“We'll see about that. You can't use it this time. Now go.”
Zeb reluctantly spoke to his horse and the wagon began to move. Hallet swore a string of oaths.
“I'm on to you, Paine!” he yelled. “You're standin' in with 'em, after all. You wait till I see Captain Jed.”
In three strides I was abreast the cart-tail.
“See him then,” said I. “And tell him that if any one uses this Lane for the purpose of wilfully annoying those living near it I'll not only forbid his using it, but I'll prosecute him for trespass. I mean that. Stop! I advise you not to say another word.”
I did not intend to prosecute Jim, he was not worth it, but I should have thoroughly enjoyed dragging him out of that wagon and silencing him by primitive methods. My anger had not cooled to any extent. He did not speak to me again, though I heard him muttering as the cart moved off. I remained where I was until I saw it turn into the Lower Road. Then I once more started for home.
I was very much annoyed and disturbed. Evidently this sort of thing had been going on for some time and I had just discovered it. It placed me in a miserable light. When Colton had declared, as he had in both our interviews, that the Lane was a nuisance I had loftily denied the assertion. Now those idiots in the village were doing their best to prove me a liar. I should have expected such behavior from Hallet and his friends, but for Captain Dean to tacitly approve their conduct was unexpected and provoking. Well, I had made my position plain, at all events. But I knew that Tim would distort my words and that the idea of my “standing in” with the Coltons, while professing independence, would be revived. I was destined to be detested and misunderstood by both sides. Yes, Dorinda was right in saying that I might find sitting on the fence uncomfortable. It was all of that.
I entered the grove and was striding on, head down, busy with these and similar reflections, when some one said: “Good morning, Mr. Paine.”
I stopped short, came out of the day dream in which I had been giving Captain Jed my opinion of his followers' behavior, looked up, and saw Miss Colton in the path before me.
She was dressed in white, a light, simple summer gown. Her straw hat was simple also, expensive simplicity doubtless, but without a trace of the horticultural exhibits with which Olinda Cahoon, our Denboro milliner, was wont to deck the creations she prepared for customers. Matilda Dean would have sniffed at the hat and gown; they were not nearly as elaborate as those Nellie, her daughter, wore on Sundays. But Matilda or Nellie at their grandest could not have appeared as well dressed as this girl, no matter what she wore. Just now she looked, as Lute or Dorinda might have said, “as if she came out of a band box.”