“An’, Mister Wull,” Jehoshaphat entreated, his face falling like a child’s, “don’t you have no hard feelin’ over this. Ah, now, don’t!” he pleaded. “You won’t, will you? For we isn’t got no hate for you, Mister Wull, an’ we isn’t got no greed for ourselves. We just wants what’s fair—just what’s fair.” He added: “Just on’y that. We likes t’ see you have your milk an’ butter an’ fresh beef an’ nuts an’ whiskey. We don’t want them things, for they isn’t ours by rights. All we wants is just on’y fair play. We don’t want no law, sir: for, ecod!” Jehoshaphat declared, scratching his head in bewilderment, “the law looks after them that has, so far as I knows, sir, an’ don’t know nothin’ about them that hasn’t. An’ we don’t want un here at Satan’s Trap. We won’t have un! We—we—why, ecod! we—we can’t ’low it! We’d be ashamed of ourselves an we ’lowed you t’ fetch the law t’ Satan’s Trap t’ wrong us. We’re free men, isn’t we?” he demanded, indignantly. “Isn’t we? Ecod! I ’low we is! You think, John Wull,” he continued, in wrath, “that you can do what you like with we just because you an’ the likes o’ you is gone an’ got a law? You can’t! You can’t! An’ you can’t, just because we won’t ’low it.”
It was an incendiary speech.
“No, you can’t!” Timothy Yule screamed from the ice, “you robber, you thief, you whale’s pup! I’ll tell you what I thinks o’ you. You can’t scare me. I wants that meadow you stole from my father. I wants that meadow—”
“Timothy,” Jehoshaphat interrupted, quietly, “you’re a fool. Shut your mouth!”
Tom Lower, the lazy, wasteful Tom Lower, ran down to the shore of Haul-Away Head, and stamped his feet, and shook his fist. “I wants your cow an’ your raisins an’ your candy! We got you down, you robber! An’ I’ll have your red house; I’ll have your wool blankets; I’ll have your—”
“Tom Lower,” Jehoshaphat roared, rising in wrath, “I’ll floor you for that! That I will—next time I cotch you out.”
John Wull turned half-way around and grinned.
“Mister Wull,” Jehoshaphat asked, propitiatingly, “won’t you be put ashore?”
“Not at the price.”
“I ’low, then, sir,” said Jehoshaphat, in some impatience, “that you might as well be comfortable while you makes up your mind. Here!” He cast a square of tarpaulin on the ice, and chancing to discover Timothy Yule’s jacket, he added that. “There!” he grunted, with satisfaction; “you’ll be sittin’ soft an’ dry while you does your thinkin’. Don’t be long, sir—not overlong. Please don’t, sir,” he begged; “for it looks t’ me—it looks wonderful t’ me—like a spurt o’ weather.”