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But it had a peculiar quality of its own, even as the house-light would be tinged with yellow when the stars are cold and white. A small and distant sound, and yet it cut through the crashing of the storm more and more clearly; someone rode through the rain whistling. "It's him!" gasped Haw-Haw Langley. "My God A'mighty, Mac, he's whistlin'! It ain't possible!"
"It's like a voice in the wind. It comes down the wind. D'ye hear now now now?" It was, indeed, the faintest of faint sounds when Haw-Haw caught it. It was, in the roar of the rain, as indistinct as some distant light on the horizon which may come either from a rising star or from the window of a house.
Crow bolted the kernel of corn in a twinkling. "You forget that you're not in the farmyard," he said boldly. "You can't treat me as if I were a Hen." And he chuckled in a croaking sort of fashion. Turkey Proudfoot glared at him. He knew that it was useless to rush at Mr. Crow. The old gentleman would only rise into the air and sail away with a loud haw-haw. Now, Mr. Crow was a famous tease.
To all of this Mac Strann paid not the slightest heed, but with his fleshy brow puckered considered the infinite distance. Even the drink which Pale Annie, grateful for the averted riot, placed on the table before him, Mac Strann allowed to stand untasted. And it was private stock! It was at this time that Haw-Haw Langley made his way back to the table and occupied the contested seat.
The big man with his back turned you will know in a moment when he looks this way: it's our celebrated friend Belgrave Teale. He comes down in one or other of his parts every day: to-day it's the genial squire, yesterday it was the haw-haw officer of the Crimean school.
"I never asked you to come," responded Mac Strann. "Mac," cried Haw-Haw in a sudden alarm, "s'pose you wasn't to win. S'pose you wasn't able to keep him away from me?" The numb lips of Mac Strann sprawled in an ugly smile, but he made no other answer. "You don't think you'll lose," hurried on Haw-Haw, "but neither did them six that Pale Annie was tellin' about, most like. But they did!
Said that Barry had once cleaned up a gang of six." "And here we are only two." "You ain't to fight!" warned Mac Strann sharply. "It'll be man to man, Haw-Haw." "But he might not notice that," cried Haw-Haw, and he caressed his scrawny neck as though he already felt fingers closing about his windpipe. "Him bein' used to fight crowds, Mac. Did you think of that?"
"I ain't a professional prayin' man," answered Haw-Haw defensively, "but I done my best.
That dread voice of his that shook the hills when he was angry, fell in ordinary talk very pleasantly upon the ear, with a kind of honied, friendly whine, not far off singing, that was eminently Scottish. He laughed not very often, and when he did, with a sudden, loud haw-haw, hearty but somehow joyless, like an echo from a rock.
"Well," snarled Haw-Haw, "I got to be gettin' back home pretty soon. I ain't rollin' in coin the way you are, Mac." The other returned no answer, but let his eyes rove vacantly over the room, and since his head was turned the other way, Haw-Haw Langley allowed a sneer to twist at his lips for a moment. "If I had the price," he said, "we'd have another drink."
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