“It’s a highfalutin’ notion, all right for O’Dells an’ sich, but no good for ordinary folks like us,” replied the constable.
“Is that so!” exclaimed Mr. Brown. “You guess again, blast yer cheek! If you can’t see why a little girl hadn’t ought to be set to catch her own father an’ maybe send him to jail or worse, I can. Yes, I can see it, by thunder! Any gentleman could, once it was explained to him. So you don’t have to worry about that, Ben.”
At that moment a gong sounded.
“That’s for dinner,” said Ben, “and I know my mother will be delighted if you’ll dine with us. Uncle Jim, will you take them to the house while I feed the horses?”
McAllister said a few words in his sister’s ear which at once enlightened and reassured her. There were fresh salmon and green peas for dinner and custard pies. The meal was eaten in the dining room. Badly painted and sadly cracked pictures of O’Dells, male and female, wonderfully uniformed and gowned, looked out from the low walls.
The deputy sheriff rose to the portraits and the old table silver. His manners were almost too good to be true and his conversation was elegant in tone and matter. He amused Ben O’Dell and McAllister and quite dazzled little Marion Sherwood; but it was impossible to know, by looking at her, whether Mrs. O’Dell was dazzled or amused. Her attitude toward her unexpected guests left nothing to be desired. A bishop and a dean could not have expected more; two old Maliseets at her table would not have received less.
Only Mel Lunt of the whole company did not play the game. He opened his mouth only to eat. He raised his eyes from his plate only to glance swiftly from one painted and sword-girt gentleman on the wall to another and then at the brow and nose of young Ben O’Dell which were the brow and nose of the portraits; and all his thought was that a deputy sheriff was pretty small potatoes after all and that a rural constable was simply nothing and none to a hill.
A little later Mel Lunt’s mare was hitched to the buggy and Mel had the reins in his hands when Mr. Brown paused suddenly with one foot on the step.
“Guess I might’s well take a look at the pirogue,” he said, with his face turned over his shoulder toward Ben and McAllister.
“She’s gone,” replied Ben. “She was taken off our beach one night nearly two weeks ago.”