not have lightly jeopardized it did he not esteem the crisis momentous.
He knew not what he feared. The fraud of the intention, the groundless
claim to knowledge, made Nehemiah's scheme seem multifariously guilty
in some sort; while Tyler Sudley and his wife, albeit no wiser
mathematically, had all the sanctions of probity in their calm,
unpretending ignorance.

"Ef Cap'n or Neighbor wanted ter run a post-office on my larnin', or ter
keep store, they'd be welcome; but I won't play stalkin'-horse fur that
thar man's still-hunt, sure ez shootin'," he said to himself.

The attention which he bent upon the conversation thenceforth was an
observation of its effect rather than its matter. He saw that he was
alone in his discovery. Neither Sudley nor his wife had perceived any
connection between the store, the prospective post-office, and the
desire of the illiterate would-be postmaster to have his erudite nephew
restored to his care.

It may be that the methods of his "Neighbor" and the "Captain" in the
rearing of Leander, the one with unbridled leniency, the other with
spurious severity and affected indifference, had combined to foster
self-reliance and decision of character, or it may be that these
qualities were inherent traits. At all events, he encountered the
emergency without an instant's hesitation. He felt no need of counsel.
He had no doubts. He carried to his pallet in the roof-room no
vacillations and no problems. His resolve was taken. For a time, as he
listened to the movements below-stairs, the sound of voices still rose,
drowsy as the hour waxed late; the light that flickered through the
cracks in the puncheon flooring gradually dulled, and presently a harsh
grating noise acquainted him with the fact that Sudley was shovelling
the ashes over the embers; then the tent-like attic was illumined only
by the moonlight admitted through the little square window at the gable
end--so silent, so still, it seemed that it too slept like the silent
house. The winds slumbered amidst the mute woods; a bank of cloud that
he could see from his lowly couch lay in the south becalmed. The bird's
song had ceased. It seemed to him as he lifted himself on his elbow that
he had never known the world so hushed. The rustle of the quilt of gay
glazed calico was of note in the quietude; the impact of his bare foot
on the floor was hardly a sound, rather an annotation of his weight and
his movement; yet in default of all else the sens