"I reckon we're messers, all right," murmured the Cap'n, gazing gloomily on the scene of the involuntary entombment of the three-times-dead Crymble. "I couldn't prove that he was ever dead in his life, but there's one thing I've seen with my own eyes. He acted as his own s.e.xton, and that's almost as unbelievable as a man's comin' back to life again."

"I ain't lookin' for him to come back this last time," remarked Hiram, with much conviction; "unless there's an inch drain-pipe there and he comes up it like an angleworm. Looks from this side of the surface as though death, funeral service, interment, and mournin' was all over in record time and without music or flowers."

Batson Reeves brought the crowd.

It was plainly one of the opportunities of his life.

The word that he circulated, as he rattled down to Broadway's store and back, was that Cap'n Sproul and Hiram Look had attacked him with murderous intent, and that after he had bravely fought them off they had wantonly grabbed Mr. Dependence Crymble, jabbed him down a hole in the ground and kicked the hole in on him.

"I've always vowed and declared they was both lunatics," cried the returning Mr. Reeves. He darted accusatory finger at the disconsolate pair where they stood gazing down upon the place of Crymble's sepulture. "They was hatchin' a plot and I busted it, and now this is what they've done for revenge. And I'll leave it to Mis'

Crymble herself, who stands there and who saw it all."

Mrs. Crymble was in a state of mind to take the cue promptly, and affirmed the charge with an inspirational wealth of detail and a ferocity of shrill accusation that took effect on the crowd in spite of the lack of logic. In moments of excitement crowds are not discriminating. The Cap'n and Hiram gazed with some uneasiness on the lowering faces.

"They beat his brains out, gents," she screamed--"beat the brains out of the husband that had just come home to me after roamin' the wide world over. Hang 'em, I say! And I'll soap the clothes-line if you'll do it!"

"Ain't she a h.e.l.l-cat, though!" muttered Hiram.

"When I think of what I was tryin' to make that poor critter do,"

said Cap'n' Sproul, absent-mindedly kicking a loosened clod into the hole, "I'm ashamed of myself. I reckon he's better off down there than up here. I don't wish him back."

"If accused wish to say anything in their own defence it will be heard," declaimed Squire Alcander, advancing from the gathering throng. "Otherwise, Constable Nute will--"

"Constable Nute will keep his distance from me," roared Cap'n Sproul, "or he'll get his everlastin' come-uppance. I can stand a certain amount of dum foolishness, and I serve notice that I've had full amount served out. Now you loafers standin' round gawpin, you grab anything that will scoop dirt and get to work diggin' here."

"I don't propose to have no bill of expense run up on me," announced Mrs. Crymble, "I've paid out for him all I'm goin' to, and I got done long ago."

"Bereaved and lovin' widder heard, neighbors and friends," said the Cap'n, significantly. "Now go ahead, people, and believe what she says about us, if you want to! Get to work here."

"You sha'n't stir a shovelful of that dirt," declared Mrs. Crymble.

"You'll claim day's wages, every one of you."

"Wages is cheaper in Chiny," said the Cap'n satirically. "You can cable round and have him dug out from that side if you want to. But I'm tellin' you right here and now that he's goin' to be dug out from one side or the other."

"He's dead and he's buried, ain't he?" demanded Reeves, rallying to the support of the widow. "What more is there to do?"

"Go down to the graveyard and get that stone of his and set it here,"

replied Cap'n Sproul, with bitter sarcasm. "Go somewhere to get out of my way here, for if you or any other human polecat, male or female"--he directed withering glance at Mrs. Crymble--"gets in my way whilst I'm doin' what's to be done, if we ain't heathen, I'll split 'em down with this barn shovel." He had secured the implement and tossed out the first shovelful.

There were plenty of willing volunteers. They paid no attention to the widow's reproaches. All who could, toiled with shovels. Others lifted the dirt in buckets. At the end of half an hour Cap'n Sproul, who was deepest in the hole, uttered a sharp exclamation.

"By the mud-hoofed mackinaw!" he shouted, waving his shovel to command silence, "if he ain't alive again after bein' killed the fourth time!"

Below there was a m.u.f.fled "tunk-tunk-tunk!" It was plainly the sound of two rocks clacking together. It was appealing signal.

