Page:Post - Uncle Abner (Appleton, 1918).djvu/99

 the room with him at night. He kept out of the house by day.

One could see him, with a mariner's glass, striding across the high fields above the river, or perched in the fork of a tree. He wore the sailor clothes, and the red cloth wound round his head.

I am sure my uncle Abner saw him more than once. I know of one time. He was riding home from a sitting of the county justices. Dabney was walking through the deep broom sedge in the high field beyond the old house. Abner called and he came down to the road. He had the mariner's glass, the sailor clothes and the headcloth.

He was not pleased to see my uncle. He seemed nervous, like a man under some restraint. While my uncle talked he would take three steps straight ahead and then turn back. Abner marked it, with a query.

"Dabney," he said, "why do you turn about like that?"

The man stopped in his tracks; for a moment he seemed in a sort of frenzied terror. Then he cursed:

"Habit—damme, Abner!"

"And where did you get a habit like that?" said my uncle.

"In a ship," replied the man.

"What sort of ship?" said my uncle.

The sailor hesitated for a moment.

"Now, Abner," he cried finally, "what sort of 86