His employer was an absentee who hated the Parson, so the
Parson groaned in vain over the scandal.
Well, one Fair-day I crossed in Eli's boat with the pair. The
woman--a dark gipsy creature--was tricked out in violet and yellow,
with a sham gold watch-chain and great aluminium earrings: and the
gamekeeper had driven her down in his spring-cart. As Eli pushed
off, I saw a small boat coming down the river across our course.
It was These-an'-That, pulling down with vegetables for the fair.
I cannot say if the two saw him: but he glanced up for a moment at
the sound of their laughter, then bent his head and rowed past us a
trifle more quickly. The distance was too great to let me see his
face.
I was the last to step ashore. As I waited for Eli to change my
sixpence, he nodded after the couple, who by this time had reached
the top of the landing-stage, arm in arm.
"A bad day's work for _her_, I reckon."
It struck me at the moment as a moral reflection of Eli's, and no
more. Late in the afternoon, however, I was enlightened.
In the midst of the Fair, about four o'clock, a din of horns, beaten
kettles, and hideous yelling, broke out in Troy. I met the crowd in
the main street, and for a moment felt afraid of it. They had seized
the woman in the taproom of the "Man-o'-War"--where the gamekeeper
was lying in a drunken sleep--and were hauling her along in a Ram
Riding. There is nothing so cruel as a crowd, and I have seen
nothing in my life like the face of These-an'-That's wife.
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