The sword had been at my
breast, and the wind of a bullet had stirred the hair of my head. I might
have spared my pains. All this pother of mine was over the man sitting
yonder, heartily enjoying his dinner. All my heroics had ended in my being
arrested as a horse-thief.
I closed my eyes. Picture after picture came before me of Margaret in her
changing moods and her unchanging beauty. Gad! How cheaply I had bought
this gallery of precious memories!
A throng of lads crowding noisily under the archway heralded the approach
of the dignitaries. First came the town beadle, a pompous little fellow
who wore a laced brown greatcoat many sizes too large for him, and carried
a cudgel of office thick as his own arm, and surmounted by a brass crown
the size of a baby's head. His office enabled him to be brave on the
cheap, so by dint of digging his weapon into the ribs of all and sundry,
they being, as he expressed it, too thick on the clod, he cleared a path
for the grocer-mayor, who had gotten himself again into his scarlet gown.
His worship was gawky, flustered, and uncertain, and listened like a
scared rabbit to mine host, a man of much talk, who explained proudly what
was to be done.
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