A rabbit-faced
villager, with a blush-rose stuck behind his ear, advanced trembling.
The
villagers had a strong desire to tar-and-feather Injun Joe and ride him on a rail, for body-snatching, but so formidable was his character that nobody could be found who was willing to take the lead in the matter, so it was dropped.
Soon they were joined by more of the
villagers, roused from their beds by rumours of terrible happenings.
Now the
villagers of the Waingunga are angry with him, and he has come here to make our
villagers angry.
The
villagers saw the outline of the barasingh stalking like a shadow through the dark forest behind the shrine; saw the minaul, the Himalayan pheasant, blazing in her best colours before Kali's statue; and the langurs on their haunches, inside, playing with the walnut shells.
When he had lowered his right forefinger from behind his right ear, the
villagers talked to him of their crops--barley, dhurrah, millet, onions, and the like.
Villagers never swarm: a whisper is unknown among them, and they seem almost as incapable of an undertone as a cow or a stag.
A happy solution was arrived at by a suggestion of one of his men--that the soldiers go forth the following day and hunt for the
villagers, bringing them in so much fresh meat in return for their hospitality.
The screams of the infuriated
villagers came faintly to his sensitive ears, and he wheeled, as though in terror, contemplating flight; but something stayed him, and again he turned about, raised his trunk, and gave voice to a shrill cry.
Losberne, that to this day the
villagers have never been able to discover to which establishment they properly belong.
He was a great man to those
villagers, with his gaudy clothes and his terrific ways.
All cleverness, whether in the rapid use of that difficult instrument the tongue, or in some other art unfamiliar to
villagers, was in itself suspicious: honest folk, born and bred in a visible manner, were mostly not overwise or clever--at least, not beyond such a matter as knowing the signs of the weather; and the process by which rapidity and dexterity of any kind were acquired was so wholly hidden, that they partook of the nature of conjuring.
The
villagers were astonished and enchanted with the magnificence of their performance, and could not bear to have them stop.
The place of Catherine's interment, to the surprise of the
villagers, was neither in the chapel under the carved monument of the Lintons, nor yet by the tombs of her own relations, outside.
The bride drove up quietly with her father, and there was a subdued note even in the murmur of recognition which ran along the
villagers as they stood in groups near the church porch.
