At first I decided to go home at once, but something akin to Captain Dean's resentful stubbornness came over me.

I would not be driven home by those people.
I found an unoccupied camp chair--one of Sim's, which he rented for funerals--and carried it to a dark spot in the shrubbery near the border of the parsonage lawn and not far from the gate.

There I seated myself, lit a cigar and smoked in solitude.
Elnathan Mullet, evidently considering his labors as door-keeper over, was counting his takings by lantern light.

The moon was low in the west and a little breeze was now stirring the shrubbery.

It was very warm for the season and I mentally prophesied thunder showers before morning.
I had smoked my cigar perhaps half through when a carriage came down the road and stopped before the gate.