"You ought to thank me, Brother Rae, for not telling you on the other
side, when you asked me. I knew better. Because, why? Because I knew
you'd fly off the handle and get yourself killed, and then your ma'd be
left all alone, that's why, now--and prob'ly they'd 'a' wound up by
dumping the whole passle of us bag and baggage into the stream. And it
wa'n't any use, your father bein' dead and gone."

The Bishop took up the burden, slapping him cordially on the back.

"Come, come,--hearten up, now! Your pa's been made a martyr--he's
beautified his inheritance in Zion--whinin' won't do no good."

He drew himself up with a shrug, as if to throw off an invisible burden,
and answered, calmly:

"I'm not whining, Bishop. Perhaps you were right not to tell me over
there, Keaton. I'd have made trouble for you all." He smiled painfully
in his effort to control himself. "Were you there, Bishop?"

"No, I'd already gone acrost. Keaton here saw it."

Keaton took up the tale.

"I was there when the old gentleman drove down singing, 'Lo, the Gentile
chain is broken.' He was awful chipper. Then one of 'em called him old
Father Time, and he answered back. I disremember what, but, any way, one
word fired another until they was cussin' Giles Rae up hill and down
dale, and instead of keepin' his head shet like he had ought to have
done, he was prophesyin' curses, desolations, famines, and pestilences