"In primitive society the primitive wants of man are satisfied in primitive ways," remarked Bob. "Moses ought to have put the Ten Commandments on something stronger than stone if he meant them to be unbroken," added Patton. Mrs. Carroll shook her head at him. "I don't see how you can be so very primitive," insisted Katrina. "Now this----" She glanced expressively about the room, where old portraits surmounted the dark panelling and heavy rugs glowed warmly in the firelight. "Oh, we are as composite in our mountains as are the people of any other part of these composite United States," said Sydney. "The mountaineers themselves are a mixture. There are men in coves distant from the railroad who are living on land to which their ancestors drove up their cattle from the low country three or four generations ago. These men are a law unto themselves. They have no opportunities for educating their children, and once in a while you hear of a family that never has heard the name of God." "My great-grandfather came here in the early eighteen hundreds," said Bob, "and a queer lot he must have found. They say that there was a crop of younger sons of good English families which had been planted here as a good country for the culture of wild oats." "I suppose that in the eighteenth century this was as remote a place as any to lose black sheep in, if losing was their desire," suggested John. "It's quite true, quite true, what Bob says," Mrs. Carroll took up the explanation. "Mr. Carroll used to tell me that he knew it to be a fact that Bud Yarebrough's father--Bud is a ne'er-do-weel who lives in a cove not many miles from here, Katrina, my dear--was a great-grandson of one of the Dukes of Calverley." "Then Melissa's baby is the Lady Sydney Melissa Something-or-other!" laughed Sydney. "There's a legend of a penal colony, too," said Patton. "That is disputed," replied Mrs. Carroll. "If there was one, Pink Pressley is of its lineage, I am sure," said Sydney. "If heredity counts for anything, I should think that a colony of black sheep whose diet had been wild oats would account for all the lawlessness of the community," offered John. "For a great deal of it, undoubtedly, and their life of freedom from restraint for so many years would be responsible for more." "But these people are not close about you here," exclaimed Katrina. "Indeed, they are. They are our neighbors and our friends. Why, there's a tenant on our place who has been tried twice for murder." "Bob and I found a deserted still in the woods over the creek the other day," said Sydney. "That suggests another of our friends' occupations." "But your influence must be at work among them constantly."