"Last night I felt a kind o' flutterin' of my heart an' I cudn't breathe good. I thought it was death--death,--Hillard, on the back of his pale horse. Tilly and Sally both thought so." The Bishop laughed. "That warn't death on the back of a horse, Davy--that was jus' wind on the stomach of an ass." This was too much for Uncle Davy--especially when Tilly and Sally made it unanimous by giggling outright. "You et cabbages for supper," said the Bishop. Uncle Davy nodded, sheepishly. "Then I sed my will an' Tilly writ it down an', oh, Hillard, I am so anxious to hear you read it. I wanter see how it'ull feel fer a man to have his will read after he is dead--an'--an' how his widder takes it," he added, glancing at Aunt Sally--"an' his friends. I wanter heah you read it, Hillard, in that deep organ way of yours,--like you read the Old Testament. In that _In-the-Beginning-God-Created-the-Heaven-an'-the-Earth-Kinder_ voice! Drap your voice low like a organ, an' let the old man hear it befo' he goes. I fixed it when I thought I was a-dyin'." "Makin' yo' will ain't no sign you're dyin'," said the Bishop. "But Tilly an' Aunt Sally both said so," said Uncle Davy, earnestly. "All yo' needs," said the Bishop going to his saddle bags, "is a good straight whiskey. I keep a little--a very, very little bit in my saddle bags, for jes' sech occasions as these. It's twenty years old," he said, "an' genuwine old Lincoln County. I keep it only for folks that's dyin'," he winked, "an' sometimes, Davy, I feel mighty like I'm about to pass away myself." He poured out a very small medicine glass of it, shining and shimmering in the morning light like a big ruby,--and handed it to Uncle Davy. "You say that's twenty years old, Hillard?" asked Uncle Davy as he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and again held the little glass out entreatingly: "Hillard, ain't it mighty small for its age--'pears to me it orter be twins to make it the regulation size. Don't you think so?" The Bishop gave him another and took one himself, remarking as he did so, "I was pow'ful flustrated when I heard you was dyin' again, Davy, an' I need it to stiddy my nerves. Now, fetch out yo' will, Davy," he added. As he took it the Bishop adjusted his big spectacles, buttoned up his coat, and drew himself up as he did in the pulpit. He blew his nose to get a clear sonorous note: "I've got a verse of poetry that I allers tunes my voice up to the occasion with," he said. "I do it sorter like a fiddler tunes up his fiddle. It's a great poem an' I'll put it agin anything in the Queen's English for real thunder music an' a sentiment that Shakespeare an' Milton nor none of 'em cud a writ. It stirs me like our park of artillery at Shiloh, an' it puts me in tune with the great dead of all eternity. It makes me think of Cap'n Tom an' Albert Sidney Johnston." Then in a deep voice he repeated: