* * * * *
In Main Street hushed people stood about in groups talking. The air was
heavy with excitement. Solitary figures went from group to group
whispering hoarsely. Mike McCarthy, the man who had denied God and who had
won a place for himself in the affection of the newsboy, had assaulted a
man with a pocket knife and had left him bleeding and wounded beside a
country road. Something big and sensational had happened in the life of
the town.
Mike McCarthy and Sam were friends. For years the man had idled upon the
streets of the town, loitering about, boasting and talking. He had sat for
hours in a chair under a tree before the New Leland House, reading books,
doing tricks with cards, engaging in long discussions with John Telfer or
any who would stand up to him.
Mike McCarthy got into trouble in a fight over a woman. A young farmer
living at the edge of Caxton had come home from the fields to find his
wife in the bold Irishman's arms and the two men had gone out of the house
together to fight in the road. The woman, weeping in the house, followed
to ask forgiveness of her husband. Running in the gathering darkness along
the road she had found him cut and bleeding terribly, lying in a ditch
under a hedge.
Pages:
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64