"Are you a poacher, or what?"
Be the case what it might, Middleton's blood boiled at the grasp of that
hand, as it never before had done in the coarse of his impulsive life.
He shook himself free, and stood fiercely before his antagonist,
confronting him, with his uplifted stick, while the other, likewise,
appeared to be shaken by a strange wrath.
"Fellow," muttered he--"Yankee blackguard!--imposter--take yourself off
these grounds. Quick, or it will be the worse for you!"
Middleton restrained himself. "Mr. Eldredge," said he, "for I believe I
speak to the man who calls himself owner of this land on which we stand,
--Mr. Eldredge, you are acting under a strange misapprehension of my
character. I have come hither with no sinister purpose, and am entitled,
at the hands of a gentleman, to the consideration of an honorable
antagonist, even if you deem me one at all. And perhaps, if you think
upon the blue chamber and the ebony cabinet, and the secret connected.
with it,"--
"Villain, no more!" said Eldredge; and utterly mad with rage, he
presented his gun at Middleton; but even at the moment of doing so, he
partly restrained himself, so far as, instead of shooting him, to raise
the butt of his gun, and strike a blow at him.
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