BARJONA'S DOWNFALL
Soon after breakfast on Saturday a furniture cart stopped at Carrier Ted's gate, and the village turned out en masse. There had been a heavy downpour of rain during the night, but the sun struggled through the clouds at breakfast time, and by nine o'clock had gained the mastery. It was dirty on the roadway, so the half-dozen neighbourly men who were piling the household effects on to the cart had to be careful not to rest them in the mud.
Not that Carrier Ted cared anything about it. He stood in the garden with the old silk hat pushed deep down over his brow, and looked abstractedly at his peonies. He seemed oblivious to the busy scene that was being enacted about him: of all the spectators he was the least moved: he, the most interested of all, was less interested than any.
By and by Barjona drove up and was greeted with scowls and muttered imprecations. Two or three of the women went a step beyond muttering, and expressed their views in terms that lacked nothing of directness.
"You ought to be ashamed o' yerself, Barjona Higgins!" said one; "yes, you ought! To turn the old man out of his 'ome at his time o' life. You'd turn a corpse out of its coffin, you would!"
Barjona's cold eyes contracted. "What's wrong now, eh?" he jerked; "house is mine, isn't it? .... Paid good money for it.... Can do as I like wi' my own, can't I? ... You mind your business; I'll mind mine."
He walked up the path to the house, merely nodding to Ted as he passed; but Ted did not see him.
After a while he returned and went up to the old man, and shouted in his ear as though he were deaf, so that we all could hear:
"There'll be a bit o' plasterin' to do ... your expense ... an' there's a cracked winda-pane ... ye'll pay for that, Ted?"
The old man looked up and passed his sleeve across his brow, then rubbed his knuckles in his eyes as though awaking from sleep.