a gal," put in young Adam, "I seed Molly
Merryweather goin' toward the low grounds as I come up."

"Then it's most likely to have been she," commented Solomon, "for she is
a light-minded one, as is proper an' becomin' in a child of sin."

The stranger looked up with a laugh from the moss-grown cattle
trough beside which he was standing, and his eyes--of a peculiar dark
blue--glanced merrily into the bleared ones of old Adam.

"I ain't so blind yet as not to know a Gay when I see one," said the
labourer, with a sly chuckle. "If I hadn't closed the eyes of old Mr.
Jonathan when he was found dead over yonder by the Poplar Spring, I'd as
soon as not take my Bible oath that he'd come young agin an' was ridin'
along back to Jordan's Journey."

"Do you believe down here that my uncle killed himself?" asked the young
man, with a furtive displeasure in his voice, as if he alluded to a
disagreeable subject in response to some pressure of duty.

"'Tis as it may be, suh, I can't answer for that. To this day if you get
Solomon Hatch or Betsey Bottom, (axin' her pardon for puttin' her last),
started on the subject they'll contend till they're blue in the face
that 'twas naught done but pure murder. However, I'm too old at my time
of life to take up with any opinion that ain't pleasant to think
on, an', when all's said an' done, pure murder ain't a peaceable,
comfortable kind of thing to believe in when thar's only one Justice of
the Peace an' he bed-ridden since Christmas. When you ax me to pin my
faith on any p'int, be it for this world or the next, my first question
consarnin' it is whether that particular p'int happens to be pleasant.
'Tis that little small argyment of mine that has confounded Mr. Mullen
more than once, when he meets me on equal ground outside the pulpit.
'Mebbe 'tis an' mebbe 'tisn't,' as I remarked sociably to him about the
matter of eternal damnation, 'but you can't deny, can you, suh, bein'
outside the pulpit an' bound to speak the truth like the rest of us,
that you sleep a long sight easier in yo' bed when you say to yo'self
that mebbe 'tisn't?'"

"You see pa's old, an' he won't harbour any belief at his time of
life that don't let him rest comfortable," remarked young Adam, in an
apologetic aside. "It's that weakness of his that keeps him from bein' a
thorough goin' good Christian."

"That strange young clergyman has stirred us all up about the
doctrines," said Solomon Hatch. "He's opened Old Church