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"I know nothing about the boy," and Fentress took a step toward the door. "Stay where you are!" commanded the judge. "If you attempt to leave this room to call your niggers I'll kill you on its threshold!" But Yancy and Cavendish had stepped to the door with an intention that was evident, and Fentress' thin face cast itself in haggard lines.
In the records of a lawsuit tried in Fentress county in 1841 the price-list of some necessaries and luxuries are shown: "To two gallons of liquor, $1; one quart of whisky and six pounds of pork, 80 cents; one deer-skin, 75 cents; two kegs of tar, $2; two ounces of indigo, 40 cents; one gallon of whisky, 50 cents; five and one-half pints of apply brandy, 31-1/4 cents."
"What if he kills you?" demanded Mahaffy harshly. The judge shrugged his shoulders. "That is as it may be." "Have you forgotten your grandson?" Mahaffy's voice was still harsh and rasping. "I regard my meeting with Fentress as nothing less than a sacred duty to him." "We know no more than we did this morning," said Mahaffy.
"I don't propose to debate this further," rejoined Murrell haughtily. Instantly the colonel's jaw became rigid. The masterful airs of this cutthroat out of the hills irked him beyond measure. Murrell turned to Ware. "How soon can you get away from here, Tom?" he asked abruptly. "By God, I can't go too soon!" cried the planter, staggering to his feet. He gave Fentress a hopeless beaten look.
His greatest activities were reserved for what appeared to be only a season of despair. He armed himself with a threelegged stool he had found and turned once more to the door, but the stout planks stood firm under his blows. "Unless I get out of here in time I'm a ruined man!" thought the judge. "After this Fentress will refuse to meet me!" The window next engaged his attention.
A moment later Slosson paused, a door yielded to his hand, and Betty and the boy were thrust into the room where Murrell had held his conference with Fentress and Ware. The two women were now its only occupants and the mother, gross and shapeless, turned an expressionless face on the intruders; but the daughter shrank into the shadow, her burning glance fixed on Betty.
A hush spread across the field. It was like one of nature's invisible transitions. Along the edge of the woods the song of birds was stricken into silence. Ware, heavy-eyed Fentress, his lips twisted by a tortured smile, watched Mahaffy as he panted for breath, with his hand clenched against his chest.
A murderous light flashed from the judge's bloodshot eyes and his right hand was stealing toward the frayed tails of his coat. "Look out he's getting ready to shoot!" cried a frightened voice. Instantly by doors and windows the crowd, seized with inexplicable panic, emptied itself into the courthouse yard. Fentress was caught up in the rush and borne from the room and from the building.
At present I am what I am, while you are a hound and a blackguard! We'll settle this as becomes our breeding." He poured himself a second glass of liquor from Fentress' decanter. "I wonder if it is possible to insult you," and he tossed glass and contents in Fentress' face. The colonel's thin features were convulsed. The judge watched him with a scornful curling of the lips.
"And you are going to meet Fentress in the morning?" asked Mahaffy. "I suppose there's no way of avoiding that?" "Avoiding it?" almost shouted the judge. "For what have I been living? I shall meet him, let the consequences be what they may. To-night when I have reduced certain facts to writing I shall join you at Belle Plain.
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