"Let go!" exclaimed O'Bannon, furious and threatening.
He did let go, and stepping backward three paces, he threw off his coat and
waistcoat and tossed them aside to the green bushes: the action was a
pathetic mark of his lifelong habit of economy in clothes: a coat must under
all circumstances be cared for. He tore off his neckcloth so that his high
shirt collar fell away from his neck, showing the purple scar of his wound;
and he girt his trousers in about his waist, as a laboring man will trim
himself for neat, quick, violent work. Then with a long stride he came round
to the side of the horse's head, laid his hand on its neck and looked
O'Bannon in the eyes:
"At first I thought I'd wait till you got back to town. I wanted to catch
you on the street or, in a tavern where others could witness. I'm sorry. I'm
ashamed I ever wished any man to see me lay my hand on you.
"Since you came out to Kentucky, have I ever crossed you? Thwarted you in
any plan or purpose? Wronged you in any act? Ill-used your name? By
anything I have thought or wished or done taken from the success of your
life or made success harder for you to win?
"But you had hardly come out here before you began to attack me and you have
never stopped.
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