Page:Post - Uncle Abner (Appleton, 1918).djvu/96

 old Thorndike, at ninety, had gone to the graveyard.

It was a witch's night when the thing happened—rain and a high wind that wailed and whooped round the pillars and chimneys of the house. The house was set on a high bank above the river, where the swift water, running like a flood, made a sharp bend. It caught the full force of wind and rain. It was old and the timbers creaked.

Charlie was drunk. He cried out when he saw the lost brother and got unsteadily on his legs.

"You are not Dabney!" he said. "You are a picture out of a storybook!" And he laughed in a sort of half terror, like a child before a homemade ghost. "Look at your earrings!"

It was a good comment for a man in liquor; for if ever a character stepped out of the pages of a pirate tale, here it was.

Dabney had lifted the latch and entered without warning. He had the big frame and the hawk nose of his race. He was in sea-stained sailor clothes, his face white as plaster, a red cloth wound tightly round his head, huge half-moon rings in his ears; and he carried a seaman's chest on his shoulder.

Old Clayborne told the story.

Dabney put down his chest carefully, as though it had something precious in it. Then he spoke.

"Are you glad to see me, brother?"

Charlie was holding on to the table with both hands, his eyes bleared, his mouth gaping.

"I don't see you," he quavered. Then he turned 83