And he continued, weeping in heavy snuffling burlesque:
“O-boo-hoo-hoo!
Come down and save me, I beg of you, I entreat you, I implore you, or I perish.”
Silence answered.
“Ingratitude, more fierce than brutish beasts,” Gant resumed, getting off on another track, fruitful with mixed and mangled quotation.
“You will be punished, as sure as there’s a just God in heaven.
You will all be punished.
Kick the old man, strike him, throw him out on the street: he’s no good any more.
He’s no longer able to provide for the family — send him over the hill to the poorhouse.
That’s where he belongs.
Rattle his bones over the stones.
Honor thy father that thy days may be long.
Ah, Lord!
“‘Look, in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through;
See what a rent the envious Casca made;
Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed;
And, as he plucked his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of C?sar followed it —’”
“Jeemy,” said Mrs. Duncan at this moment to her husband, “ye’d better go over.
He’s loose agin, an’ she’s wi’ chile.”
The Scotchman thrust back his chair, moved strongly out of the ordered ritual of his life, and the warm fragrance of new-baked bread.
At the gate, outside Gant’s, he found patient Jannadeau, fetched down by Ben.
They spoke matter-of-factly, and hastened up the steps as they heard a crash upstairs, and a woman’s cry.
Eliza, in only her night-dress, opened the door.
“Come quick!” she whispered.
“Come quick!”
“By God, I’ll kill her,” Gant screamed, plunging down the stairs at greater peril to his own life than to any other.
“I’ll kill her now, and put an end to my misery.”
He had a heavy poker in his hand.
The two men seized him; the burly jeweller took the poker from his hand with quiet strength.
“He cut his head on the bed-rail, mama,” said Steve descending.
It was true: Gant bled.
“Go for your Uncle Will, son.
Quick!”
He was off like a hound.
“I think he meant it that time,” she whispered.
Duncan shut the door against the gaping line of neighbors beyond the gate.
“Ye’ll be gettin’ a cheel like that, Mrs. Gant.”
“Keep him away from me!
Keep him away!” she cried out strongly.
“Aye, I will that!” he answered in quiet Scotch.
She turned to go up the stairs, but on the second step she fell heavily to her knees.
The country nurse, returning from the bathroom, in which she had locked herself, ran to her aid.
She went up slowly then between the woman and Grover.
Outside Ben dropped nimbly from the low eave on to the lily beds: Seth Tarkinton, clinging to fence wires, shouted greetings.
Gant went off docilely, somewhat dazed, between his two guardians: as his huge limbs sprawled brokenly in his rocker, they undressed him.
Helen had already been busy in the kitchen for some time: she appeared now with boiling soup.
Gant’s dead eyes lit with recognition as he saw her.
“Why baby,” he roared, making a vast maudlin circle with his arms, “how are you?”
She put the soup down; he swept her thin body crushingly against him, brushing her cheek and neck with his stiff-bristled mustache, breathing upon her the foul rank odor of rye whisky.