"Thought you'd be on the spot for once, did you, Rube?" inquired Hi
Holler. "Well, seeing you're here, we might accommodate you, by
getting up a murder, or a row, or something. 'Twould be too bad to
have nothing happen, seeing you are on hand for once."
The choir joined heartily in the laugh on the constable, who waited
till it had subsided and then said: "Well, what's the matter with jailing all of you for disturbing the
public peace. There's law for it--'disturbin' the public peace with
strange sounds at late and unusual hours of the night.'"
"All right, constable," said Cynthia, "I suppose you'll drive us to
jail in that rig o' yourn. I'd be willing to stay there six months for
the sake o' driving behind so spry a piece of horse-flesh as that."
"'Tain't the horseflesh she's after, constable, it's the driver.
Everyone 'round here knows how Cynthia dew admire you."
"Professional jealousy is what's at the bottom of this," declared Kate,
"the choir is jealous of Uncle Rube's reputation as a singer, and Uncle
Rube does not care for the choir's new-fangled methods of singing.
Rivalry! Rivalry! That's what the matter."
"That's right, Miss Kate," squeaked the constable, "they're jealous of
my singing. There ain't one of 'em, with all their scaling, and
do-re-mi-ing can touch me. If I turned professional to-day, I'd make
more'n all of 'em put together."
"That's cause they'd pay you to quit. Ha, ha," said Hi Holler.
And so the evening passed with the banter that invariably took place
when Rube was of the party. It was late when they left the Squire's,
the constable going along with them, and all singing merrily as birds
on a summer morning.
David went out under the stars and smoked innumerable pipes, but they
did not give their customary solace to-night. There was an upheaval
going on in his well regulated mind. "Who was she? What was the
mystery about her? How did a girl like that come to be tramping about
the country looking for work?" Her manner of speaking, the very
intonations of her voice, her choice of words, all proclaimed her from
a different world from theirs. He had noticed her hands, white and
fragile, and her small delicate wrists. They did not belong to a
working woman.
And her eyes, that seemed to hold the sorrows of centuries in their
liquid depths. What was the mystery of it all? And that insolent city
chap! What a look he had given her. The memory of it made Dave's
hands come together as if he were strangling something. But it was all
too deep for him. The lights glimmered in the rooms upstairs. His
father walked to the outer gate to say good-night to Mr. Sanderson--and
he tried to justify the feeling of hatred he felt toward Sanderson, but
could not. The sound of a shutter being drawn in, caused him to look
up. Anna, leaned out in the moonlight for a moment before drawing in
the blind. Dave took off his hat--it was an unconscious act of
reverence. The next moment, the grave, shy countryman had smiled at
his sentimentality. The shutters closed and all was dark, but Dave
continued to think and smoke far into the night.