The neighbor knew what the rope meant. Years
before a miscreant who had assaulted a woman, was seized by Starbuck,
thrown upon his back, tied hand and foot, and hanged to a tree; and it
was only the timely arrival of officers of the law that saved him for
the deliberations of the established gallows. But with all his quickness
to act he was sometimes made slow by a touch of sentiment, and thus it
was that he permitted Peters to bully him. Between the two families
there had ever existed bad blood, and some of it had been spilled. In
the neighborhood it was a standing prediction that Jasper would one day
cut the throat of the blustering Lije, and the old fellow, especially as
time began to whiten his hair, constantly mused to himself: "I don't
want 'em to throw it up to my girl that she is the daughter of a
butcher, but if the time must come--" Here he always broke off,
summoning his humor with the whistle of a droll tune. "Thar may be some
way to weather it out," he now mused as he sat upon the stone, "I have
been in many a close place and I always weathered it out.
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