His comrades observed it somewhat in a physical difference, one of those alterations which may come upon men of his years suddenly, like a "sea change": his face was whiter, his walk slower, his voice filed thinner; he creaked louder when he rose or sat.Old always, from his boyhood, he had, in the turn of a hand, become aged.But such things come and such things go: after eighty there are ups and downs; people fading away one week, bloom out pleasantly the next, and resiliency is not at all a patent belonging to youth alone.The material change in Mr.Arp might have been thought little worth remarking.What caused Peter Bradbury, Squire Buckalew, and the Colonel to shake their heads secretly to one another and wonder if their good old friend's mind had not "begun to go" was something very different.To come straight down to it: he not only abstained from all argument upon the "Cory Murder" and the case of Happy Fear, refusing to discuss either in any terms or under any circumstances, but he also declined to speak of Ariel Tabor or of Joseph Louden; or of their affairs, singular or plural, masculine, feminine, or neuter, or in any declension Not a word, committal or non-committal.None!
And his face, when he was silent, fell into sorrowful and troubled lines.
At first they merely marvelled.Then Squire Buckalew dared to tempt him.Eskew's faded eyes showed a blue gleam, but he withstood, speaking of Babylon to the disparagement of Chicago.
They sought to lead him into what he evidently would not, employing many devices; but the old man was wily and often carried them far afield by secret ways of his own.This hot morning he had done that thing: they were close upon him, pressing him hard, when he roused that outburst which had stirred the idlers on the benches in the Court-house yard.Squire Buckalew (sidelong at the others but squarely at Eskew) had volunteered the information that Cory was a reformed priest.