While the Lynchers are still in deliberation, the little clock on the
mantel strikes twelve, midnight; of late, not oft a merry hour in the
cottage of the Clancys; but this night more than ever sad.
Its striking seems the announcement of a crisis. For a time it silences
the voices of those conversing.
Scarce has the last stroke ceased to vibrate on the still night air,
when a voice is heard; one that has not hitherto taken part in the
deliberations. It sounds as though coming up from the road gate.
"Mass Woodley in da?" are the words spoken interrogatively; the question
addressed generally to the group gathered in front of the house. "Yes:
he's here," simultaneously answer several.
"Kin I peak a wud wif you, Mass Woodley?" again asks the inquirer at the
wicket.
"Sartinly," says the hunter, separating from the others, and striding
off towards the entrance.
"I reck'n I know that voice," he adds, on drawing near the gate. "It's
Blue Bill, ain't it?"
"Hush, Mass' Woodley! For Goramity's sake doan peak out ma name. Not
fo' all de worl let dem people hear it. Ef dey do, dis nigger am a dead
man, shoo."
"Darn it, Bill; what's the matter? Why d'ye talk so mysteerous? Is
thar anythin' wrong? Oh! now I think o't, you're out arter time. Never
mind 'bout that; I'll not betray you. Say; what hev ye kim for?"
"Foller me, Mass Woodley; I tell yer all. I dasent tay hya, less some
ob dem folk see me. Les' go little way from de house, into de wood
groun' ober yonner; den I tell you wha fotch me out. Dis nigger hab
someting say to you, someting berry patickler. Yes, Mass Woodley, berry
patickler. 'Tarn a matter ob life an' def."
Sime does not stay to hear more; but, lifting the latch, quietly pushes
open the gate, and passes out into the road. Then following the negro,
who flits like a shadow before him, the two are soon standing among some
bushes that form a strip of thicket running along the roadside.
"Now, what air it?" asks Woodley of the coon-hunter, with whom he is
well acquainted--having often met him in his midnight rambles.
"Mass Woodley, you want know who kill Mass Charl Clancy?"
"Why, Bill, that's the very thing we're all talkin' 'bout, an' tryin' to
find out. In coorse we want to know. But who's to tell us?"
"Dis nigger do dat."
"Air ye in airnest, Bill?"
"So much in earness I ha'n't got no chance get sleep, till I make clean
bress ob de seecret. De ole ooman neider. No, Mass Woodley, Phoebe she
no let me ress till I do dat same. She say it am de duty ob a Christyun
man, an', as ye know, we boaf b'long to de Methodies. Darfore, I now
tell ye, de man who kill Charl Clancy was my own massr--de young un--
Dick."
"Bill! are you sure o' what ye say?"
"So shoo I kin swa it as de troof, de whole troof, an' nuffin but de
troof."
"But what proof have ye?"
"Proof! I moas seed it wif ma own eyes. If I didn't see, I heerd it
wif ma ears."
"By the 'tarnal! this looks like clar evydince at last. Tell me, Bill,
o' all that you seed an' what you heern?"
"Ya, Mass Woodley, I tell you ebberyting; all de sarkunistances c'nected
wif de case."
In ten minutes after, Simeon Woodley is made acquainted with everything
the coon-hunter knows; the latter having given him full details of all
that occurred on that occasion when his coon-chase was brought to such
an unsatisfactory termination.
To the backwoodsman it brings no surprise. He has already arrived at a
fixed conclusion, and Bill's revelation is in correspondence with it.