The words were like a chilly wind from the grave. The gossips of Sevier were, after all, a simple affectionate folk. They had grown together like the mossy logs of their houses: when one was torn away, it left a gap and a dull, abiding sense of loss for years. There was a long silence.
"De jedge am bin a class-leader fohty year," said at last old Primus the barber in the background, shaking his woolly poll.
Nobody answered. The squire noiselessly laid down the dice and shut the backgammon-board. Major Fetridge rose with a groan: "I'll go over and get a glass of somethin'. Won't some gentleman join me?"
Nobody joined him. The major's red head and lean little legs moved unsteadily over the square.
"Sam Fetridge hes hed enough a'ready," said the squire. "He'll follow the jedge, and that hot foot, ef he don't pull up. D'ye think Dave Cabarreux will come in for all the Scroope proputty, doc?"
"I don't know. I—don't—know," pulling his beard meditatively. "It'll be left in a lump: that much the jedge told me himself. 'I'll not part the proputty,' he says, 'but I'll leave it whar it'll keep up the standin' of the family.' The old man always hed his sheer of pride in the Scroopes, you know."
"Dave Cabarreux is his cousin once removed," interrupted Bright the landlord, who had sauntered back with the major, and engineered that unsteady worthy to a place on the trough. "He hes no other kin than Dave, that I know of. David's as genteel a young man as walks Sevier streets."
"He's a damned cub!" The major staggered to his feet, gesticulating angrily with his trembling hands.
"Tut, tut, Sam! sit down," said the squire, pulling at his coat-tail. "You begrudge Dave his pretty little sweetheart. I understand: I've watched you. Why, Fetridge, you're old enough to be her father, you moon-calf!"
Sam stiffened his shaky body into a drunken dignity: "Squire, you can talk of me as you choose: every scrag-end of humanity kin take liberties with my name now, and does it. But the pump is no place to mention that lady, nor any lady, sir."