"You mustn't--"
"Hark to me"--the old man's voice lifted higher: "If you'd ever whimpered, or give back-talk, or broke out the wrong way, it would of been different.But you never did.I've watched you and I know; and you've just gone your own way alone, with the town against you because you got a bad name as a boy, and once we'd given you that, everything you did or didn't do, we had to give you a blacker one.Now it's time some one stood by you! Airie Tabor 'll do that with all her soul and body.She told me once I thought a good deal of you.She knew! But I want these three old friends of mine to do it, too.I was boys with them and they'll do it, I think.They've even stood up fer you against me, sometimes, but mostly fer the sake of the argument, I reckon; but now they must do it when there's more to stand against than just my talk.They saw it all to-day--the meanest thing I ever knew! I could of stood it all except that!" Before they could prevent him he had struggled half upright in bed, lifting a clinched fist at the town beyond the windows.
"But, by God! when they got so low down they tried to kill your dog--"He fell back, choking, in Joe's arms, and the physician bent over him, but Eskew was not gone, and Ariel, upon the other side of the room, could hear him whispering again for the restorative.
She brought it, and when he had taken it, went quickly out-of-doors to the side yard.