“Not like in them days: ye sca’cely notice now whether I kem or don’t kem; ye pay jes’ ez much ’tention ter me ez ef I war that thar old dog o’ mine. G’way Watch!” he broke off suddenly, “I ain’t talkin ter you-uns. I wisht yer throat war cut!” He held back with one stalwart hand his canine follower, who upon the mention of the word “dog” had come up and offered to lick his face. “Ye air lookin’ over my head, Marcelly, an’ ye ’low I be sech a fool ez not ter know it. Yit we hev been raised tergether. An’ I remembers how I hev listened, a-comin’ down the turn-row, ter hear ye call out, sweeter ’n a mocking-bird’s singin’, ‘Look, Is’bel, yander’s Andy.’ I’d ruther hear it ’n the voice o’ the Lord! Ye needn’t look at me like that. I’d jes’ ez soon go ter hell ez not—I hev done gone ter hell, ef ye ain’t goin’ ter keer nuthin’ ’bout’n me. Oh, Lord, I can’t learn nuthin’ mo’ ’bout brimstone an’ fire in the next worl’. I hev felt ’em in this.” “I ain’t goin’ ter keer nuthin’ ’bout onchristian folks,” remarked Marcella, “an’ none ez use cuss words an’ talk ’bout ‘hell.’” She spoke stiffly and with an averted eye, but when he had turned his head away she looked down kindly and leniently at him. He suddenly glanced up. “Air it this all-fired Christian, Teck Jepson, ez hev sot ye agin me?” he asked suspiciously. “Him ez flung my father down, an’ rid over him, an’ bruk his skull, an’”—She could say no more; the sobs were in her throat, her eyes were full of tears. “Don’t cry, Marcelly,” he said sympathetically, and he was silent for a moment in respect for her grief. Then he renewed his insistent pleas. “Marcelly,” he demanded, “air thar ennybody ez ye know ez I ain’t ’quainted with?” Who could say how Fate might play the trickster? He felt his hands were feeble as he sought to control the possibilities. It might have been that his words recalled the stranger who had brought such peace and ease to her father, that night of storm and trial. It might have been that he was already in her thoughts. His image in the vicissitudes of that night, now in the lurid and fluctuating illumination of the forge, now as he quelled the frenzy of the wounded man, distinct in the white gleams of the lighted cabin, became vividly present with her. She did not hesitate. She believed he was a fugitive from the law, but whether he had done ill, or whether he was falsely suspected, he should not be hurt by aught that she might say. She sought, however, to summon as innocent a duplicity as she might, for was she not a “perfessin’ member”? “What makes ye ask sech a question ez that, Andy? Ye ’pear bereft.” “I know,” cried the young fellow wildly, “ez ye think ’bout somebody nowadays in the time whenst ye useter think ’bout’n me!” “Why, Andy!” exclaimed Marcella, laughing, and blushing for the arrogations of his woe. “I never did think ’bout you-uns, ef the truth war knowed.”