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"It's bolted on the other side!" he muttered, the full measure of Pegloe's perfidy revealing itself to his mind. He was aghast. It was a plot to discredit him. Pegloe's hospitality had been inspired by his enemy, for Pegloe was Fentress' tenant.
Almost gaily he snatched up a quilt, draping it about him after the manner of a Roman, toga, and thus lightly habited, started across Mr. Pegloe's truck-patch, his one thought Boggs' and the sun.
In spite of herself, Betty was experiencing a certain revulsion of feeling where the judge and Mahaffy were concerned. They were doubtless bad enough, but they could have been worse. "No, ma'am; he done soaked the label off one of Mr. Pegloe's whisky bottles and pasted it on the wall just as high as my chin, so's I can see it good, and he's learning me that-a-ways!
Do you reckon Pegloe has sufficient confidence to fill the jug again for us?" But Mahaffy's expression indicated no great confidence in Mr. Pegloe's confidence. "Credit," began the judge, "is proverbially shy; still it may sometimes be increased, like the muscles of the body and the mental faculties, by judicious use. I've always regarded Pegloe as a cheap mind.
I should have given him my name, and made him my heir. His education has already begun, under my supervision," and the judge, remembering the high use to which he had dedicated one of Pegloe's trade labels, fairly glowed with philanthropic fervor. "Think of that!" murmured Yancy softly. He was deeply moved. So was Mr. Cavendish, who was gifted with a wealth of ready sympathy.
"I reckon I'd be justified in hiring a conveyance from Pegloe," he thought, but just here he had a saving memory of his unfinished task; that claimed precedence and he resumed his pen. An hour later Pegloe's black boy presented himself to the judge. He came bearing a gift, and the gift appropriately enough was a square case bottle of respectable size.
"I can't honestly say they owed me, since I never expected to get anything out of them; however, they both left some furniture, all that was necessary for the kind of housekeeping they did, for they were single gentlemen and drew the bulk of their nourishment from Pegloe's bar.
The Scratch Hiller looked about him. Across the street a group of men, the greater number of whom were armed, stood in front of Pegloe's tavern. Glancing in the direction of the court-house, he observed that the square before it held other groups. But what impressed him more was the ominous silence that was everywhere. At his elbow the judge was breathing deep.
Mahaffy watched the judge, each trustfully placing the regulation of his private conduct in the hands of his friend, as the one most likely to be affected by the rectitude of his acts. Probably so extensive a consumption of Mr. Pegloe's corn whisky had never been accomplished with greater highmindedness.
With his hands clasped under the tails of his coat he walked twice about the building, stopping to peer in at all the windows, then he paused and took stock of his surroundings. Over the way was Pegloe's City Tavern; farther up the street was the court-house, a square wooden box with a crib that housed a cracked bell, rising from a gable end. The judge's pulse quickened.
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