Neither was there, and the only face which arrested his attention was a
woman's, standing in the door of the enclosed space at the end of the
porch, at right angles to the central door of the tavern, and just
beside it. The whole building was without paint, and weather-stained,
but the room on the porch was manifestly newer, as if it had been an
afterthought, and its two windows revealed some of the crude appendages
of a liquor bar, as a fire somewhere within flashed up and lighted it.
By this fire the woman's face was also revealed, and she was so much
interested in the fight that she turned all parts of her countenance
into the firelight, slapping her hands together, laughing like a man,
dropping her oaths at the right places, and crying:
"I bet my money on little Owen Daw! Cy James ain't no good, by God!
Yer's whiskey a-plenty for Owen Daw if he gouges him. Give it to him,
Owen Daw! Shame on ye, Cy James!"
There was occasional servility and deference to this woman from members
of the crowd, however they were absorbed in the fight. She was what is
called a "chunky" woman, short and thick, with a rosy skin, low but
pleasing forehead, coal-black hair, a rolling way of swaying and moving
herself, a pair of large black eyes, at once daring, furtive, and
familiar, and a large neck and large breast, uniting the bull-dog and
the dam, cruelty and full womanhood.
Behind this woman, whom Phoebus thought to be Patty Cannon herself,
the moonlight from the rear came through the door in the older and main
building, shining quite through the house, and Phoebus saw that the
rear door was also open and was unguarded.
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