lus of definition had emphasized, caught the
attention of Uncle Moses, who thereon moved up the Court to find out who
this stranger could be, who was so evidently inquiring about the
upstairs tenant. As he reached close inspection-point his face did not
look as though the visitor pleased him. The latter said good-morning
first; but, simple as his words were, the gaol-bird manner of guarded
suspicion crept into them and stamped the speaker.

"Don't like the looks of you, mister!" said Uncle Mo to himself. But
aloud he said:--"Good-morning to _you_, sir. I understood you to be
inquiring for Mrs. Prichard."

"No--Daverill. No such a name, this young shaver says."

"Not down this Court. It wasn't Burr by any chance now, was it?"

"No--Daverill."

"Because there _is_ a party by the name of Burr if you could have seen
your way." This was only the natural civility which sometimes runs riot
with an informant's judgment, making him anxious to meet the inquirer at
any cost, whatever inalienable stipulations the latter may have
committed himself to. In this case it seemed that nothing short of
Daverill, crisp and well defined, would satisfy the conditions. The
stranger shook his head with as much decision as reciprocal civility
permitted--rather as though he regretted his inability to accept
Burr--and replied that the name had "got to be" Daverill and no other.
But he seemed reluctant to leave the widows down this Court unsifted,
saying:--"You're sure there ain't any other old party now?" To which
Uncle Moses responded: "Ne'er a one, master, to _my_ knowledge. Widow
Daverill she's somewheres else. Not down _this_ Court!" He said it in a
valedictory way as though he had no wish to open a new subject, and
considered this one closed. He had profited by his inspection of the
stranger, and had formed a low opinion of him.

But the stranger's reluctance continued. "You couldn't say, I suppose,"
said he, in a cautious hesitating way, "you couldn't say what
countrywoman she was, now?" His manner might easily have been--so Uncle
Mo thought at least--that of indigence trying to get a foothold with an
eye to begging in the end. It really was the furtive suspiciousness that
hangs alike upon the miscreant and the mere rebel against law into whose
bones the fetter has rusted. The guilt of the former, if he can cheat
both the gaol and the gallows, may merge in the demeanour of a free man;
that of the latter, after a decade of prison-servic