"'Naw, but _these_ will!' Hancock says, throwin' his bundle o' apple tree switches on the ground,--he'd had 'em hid--'_these_ will! Ketch him, boys!' "Hit tuck six o' the boys to pull him offen the verandy and git him roped, he clawed and fit so. They never give him but feefteen licks! No, sir. He give in uncommon quick,--his meat bein' some softer than his temper. I'd jedge though, hit wuz the sight o' that thar bundle o' hedge tree switches one the boys fetched and laid down in front o' him that brung him to reason so soon. "He 'lowed when he ketched sight o' them, he wouldn't raise nary stalk o' terbaccer, and he wouldn't keek the Equity nary 'nother keek, no sir! And he meant hit too. Yes, sir, he wuz ez humble ez a toad when they ontied him and give him a match and a ca'tridge and told him these wuz souvernears o' the occasion. "I wuz so tickled when we rid off, I come nigh a fallin' off the hoss I wuz a ridin'!" "Uncle Eph," said Mr. Lindsay, here, "you don't mean to tell me you was out a night ridin' too, of your _own choice_?" Mr. Doggett colored as he realized his tongue slip had betrayed his departure from the beaten path of virtue. "Don't never let the old lady and the boys, ner anybody else about here, hear o' hit, Mr. Lindsay," he besought. "Hancock put at me so to go and see a little o' the fun," he admitted reluctantly, "I went with him and the boys a time er two!" "I guess you'll give up puttin' in a crop, now," Mr. Lindsay remarked, picking up his tools to go. Mr. Doggett rose. "Well, no, sir. Ef I didn't raise, Mr. Castle'd git somebody else, so what'd be the difference? Ef I wuz not to put in a crop the boys'd have to light out and work in the mines maybe, or on the railroad, which is mighty nigh shore death, yes, sir! Any word you want to send the Jeemses, Mr. Lindsay?" Mr. Lindsay stiffened slightly, and there was a world of meaning in his one word of answer, "No!" CHAPTER XII THE MAD COW "No true love there can be, Without its dread penalty, jealousy!" A grateful odor from the white blooming wild cherry by the fence of the James potato-lot, was wafted to Miss Lucy, as, with her milk-buckets she came out into the dew-wet yard at five o'clock one morning well on toward the end of May. But she was not cognizant of its sweetness. Her face was pale, restless--harassed, as she paused a moment with her eyes on the sloping plowed fields across the road. The tobacco barn of Castle with its metal roof shimmered like silver in the bright sun: the fields showed flecks of green on their raw brown,--the newly set tobacco.