you niver would have struck’m at all. An’ to think it was meself that warned ye in the beginning, an’ went an’ drove ye to it in the ind! If only you had let ’m strike me dead at his feet! It’d have been betther than that—an’ this!”
Still he looked at her without a word; and still there was no light, no life, no feeling in the look; but only dumb and dead despair.
“You thought I liked ’m!” exclaimed Peggy wildly. “They’ve been tellin’ ye their black lies in the huts. It’s little they know how it’s been between us from the shtart. I’ll tell ye this, Tom, betther a hundhred times be the man he’s a spite agin than the girrl he’s his wicked eye upon. That’s Mr. Nat for ye; an’ I hate ’m—I loathe ’m—’tis God’s truth I’m tellin’ ye. Tom, dear, he cot me out there last night—I niver wint out wid ’m. He cot me prowlin’ about, as he said, an’ that’s the truth, too, though he tould it. I couldn’t sleep for thinkin’ o’ the two o’ yez. It’s well I knew he was up to some divil’s work at last. I’d seen’m talkin’—an’ what do you suppose he’s up to now?” asked Peggy, going off at a tangent. “What do you suppose he’s do’n’ at this moment? Lyin’ dhrunk on his bed—lyin’ ded dhrunk for the shame of ’t! You knocked ’m down. You knocked ’m down. He won’t get over ’t till his dyin’ day. Nobody ilse iver so much as lifted a han’ agin ’m on the farm. But glory be to God! you knocked ’m down!”
There was more than unthinking exultation in her tone; there was a very singular sort of pride also, and this as unthinking as the other, it was so ingenuous and plain. But Tom saw nothing with those dreadful eyes, and heard but little beyond her soothing brogue. And then she did think, and saw a mark on the blanket in a rod of moon-
