voice: "It seems kind'r hard that Sir
John can't quit his pesterin' an' leave folks alone. What call has he
to come back a-dodgin' 'round here year after year, a-butcherin' his
old neighbors, Mr. Renault? 'Pears to me he's gone crazy as a mad dog,
a-whirlin' round and round the same stump, buttin' and bitin' and
clawin' up the hull place. Sakes alive! ain't he got no human natur'?
Last Tuesday they come to Dan Norris's, five mile down the creek, an'
old man Norris he was in the barn makin' a ladder, an' Dan he was gone
for the cow. A painted Tory run into the kitchen an' hit the old woman
with his hatchet, an' she fetched a screech, an' her darter, 'Liza, she
screeched, too. Then a Injun he hit the darter, and he kep' a-kickin'
an' a-hittin', an' old man Norris he heard the rumpus out to the barn,
an' he run in, an' they pushed him out damn quick an' shot him in the
legs. A Tory clubbed him an' ripped his skelp off, the old man on his
knees, a-bellowin' piteous, till they knifed him all to slivers an'
kicked what was left o' him into the road. The darter she prayed an'
yelled, but 'twan't no use, for they cut her that bad with hatchets she
was dead when Dan came a-runnin'. 'God!' he says, an' goes at the
inimy, swingin' his milk-stool--but, Lord, sir, what can one man do? He
was that shot up it 'ud sicken you, Mr. Renault. An' then they was two
little boys a-lookin' on at it, too frightened to move; but when the
destructives was a-beatin' old Mrs. Norris to death they hid in the
fence-hedge. An' they both of 'em might agot clean off, only the
littlest one screamed when they tore the skelp off'n the old woman; an'
he run off, but a Tory he chased him an' ketched him by the fence, an'
he jest held the child's legs between his'n, an' bent him back an' cut
his throat, the boy a-squealin' something awful. Then the Tory skelped
him an' hung him acrost the fence. The only Norris what come out of it
was the lad who lay tight in the fence-scrub--Jimmy. He's up at my
house; you'll see him. He come here that night to tell us of them
goin's on. He acts kinder stupid, like he ain't got no wits, an' he
jests sets an' sets, starin' at nothin'--leastways at nothin' I kin
see----"

His high-pitched, garrulous chatter, and the horrid purport of it, were
to me indescribably ghastly. To hear such things told without tremor or
emphasis or other emotion than the sullen faces of his two strapping
sons--to hear these incredible horrors babble