It may have been due to his diligence in reducing the supply of the beverage that, as the hilarity of the others increased, and as Deely grew more and more excited with the dance, his depression and gloom deepened portentously. He had taken no part in the dancing, and had begun by affecting to watch Deely's energetic share in it with indifference. But it was impossible for him to keep up this pretence, and the climax came when he saw his betrothed giving her hand for the third or fourth time to Dan Billings, a handsome young fisherman against whom she knew that Dennie cherished a special grudge.
Dennie stepped forth upon the floor that trembled with the heavy tread of the athletic revellers, and, shoving his way between the astonished pairs of youths and maidens, struck a commanding posture.
"This hyar's enough!" he screamed, confronting Deely. "It's time to go home; and I'm goin' to take ye with me right now. D'ye hear?"
Tho old fiddler, mounted on a box at one side of the room, stopped the frantic discord he had been sawing from the strings, and began mechanically to rosin his bow with a lump of the best virgin-pine rosin.
"I could ha' heard you if you'd stayed over t'other side," Deely retorted, her dark cheeks flaming angrily; "if you war goin' to shout out so, what do you want to come so close?"
"I say," repeated Dennie, in a more subdued voice, "I'm goin' along, and I mean for to take you with me. Dan Billings ain't goin' to dance with you no more this night."
Upon this Billings, who was a vigorous young fellow, asserted his rights, and gave Dennie to understand roundly that no one should dictate to him his choice of partners, "when the lady was willin'."
A serious result was imminent; for Billings, elated by his apparent success with Deely, became increasingly noisy and bumptious, and retorts flew hotly from one man to the other, until Billings raised his fist to strike a blow at Dennie. When it came to that, Deely stepped between the wranglers, and prevented their fighting.
"Now _you're_ wrong, Dan!" she exclaimed, "You both ought to be ashamed, making me so much trouble. But there sha'n't be a fight, whatever. I'm goin' home this minute, along with Dennie."
The other girls had drawn aside, dumb and frightened, and the men were disposed in a group around the chief actors, feeling that they ought to interfere, but restrained by a respect for the privilege of fighting, which they might some time wish to exercise on their own account. Billings relaxed his clinched fingers, quite abashed at being so abruptly robbed of his dignity as Deely's champion; but it took a few moments to cool Dennie's wrath. He insisted that the fisherman had "told him insults," and must be punished.