n, and from that day Sandy paid his blood money,
hoping that greed would hold the child to her bargain, but with always
a feeling of insecurity. He changed his box to another rock, but a
certain uncanniness about Molly gained a power over him and he never
felt safe.

Things went rapidly from bad to worse in the Morley cabin. Martin
forgot his prayers and ambitions; he grew subservient to Mary and never
strove against her, even when her wrath and temper were directed toward
him and Sandy. Discredited and disliked by his neighbours, flouted by
the woman who had used him for her own gain, the man became a
detestable and pitiable creature. Sandy endured the blows and ratings
that became his portion, in the family disturbances, with proud
silence. He was making ready and until the hour of his departure came
he must bear his part.

It was during the probation and preparatory period that Marcia Lowe,
the Cup-of-Cold-Water Lady, came up The Way one golden afternoon and
stopped her horse before the post office, General Store and County Club
of The Hollow, and, leaning out from the ramshackle buggy, gave a
rather high, nasal call to whoever might be within.

CHAPTER II

Tod Greeley, the postmaster, was sitting on his cracker box
contemplatively eying the rusty stove enthroned upon its sawdust
platform, in the middle of the store. Every man in The Hollow had his
own particular chair or box when the circle, known as the County Club,
formed for recreation or business. No one presumed to occupy another's
place: Tod Greeley's pedestal was a cracker box and its sides were well
battered from the blows his heels gave it when emotions ran high or his
sentiments differed from his neighbour's. Greeley was not a Hollow man;
he had been selected by Providence, as he himself would have said, to
perform a service for his country: namely, that of postmaster,
storekeeper, and arbiter of things in general. He was a tall, lean man
of forty, good looking, indolent, and with some force of character which
was mainly evinced by his power of keeping his temper when he was facing
a critical situation. While not of The Hollow, he was still _with_ The
Hollow on principle.

When Marcia Lowe paused before the store and emitted her call, which
flavoured of friendliness and the North, Greeley was vacantly looking
into space, hugging his bony knees, and listening to an indignant fly
buzzing on the dirty glass of the back window, protesting