om I looked to to raise
the country, and take the lead as churchwarden--why, my youngest shopman
would match his ell against you. Pack of cowards,' cried Uncle Ben,
rising and shaking his lappets at us; 'don't pretend to answer me. Shake
you all off, that I do--nothing more to do with you!'

We knew it useless to answer him, and conveyed our knowledge to one
another, without anything to vex him. However, when the mulled wine
was come, and a good deal of it gone (the season being Epiphany),
Uncle Reuben began to think that he might have been too hard with us.
Moreover, he was beginning now to respect Farmer Nicholas bravely,
because of the way he had smoked his pipes, and the little noise made
over them. And Lizzie and Annie were doing their best--for now we had
let the girls out--to wake more lightsome uproar; also young Faith Snowe
was toward to keep the old men's cups aflow, and hansel them to their
liking.

So at the close of our entertainment, when the girls were gone away
to fetch and light their lanthorns (over which they made rare noise,
blowing each the other's out for counting of the sparks to come), Master
Huckaback stood up, without much aid from the crock-saw, and looked at
mother and all of us.

'Let no one leave this place,' said he, 'until I have said what I
want to say; for saving of ill-will among us; and growth of cheer and
comfort. May be I have carried things too far, even to the bounds of
churlishness, and beyond the bounds of good manners. I will not unsay
one word I have said, having never yet done so in my life; but I would
alter the manner of it, and set it forth in this light. If you folks
upon Exmoor here are loath and wary at fighting, yet you are brave
at better stuff; the best and kindest I ever knew, in the matter of
feeding.'

Here he sat down with tears in his eyes, and called for a little mulled
bastard. All the maids, who were now come back, raced to get it for him,
but Annie of course was foremost. And herein ended the expedition, a
perilous and a great one, against the Doones of Bagworthy; an enterprise
over which we had all talked plainly more than was good for us. For my
part, I slept well that night, feeling myself at home again, now that
the fighting was put aside, and the fear of it turned to the comfort of
talking what we would have done.

CHAPTER XV

MASTER HUCKABACK FAILS OF WARRANT

On the following day Master Huckaback, with some show of mystery,
demanded from