"See here. It won't do to wait round any longer. We must start.
They're losing all their grit standing here and thinking it over."

But the confabulation was interrupted by a cry of panic from Obadiah
Weeks:

"Golly, here come the slectmen!"

"Hell!" exclaimed Hubbard, whirling on his heel, and taking in the
situation with a glance, while Abner's face was expressive of equal
consternation.

The local authorities had been so quiet the day before, that no
interference on their part had been thought of.

But here in a body came the five selectmen, cane in hand, headed by
Jahleel Woodbridge, wearing his most awful frown, and looking like the
embodied majesty of law. The actions and attitudes of the crowd were
like those of scholars interrupted by the entrance of the master in
the midst of a scene of uproar. Those nearest the corners of the
tavern promptly slunk behind it. Obadiah slipped around to the further
side of the buttonwood tree before the tavern. There was a general
movement in the body of the crowd, caused by the effort of each
individual to slip quietly behind somebody else, while from the edges,
men began to sneak homewards across the green, at a rate, which, had
the warning been a little longer, would have left no assemblage at all
by the time the selectmen arrived on the spot. Those who could not
find shelter behind their fellows, and could not escape save by a dead
run, pulled their hats over their eyes and looked on the ground, slyly
dropping their cudgels, meanwhile, in the grass. There was not a gun