"Oh, if you were you wouldn't say so. You'd let on to be looking for good crossings on Pearl River, so that if Johnston should get chewed up we needn't be caught here in a hole, Ferry's scouts and all."
"By ganny!" exclaimed one, and--"You're a coon," murmured the other, as the new-comers drew near. The younger of these also was a private. Behind his elbow was swung a Maynard rifle. Both carried revolvers. The elder wore a long straight sword whose weather-dimmed orange sash showed at the front of a loose cut-away jacket. Under this garment was a shirt of strong black silk, made from some lady's gown and daintily corded with yellow. On the jacket's upturned collar were the two gilt bars of a first lieutenant, but the face above them shone with a combined intelligence and purity that drew my whole attention.
ONE:"But this does not explain him," broke in the Doctor, bitterly.Mrs Keeling paid no attention to this: she hardly heard.
ONE:"She said she wouldn't be a minute," Mamie sobbed. "I had one of my headaches and I couldn't go to sleep. Then I began to get frightened and I wanted somebody to talk to me. I could hear the people and the music downstairs, so I just got out of bed and went into the corridor.""Oh, Mr. Gregg, they say the Devil's come to Great Wymering at last. I'm not surprised to 'ear it, for the goings on in this town 'ave been something terrible since the war. What with the drinking and the young people doing just as they like.
THREE:"Why, I suppose I'm to find there a road down Cole's Creek to Clifton."Then they called upon the Doctor for a contribution, original or selected, with this result:
THREE:'Mid the billows circling round,But in this attempt he was unexpectedly thwarted. The Clockwork man recovered himself; he ran straight back to the wicket and then stopped dead. The umpire was in the act of replacing the bails, for the wicket had been put down, and, fast as this eccentric cricketer had run in the first place, he had not been quick enough to reach the crease in time. By all the rules of the game, and beyond the shadow of doubt, he had been "run out." He now regarded the stumps meditatively, with[Pg 36] a finger jerked swiftly against his nose, as though recognising a former state of consciousness. And then, with a swift movement, he took up his position in readiness to receive the ball.
We go together then, he said, but there was no conviction in his voice. It was but a despairing, drowning cry.Doctor Bronson listened to the appeal of the boys, and when they were through he took a toothpick from his pocket and settled back in his chair in the parlor of the hotel."Imagine an exceedingly complex kind of mechanism," Gregg resumed, "an exaggeration of the many intricate types of modern machines in use to-day. It would have to be something of a very delicate description, and yet rather crude at first in its effect. One thinks of[Pg 55] something that would work accurately if in rather a limited sort of way. You see, they would have to ensure success in some things at first even at the sacrifice of a certain general awkwardness. It would be a question of taking one thing at a time. Thus, when the Clockwork man came to play cricket, all he could do was to hit the ball. We have to admit that he did that efficiently enough, however futile were the rest of his actions."
