The kitchen party still kept up its numbers.  True, the absence of the constable and Maguffin left two serious blanks in the diversified talk of the table, but the place of these gentlemen was taken by no fewer than six persons, the three Richards and the three jurors, so that the dinner party numbered fifteen, of whom four were women.  Old whitehaired Mr. Newberry, with the large rosy face, smooth, save for two little white patches of side-whiskers, took possession of Matilda Nagle, and rejoiced in her kindly ways and simple talk.  He was a Methodist, and a class-leader and local preacher, but a man against whom no tongue of scandal wagged, and whose genuine piety and kindness of heart were so manifest that nobody dreamt of holding up to ridicule his oft homely utterances in the pulpit.  If he could do good to the poor demented woman and her afflicted boy, he would, and he knew that his little quaker-bonneted wife would second him in such an effort.  So he tried to gain her confidence and the boy’s, and, after a while, found that Matilda would like to help Mrs. Newberry in her household duties, and have Monty learn useful work on the farm.  When informed by the fatherly juror, in answer to her own questions, that she would not be expected to hurt a fly, and would be allowed to go to church, read her Bible and take care of her boy, she expressed her readiness to go away with him at once.  Mr. Newberry felt a few qualms of conscience in connection with fly killing, but, having made an express stipulation that mosquitos and black flies should not be included in the bond, he became easier in mind, and said that, with Mrs. Carruthers and the Squire’s permission, he would drive her home in the afternoon.  Mr. Johnson and the elder Richards discussed local politics, and the tragedy calling for the inquest; but Mr. Pawkins attached himself to the boys, and consequently to the girls.  This gentleman had brought his six feet of bone and muscle, topped with a humorous face, from which depended a Lincoln beard, from the States, and was now, for many years, as he said, “a nettrelized citizen of Kennidy.”  This disappointment at the absence of the constable was something pitiful, he did so want “to yank and rile the old Britisher.”  Still, that was not going to deprive him of his innocent amusement.  He looked around the company and sized it up, deciding that he would leave the old folks alone, and mercifully add to them the crazy people; this still left him a constituency of nine, with large possibilities for fun.

“Rufus,” remarked Mr. Pawkins, “I seen your gal, Christy Hislop, along o’ that spry sot up coon, Barney Sullivan, daown at the mill.  He’s a cuttin’ you aout for sutten, yes sirree, you see if he ain’t.”

“What’s the use of your nonsense, Mr Pawkins?  Barney went home along o’ fayther and old man Hislop, and I guess he turned in to say we was all right.”

“If Andrew knowed you’d called him old man Hislop, he’d fire you aout o’ the back door mighty suddent.  When I see a spry, set up, young feller and a likely heifer of a gal a saunterin’ through the bush, sort o’ poetical like, daown to the mill, it don’t take me two shakes to know that suthin’s up.  You’re a poor, rejected, cast off, cut aout strip o’ factory cotton.”