CHAPTER V.


_Giles Rae Beautifies His Inheritance_

By eight o'clock the next morning, out under a cloudy sky, the Raes were
ready and eager for their start to the new Jerusalem. Even the sick
woman's face wore a kind of soft and faded radiance in the excitement of
going. On her mattress, she had been tenderly installed in one of the
two covered wagons that carried their household goods. The wagon in
which she lay was to be taken across the river by Seth Wright,--for the
moment no Wild Ram of the Mountains, but a soft-cooing dove of peace.
Permission had been granted him by Brockman to recross the river on some
needful errands; and, having once proved the extreme sensitiveness, not
to say irritability, of those in temporary command, he was now resolved
to give as little éclat as possible to certain superior aspects of his
own sanctity. He spoke low and deferentially, and his mien was that of a
modest, retiring man who secretly thought ill of himself.

He mounted the wagon in which the sick woman lay, sat well back under
the bowed cover, clucked low to the horses, and drove off toward the
ferry. If discreet behaviour on his part could ensure it there would be
no conflict provoked with superior numbers; with numbers, moreover,
composed of violent-tempered and unprincipled persecutors who were
already acting with but the merest shadow of legal authority.

On the seat of the second wagon, whip in hand, was perched Giles Rae,
his coat buttoned warmly to the chin. He was slight and feeble to the