There was something splendid and imposing in his boldness, and in his stalwart pride in his courage. He turned his unflinching gaze down to meet the intelligent and crafty albeit vacillating eyes of Jake Baintree, in which there was a sort of reluctant envy, despite the rancorous enmity they intimated. “Ye hev got ter try it fust,” he said significantly, remembering the stress of his own ordeals, and that this was but the valor of prognostication. The facts would probably soon alter the outlook. He nodded his head convincingly. “Sech ez I do,” said the valorous saint, “air done afore the Lord! An’ I ain’t keerin’ what men say ahint my back, so long ez they take powerful keerful heed o’ thar words afore my face; ef they don’t, I know how ter make ’em wish they hed.” Jake Baintree failed, apparently, to comprehend the spirit of this challenge. He looked absently at the red cow cropping the grass in the niches at the base of the cliff that towered above their heads, and then his restless eye followed the silver-tipped wings of a bird, flying in the sunshine, upward, upward, with open beak and a joyous matutinal cry, cleaving the mists with a glancing line of light, and seeming bound for some haven in the splendid placidity of the blue sky, so serene and so high. The dew exhaled incense. Far away a fawn bleated, where doubtless it lay with its dam in the thick coverts of the laurel. The balsam firs, all a-glitter, gave out a sense of strength and infinite freshness, and of all the finer values of respiration; in such air it was a definite joy to be endowed with the sheer capacity to breathe. As his wandering glance came back he caught Jepson’s eyes upon him, and he was vaguely embarrassed for the moment. He put one foot on the blade of the spade that he had in his hand, and leaning upon the handle he looked up, his inscrutable eyes narrowing and full of close and guarded thought. “What war ye a-layin’ off ter say ter me? Jes’ that?” he demanded. “I never laid off ter say nuthin’ ter you-uns,” said Jepson, loftily. “Ye happen ter be in my road. I ain’t keerin’ ef ye onderstan’ or no sech ez I am mindin’ ter say an’ act. I render an account ter the Lord, an’ I walk afore him! I be goin’ down ter Brumsaidge ter meet the days ter come. I feel ekal ter ’em,—ter what the Lord mought send.” A sudden anxiety flickered over Baintree’s face; for the first time he noted the household gear, packed in a tiny wagon that was drawn by an old ox, guided only by his master’s voice as he rode alongside, and the number of cattle and sheep. This was evidently a permanent removal. “Whar be ye a-goin’ ter live in the Cove?” he demanded suddenly. “Whar do ye reckon?” retorted Jepson, resenting the supposed curiosity impelling the question. “Ye may be sure in the fear o’ the Lord, an’ in the light o’ his face, ef he will turn it on me.”