CHAPTER XVIII
A DESPERATE CONFLICT
About eight o’clock the next evening John Trafton sat in the barroom at the tavern enjoying himself in the manner characteristic of the place.
All day long his mind had been dwelling upon the plan which he had so recently formed, and he felt a feverish desire to carry it out.
“One bold stroke,” he said to himself, “and I am a made man. No more hard work for me. I will live like a gentleman.”
It was rather a strange idea the fisherman had—that he could live like a gentleman on the proceeds of a burglary—but there are many who, like him, consider that nothing is needed but money to make a gentleman.
That very night John Trafton decided to make the attempt, if circumstances seemed favorable. He shrank from it as the time approached and felt that he needed some artificial courage. For this reason he visited the tavern and patronized the bar more liberally than usual.
Trafton had prudently resolved to keep his design entirely secret and not to drop even a hint calculated to throw suspicion upon him after the event.
But there is an old proverb that when the wine is in the wit is out, and, though the fisherman indulged in whisky rather than wine, the saying will apply just as well to the one as to the other.
Among the company present in the barroom was one man who had been in the village a day or two, but was a stranger to all present.