Christopher motioned to the barn, and then, taking the reins, fastened the horse to the branch of a young ailanthus tree which grew near the woodpile. As he watched the figures of the two men pass along the little path between the fringes of dead yarrow he drew an uneasy breath and dug his boot into the rotting mould upon the ground. The barn door opened and closed; there was a short silence, and then a sudden despairing cry as of a rabbit caught in the jaws of a hound. When he heard it he turned impulsively from the horse's head and went quickly along the path the men had taken. There was no definite intention in his mind, but as he reached the barn door it shot open and Fletcher put out a white face. "The Doctor wants you, Mr. Christopher," he cried; "Will has gone clean mad!" Without a word, Christopher pushed by him and went into the great dusky room, where the boy was struggling like a madman to loosen the doctor's grasp. He was conscious at the moment that the air was filled with fine chaff and that he sucked it in when he breathed. At his entrance Will lay quiet for a moment and looked at him with dazed, questioning eyes. "Keep them out, Christopher!" he cried, in anguish. Christopher crossed the room and laid his hand with a protecting gesture on the boy's head. "Why, to be sure I will," he said heartily; "the devil himself won't dare to touch you when I am by, " BOOK III THE REVENGE CHAPTER I. In Which Tobacco is Hero On an October afternoon some four years later, at the season of the year when the whole county was fragrant with the curing tobacco, Christopher Blake passed along the stretch of old road which divided his farm from the Weatherbys', and, without entering the porch, called for Jim from the little walk before the flat whitewashed steps. In response to his voice, Mrs. Weatherby, a large, motherly looking woman, appeared upon the threshold, and after chatting a moment, directed him to the log tobacco barn, where the recently cut crop was "drying out." "Jim and Jacob are both over thar," she said; " an' a few others, for the matter of that, who have been helpin' us press new cider an' drinkin' the old. I'm sure I don't see why they want to lounge out thar in all that smoke, but thar's no accountin' for the taste of a man that ever I heard tell of an' I reckon they kin fancy pretty easy that they are settin' plum in the bowl of a pipe. It beats me, though, that it do. Why, one mouthful of it is enough to start me coughin' for a week, an' those men thar jest swallow it down for pure pleasure." Clean, kindly, hospitable, she wandered garrulously on, remembering at intervals to press the young man to "come inside an' try the cakes an' cider."