was addressed to Mrs. Barnes, who had been vainly trying to ask one on her own account.