... Want this man's daughter f'r your wedded wife,
don't you?"
"Yes," said the parson, faintly.
"Hear that, Deacon? Hear that?"
"Never, by the hornswoggled whale that swallered Jonah."
"Meetin's about to start," said Scattergood, looking at his watch.
The deacon sweated and bellowed, but Scattergood adroitly waved the red
flag of animosity before his eyes, and pictured black ruin and
defeat--until the deacon was ready to surrender life itself.
"Git me my leg," he shouted, "and you kin have anythin'.... Git me my
leg."
"Is it a promise, Deacon? Calculate it's a promise?"
"I promise. I promise, solemn."
Scattergood whispered again in the pastor's ear, who stuttered and
flushed and choked, and hurried out of the room, presently to reappear
with the deacon's spare leg.
"Now, young feller, make your preparations for that there weddin'....
Scoot."
It is of record that the deacon arrived, like Sheridan at Winchester, in
the nick of time; that he rallied his flustered cohorts and led them to
triumph--and then regretted the bargain he had made. But it was too
late. He could not draw back. Wife and daughter and townsfolk were all
against him, and he could not withstand the pressure.
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