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Updated: September 4, 2025
The patient horse at last raised its head with a toss and a snort over the rabble, and then wheeled about to break away. With the instinct of his kind, Festus Clasby rushed to the animal's head and held him. As he did so the striped petticoats and the tossing shawls of the women flashed about the shafts and the body of the cart. The men raised a hoarse roar.
A neighbour of Festus Clasby, driving up the street at this moment, was amazed to see the great man of lands and shops in the midst of the wrangling tinkers. He pulled up, marvelling, then went to him. "What is this, Festus?" he asked. "They have robbed me," cried Festus Clasby. "Robbed you?" "Ay, of money and of property." "Good God! How much money?"
I will not allow you to break my brother's luck and he lying in his fever." "By heaven!" cried Festus Clasby. "I will have you all arrested. I will have the law of you now." He wheeled about the horse and cart, setting his face for the police barrack, which could be seen shining in the distance in the plumage of a magpie.
Festus Clasby hesitated, looking into the eyes of the woman. Was she to be trusted? Her eyes were clear, grey, and open, almost babyish in their rounded innocence. Festus Clasby handed her the tin can, and she examined it slowly. "Who sold you the Can with the Diamond Notch?" she asked. "The man standing by your side." "He has wronged you. The can is not his." "He says he made it." "Liar!
Festus Clasby saw the wisps of hair hanging about the bony face and froth at the corners of her mouth. Vaguely he saw the working of the bones of her wasted neck, and below it a long V-shaped gleam of the yellow tanned breast, which she thumped with her fist. Afterwards the memory of this ugly old trollop remained with him.
Festus Clasby wiped the perspiration from his forehead. He stumbled out of the yard, sat up on a ditch, and looked across the silent, peaceful, innocent country. How good it was! How lovely were the beasts grazing, fattening, in the fields! His soft velvety eyes were suddenly flooded with a bitter emotion and he wept.
Suddenly the woman's face brightened. She looked eagerly at Festus Clasby, then laid the hand of friendship, of appeal, on his arm. "I have it!" she cried, joyfully. "Have what?" asked Festus Clasby. "A way out of the trouble," she said. "A means of saving my brother from wrong. A way of bringing him his own for the Can with the Diamond Notch."
There was only conversation, agreeable conversation about things which Festus Clasby did not sell, such as the weather, the diseases of animals, the results of races, and the scandals of the Royal Families of Europe. These conversations were not hurried or yet protracted. They came to a happy ending at much the same moment as Festus Clasby made the knot on the twine of your parcel.
"Let the woman earn her shilling," said Mac-an-Ward. His voice came from behind Festus Clasby. "Our mother must get her shilling," cried the three youngsters.
I must seek those who will throw the shadow of the law over many." She moved away, sighing a quick sigh, as one might who was setting out on a disagreeable mission. Festus Clasby called to her and she came back, her eyes pained as they sought his face.
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