he bent his brows and looked down at the quicklime scattered on the ground, and silently meditated on its capacity to destroy flesh and bone and on the juggler’s unhallowed curiosity. “A body dunno how ter git his own cornsent ter b’lieve his own eyesight,” one of the men reflectively averred. The interval since witnessing the astounding feats of the prestidigitator had afforded space for rumination, and but served to deepen the impression of possibilities set at naught and miracles enacted. “That thar man air in league with Satan,” declared another, “Surely, surely he air.” He accentuated his words with his long lean forefinger shaken impressively at the group. “Ye mark my words,” said Peter Knowles suddenly, still eying the refuse of quicklime on the ground, “no good hev kem inter the Cove with that thar man.” “Whar’d he kem from, ennyhows?” demanded the first speaker. “Whar’d he kem from?” repeated Knowles, peering over the great kiln. “From hell, my frien’,--straight from hell.” He had the combined drone and whine which he esteemed appropriate to the clerical office; for although he had never experienced a “call,” he deemed himself singularly fitted for that vocation by virtue of a disposition to hold forth at great length to any one who would listen to his views on religious themes,--and in this region, where time is plenty and industry scanty, he seldom lacked listeners,--a conscience ever sensitive to the sins of other people, and great freedom in the use of such Scriptural terms as are debarred to persons not naturally profane or suffering under the stress of extreme rage. “Waal, sir!” exclaimed old man Cobbs, sitting on a stump and gently nursing his knee. He spoke with a voice of deep reprehension, and as simple an acceptance of the possibility of hailing from the place in question as if it were geographically extant. Ormsby, who had been standing leaning on an axe, silently listening, laughed slightly at this,--an incredulous laugh. “Folks ez git ter that kentry don’t git back in a hurry,” he drawled negligently, but with a manifest satisfaction in the circumstance, as if he knew of sundry departed wights whom he esteemed well placed. “How d’ye know they don’t?” demanded Peter Knowles. “Ain’t ye never read the Scriptures enough ter sense them lines, ‘Satan was a-walkin’ up and down through the yearth,’ ye blunderin’ buzzard, an’ _he_ fell from heaven?” The young fellow’s robust figure was clearly defined against the western sky. He swung his axe nonchalantly now, for to be an adept in reading and remembering the Scriptures was not the height of his ambition. Nevertheless, the idea of the possibility of being in the orbit, as it were, of an earthly stroll of the Prince of Darkness roused him to argument and insistence on a less terrifying solution of the mystery. “He telled it ter me ez he kem from Happy Valley,” he volunteered.