r wait a more fitting
time to express them in private. His irritation and objection evidently
caused some solicitude amongst the others. He was important to them,
and they deprecated his displeasure. Isham Beaton listened to the
half-covert sneers of his words with perturbation plainly depicted on
his face, and the man whom Nehemiah had at first noticed as one whose
character seemed that of adviser, and whose opinion was valued, now
spoke for the first time. He handed over a broken-nosed pitcher with the
remark, "Try the flavor of this hyar whiskey, Alfred; 'pears like ter me
the bes' we-uns hev ever hed."

His voice was singularly smooth; it had all the qualities of culture;
every syllable, every lapse of his rude dialect, was as distinct as if
he had been taught to speak in this way; his tones were low and even,
and modulated to suave cadences; the ear experienced a sense of relief
after the loud, strident voice of the miller, poignantly penetrating and
pitched high.

"Naw, Hilary, I don't want nuthin' ter drink. 'Bleeged ter ye, but I
ain't wantin' nuthin' ter drink," reiterated the miller, plaintively.

Isham Beaton cast a glance of alarm at the dimly seen, monastic face
of his adviser in the gloom. It was unchanged. Its pallor and its
keen outline enabled its expression to be discerned as he himself went
through the motions of sampling the rejected liquor, shook his head
discerningly, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and deposited the
pitcher near by on a shelf of the rock.

A pause ensued. Nehemiah, with every desire to be agreeable, hardly knew
how to commend himself to the irate miller, who would have none of his
very existence. No one could more eagerly desire him to be away than he
himself. But his absence would not satisfy the miller; nothing less than
that the intruder should never have been here. Every perceptible lapse
of the moonshiners into anxiety, every recurrent intimation of their
most pertinent reason for this anxiety, set Nehemiah a-shaking in his
shoes. Should it be esteemed the greatest good to the greatest number
to make safely away with him, his fate would forever remain unknown, so
cautious had he been to leave no trace by which he might be followed.
He gazed with deprecating urbanity, and with his lips distended into a
propitiating smile, at the troubled face powdered so white and with its
lowering eyes so dark and petulant. He noted that the small-talk amongst
the others, mere un