Nor were there lacking supplies of Dutch courage for the timid. Among
the town stores seized and conveyed to the Fennell house the night
before, had been several casks of rum. One of these had been secretly
sequestrated by some of the men and hidden in a neighboring barn. The
secret of its whereabouts had been, in drunken confidence, conveyed
from one man to another, with the consequence that pretty much all the
men were rapidly getting drunk. Shortly after Perez had communicated
his intention to the people, Paul Hubbard, with thirty or forty of the
iron-workers, armed with bludgeons, arrived from West Stockbridge.
Some rumor of the doings of the previous night had reached there, and
he had hastily rallied his myrmidons and come down, not knowing but
there might be some fighting to be done.
"Paul 'll be nigh tickled to death to hear of the whippin," said
Abner, seeing him coming. "If he had his way he'd skin the silk
stockins, an make whips out o' their own hides to whip em with. He
don't seem to love em somehow 'nuther, wuth a darn." Nor was Paul's
satisfaction at the news any less than Abner had anticipated.
Presently he burst into the room in the Fennell house, which Perez had
appropriated as a sort of headquarters, and wrung his rather
indifferent hand with an almost tremulous delight.
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