She started to tell the story lightly, as she knew her mistress wished done, but, at the first word, broke down and suddenly began to whimper and rock. When it had all come out between sobs of rage and mortification, her master sent her away soothed with a sense of his sympathy and of the coming retribution which he would exact. When the Doctor saw Mrs. Cary again, he was as placid as a May-morning, perhaps more placid than usual. He thought himself very clever indeed. But no man is clever enough to deceive his wife if she suspects him, and Mrs. Cary read him as though he had been an open book. As a result, before he left her room she had exacted a promise from him not under any circumstances to seek a personal interview with Leech, or even to go to the court-house for some time. The story of the old negro woman’s terrible tongue-lashing of the Provost got abroad. He had attempted to use both command and persuasion to prevent his men from telling it, but even the bribery of a free treat at a store on the roadside, which was a liberality he had never been known to display before, failed to secure the desired secrecy, and the story reached the court-house almost as quickly as he. Sergeant O’Meara related it to the camp with great gusto. “Bedad!” said he, “the ould woman looked like wan of theyse little black game-burruds whan a dog comes around her chicks, with her fithers all oop on her back and her wings spraid, and the Liftenant—if he is a Liftenant, which I don’t say he is, moind—he looked as red as a turkey-cock and didn’t show much moor courege. She was a very discriminatin’ person, bedad! She picked me out for a gintleman and the sutler for a dog, and bedad! she wasn’t far wrong in ayether. Only you’re not to say I towld you, for whan a gintleman drinks a man’s whiskey it doesn’t become him to tell tales on him.” Perhaps it was well for Mr. Jonadab Leech that the matter got abroad, for it gave the incident a lighter turn than it otherwise would have had. As it was, there was a storm of indignation in the county, and next day there were more of the old Confederate soldiers in the village than had been there since the war closed. In their gray uniforms, faded as they were, they looked imposing. Leech spent the day in the precincts of the camp. A deputation, with Steve Allen at their head, waited on Middleton and had a short interview with him, in which they told him that they proposed to obey the laws, but they did not propose to permit ladies to be insulted. “For I tell you now, Captain Middleton,” said Steve, “before we will allow our women to be insulted, we will kill every man of you. We are not afraid to do it.” He spoke as quietly as though he were saying the most ordinary thing in the world. Middleton faced him calmly. The two men looked in each other’s eyes, and recognized each other’s courage.