The constable pulled out a bunch of keys and tossed it in the snow, saying, “’T ain’t fer me to say there sha’n’t be no sittin’ of the court, an’ if yer so set on tryin’, why, try.”
The squire deliberately went down two steps to get the keys, but the remaining six he took at one tumble, having received a push from one of the loafers back of him which sent his heavy body sprawling in the snow, his whip, hat, and, worst of all, his wig, flying in different directions. In a moment he had risen, cleared the snow from his mouth and eyes, and recovered his scattered articles, but it was not so easy to recover his dignity, and this was made the more difficult by the discovery that the bunch of keys had disappeared.
“Who took those keys?” he roared as soon as he could articulate, but the only reply the question produced was laughter.
“Don’t you wherrit yourself about those keys, squire,” advised Bagby. “They ’re safe stowed where they won’t cause no more trouble. And since that is done with, we’d like to settle another little matter with you that we was going to come over to Greenwood about to-day, but seeing as you ’re here, I don’t see no reason why it should n’t be attended to now.”
“What’s that?” snapped the squire.
“The meeting kind of thought things looked squawlish ahead, and that it would be best to be fixed for it, so I offered a resolution that the town buy twenty half-barrels of grain, and that—”
“Grain!” exclaimed the squire. “What in the ’nation can ye want with grain?”
“As we are all friends here, I’ll tell you confidential sort, that we put it thataways, so as the resolutions need n’t read too fiery, when they was published in the ‘Gazette.’ But the folks all knew as the grain was to be a black grain, that ’s not very good eating.”
“Why, this is treason!” cried Mr. Meredith. “Gunpowder! That ’s—”
“Yes. Gunpowder,” continued the spokesman, quite as much to the now concentrated crowd as to the questioner. “We reckon the time ’s coming when we’ll want it swingeing bad. And the meeting seemed to think the same way, for they voted that resolution right off, and appointed me and Phil Hennion and Mr. Wetman a committee to raise a levy to buy it.”