“I never informed the revenuers,” declared Alethea, once more. He turned upon her a look of scorn. “I knowed ye war a powerful fool, a-talkin’ ’bout ‘what’s right,’ an’ preachin’ same ez the rider, an’ faultin’ yer elders. But I never knowed ye war a liar an’ a scandalous hypocrite. The Bible say, ‘Woe ter ye, hypocrites!’ I wonder ye ain’t hearn that afore; either a-wrastlin’ with yer own soul, or meddlin’ with other folkses’ salvation.” It occurred to him that he preached very well himself, and he was minded, in the sudden vanity of the discovery, to reiterate, “Woe unto ye, hypocrite!” “What makes ye ’low ez I gin the word ter the revenuers?” demanded Alethea. “’Kase the spy kem up thar with yer name on his lips. ‘Lethe Sayles,’ he sez,—‘Lethe Sayles.’” The girl stared wide-eyed and amazed at him. Marvin’s wife noted the expression. “Oh, g’long, Lethe Sayles!” she cried impatiently; “ye air so deceivin’!” “The spy!” faltered Alethea. “Who war the spy? I never tole nobody ’bout seein’ ye at Boke’s barn, nor whenst I war milkin’ the cow, nuther, till a few weeks ago. Ye hed lef’ hyar fur months afore then.” The woman, listening, with an ear of corn in her motionless hand, turned and cast it upon the heap with a significant gesture of rejection, as if she thus discarded the claims of what she had heard. She sneered, and laughed derisively and shrill. The pullet, too, broke into mocking mirth, and then both fell to pulling corn with a sort of flouting energy. “Oh, shucks!” exclaimed Marvin, with a feint of sharing their incredulity. But he held his straggling beard in one hand, and looked at Alethea seriously. To him her manner constrained belief in what she had said. “Why, Lethe,” he broke out, abruptly, “’twarn’t long arter that evenin’ whenst I seen ye a-milkin’ the cow when the spy kem. We-uns war a-settin’ roun’ the still,—we kep’ it in the shed-room, me an’ my partners,—an’ we war a-talkin’ ’bout you-uns, an’ how ye acted; an’ M’ria, she war thar, an’ she went agin ye, an’ ’lowed ez we hed better make ye shet yer mouth; an’ some o’ the boys were argufyin’ ez ye war jes’ sayin’ sech ez ye done ter hear yerse’f talk, an’ feel sot up in yer own ’pinion. They ’lowed ye’d be feared ter tell, sure enough, but ye hankered ter be begged ter shet up. ’Twar a powerful stormy night. I never hear a wusser wind ez war a-cavortin’ round the house. An’ the lightnin’ an’ thunder hed been right up an’ down sniptious. A lightnin’ ball mus’ hev bust up on Piomingo Bald, ’kase nex’ day I see the ground tore up round the herders’ cabin, though Ben Doaks warn’t thar,—hed gone down ter the cove, I reckon. Waal, sir, it quit stormin’ arter a while, but everything war mighty damp an’ wet; the draps kep’ a-fallin’ off’n the eaves. We could hear the hogs in the pen a-squashin’ about in the mud. An’ all of a suddenty they tuk ter squealin’ an’ gruntin’, skeered mighty nigh ter death. An’ my oldest son, Mose, he ’lowed it