The juggler recoiled in a sort of ashamed self-consciousness. “Don’t deceive yourself!” he exclaimed. “It is only my literary sensibility. All the four Gospels--speaking profanely--are works of high artistic merit, and they can floor me when nothing else can.” But the worldly ambition of Tynes had suddenly fled. He was baiting his hook and reeling out his line; here was the prospect of a precious capture in the cause of religion. He might not learn to read the Bible in John Leonard’s illusive and soul-compelling way,--and he hardly knew if he cared to do this, so did it seem to penetrate into the very mystery of sacred things which had less poignancy under the veil of custom and indifference and a dull sense of distance in time and place,--but he would learn of him in secular things, he would remain by him, and now and again insidiously instill some sense of religious responsibility; and the soul of this sinner would indeed be a slippery fish if it could contrive to elude his vigilance at last. He listened indulgently as the juggler declared he would have no more of the Reader, insisting that such literature would wreck his mind. But Tynes, for his own part, was not willing to trust himself to learn the arts of elocution from the sanctities of the Holy Book read with that immediate and vital certainty which tore so at his heart-strings. “I wonder,” he said, his narrow, pallid face brightening with the inspiration,--“I wonder ef thar ain’t some o’ them books ye speak of over yander ter the sto’ what that valley-man keeps at New Helveshy Springs? They all bein’ valley folks, mebbe he hev some valley books ter sell ter ’em.” “I have no doubt of it!” cried the juggler in delighted anticipation. He looked down for a moment, dubious of the wisdom of the course he had in contemplation, but with a quick joy beating at his heart. It was but natural, he argued within himself, recognizing the access of pleasure, that, young and debarred as he was from the society of his equals, he should experience a satisfaction in these fleeting glimpses of life as he had once known it, and in its attraction for him was no harbinger of regret and rue. Moreover, he judged that it would excite less attention for him to buy the book in person--he would make it appear that he was on an errand for some cottager of the summer sojourners--than if this ignorant parson should overhaul the literature of the Springs, with some wild tale of lessons from an elocutionary mountaineer. As to danger, he would hold his tongue as far as he might, and he deemed that he looked the veriest mountain rustic in the garb he so despised. “Rather a jaunty rural rooster, perhaps,” he said to himself, “but as rural as a cornfield.” XI.