“Why, Teck!” cried Mrs. Bowles, in a pained yet cordially insistent tone; she forgot what she was about to say, for there surged in upon her the recollection of his “stock,” for which they had besought him to abide with them, and which, benefited infinitely the housekeeping and the farming in a thousand ways. He possessed only a few head of the commonest variety, but they seemed much when once within her grasp, and it had been as if she owned them. “Why, Teck!” she exclaimed once again, at a loss how to continue. “Ye needn’t say nare word,” he declared. “I’m goin’ by daybreak.” He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, put it in his pocket, rose, and strode out on the porch. He had not contemplated one of his long mountain jaunts,—only a turn or two in the solemn stillness of the night, to be alone with his thoughts, to be free from the presence of his fellows. This was contrary to his usual custom, and he knew that she thought him far away when he saw her through the open door rise up by the hearth-stone, and heard her say impressively to the forlorn, stooping, and disquieted Ben Bowles,— “Ye mark my words,”—she lifted her arm and shook her forefinger at him,—“Eli Strobe ain’t dead mebbe, but he will be soon, an’ Teck air aimin’ aforehand ter git out’n the kentry with all he hev got; he’ll flee the State, an’ that ter-morrer mornin’.” Bowles listened with plaintive, hopeless, upturned face. The small Bob had become rigid with propriety of demeanor the instant she lifted her arm, and sat with his bright hazel eyes fixed expectantly and deprecatingly upon her. The man outside in the darkness watched the group for a moment, and then turned away into the black night. VIII. The events of the day were peculiarly edifying to Broomsedge Cove. That moralizing tendency rife among rural gossips did not fail to utilize so promising a theme. One might have culled choice apothegms as to the sterility of ambition, failing oft in the very moment of seeming fruition, suggested by the fate of Eli Strobe, lying at the point of death in the flush of success. Others evolved reflections upon the overbearing spirit that would brook not even the control of the law, and certain nice points of ethics arose as to how far a man is warranted in holding his own conscience as monitor, or in subjugating his prerogative to judge of right and wrong.