Ten minutes later, furious digging brought the rescuers to a flat rock, part of the stoning of the caved-in well. In its fall it had lodged upon soil and rocks, and when it was raised, gingerly and slowly, they found that, below in the cavern it had preserved, there sat Mr. Crymble, up to his shoulders in dirt.

"If some gent will kindly pa.s.s me a chaw of tobacker," he said, wistfully, "it will kind of keep up my strength and courage till the rest of me is dug up."

When he had been lifted at last to the edge of the well he turned dull eyes of resentment on Mrs. Crymble.

"I wish there'd been a hole clear through to the Sandwich Isle or any other heathen country," he said, sourly. "I'd have crawled there through lakes of fire and seas of blood."

She lifted her voice to vituperate, but his last clinch with death seemed to have given Mr. Crymble a new sense of power and self-reliance. He hopped up, gathered a handful of rocks and made at his Xantippe. His aim was not too good and he did not hit her, but he stood for several minutes and soulfully bombarded the door that she slammed behind her in her flight.

Then he came back and gathered more rocks from the scene of his recent burial. He propped his thin legs apart, brandished a sizable missile, and squalled defiance.

"I've just died for the fourth time--killed by a well cavin' in on me. There ain't no h.e.l.l where I've been. And if there's any man here that thinks he can shove me back into this h.e.l.l on earth"--he shook his fist at the house and singled Cap'n Sproul with flaming eye--"now is the time for him to try to do it."

"There ain't n.o.body goin' to try to do it," said the Cap'n, coming up to him with frankly outstretched hand. He patted the rocks gently from the arms of the indignant Mr. Crymble. "As a gen'ral thing I stand up for matrimony and stand up for it firm--but I reckon I didn't understand your case, Crymble. I apologize, and we'll shake hands on it. You can have the school-house, and I'll do more'n that--I'll pay for fixin' it over. And in the mean time you come up to my house and make me a good long visit."

He shoved ingratiating hand into the hook of the other's bony elbow and led him away.

"But I want my valise," pleaded Mr. Crymble.

"You leave that coffin-plate and epitaph with her," said the Cap'n, firmly. "You're in for a good old age and don't need 'em. And they may cheer up Mis' Crymble from time to time. She needs cheerin' up."

Hiram Look, following them out of the yard, yanked up the trespa.s.s sign and advanced to Batson Reeves and brandished it over his head.

"Gimme it!" he rasped.

"What?" quavered Reeves.

"That paper I stood here and watched you makin' up. Gimme it, or I'll peg you like I peg tent-pegs for the big tent."

And Reeves, having excellent ideas of discretion, pa.s.sed over the list of trespa.s.ses. He did not look up at the windows of the Crymble house as he rode away with his brother, the squire. And what was significant, he took away with him the neck-halter that, for convenience' sake on his frequent calls, he had left hanging to the hitching-post in the Crymble yard for many weeks.

XXVII

At last the Women's Temperance Workers' Union of Smyrna became thoroughly indignant, in addition to being somewhat mystified.

Twice they had "waited on" Landlord Ferd Parrott, of the Smyrna tavern--twelve of them in a stern delegation--and he had simply blinked at them out of his puckery eyes, and pawed nervously at his weazened face, and had given them no satisfaction.

Twice they had marched bravely into the town office and had faced Cap'n Aaron Sproul, first selectman, and had complained that Ferd Parrott was running "a reg'lar rum-hole." Cap'n Sproul had nipped his bristly beard and gazed away from them at the ceiling, and said he would see what could be done about it.

Mrs. Aaron Sproul, a devoted member of the W.T.W.'s, was appointed a committee of one to sound him, and found him, even in the sweet privacy of home, so singularly embarra.s.sed and uncommunicative that her affectionate heart was disturbed and grieved.

Then came Constable Zeburee Nute into the presence of the town's chief executive with a complaint.

"They're gittin' worse'n hornicks round me," he whined, "them Double-yer T. Double-yers. Want Ferd's place raided for licker. But I understood you to tell me--"

"I hain't told you northin' about it!" roared the Cap'n, with mighty clap of open palm on the town ledger.

"Well, you hain't give off orders to raid, seize and diskiver, libel and destroy," complained the officer.