"And why should she put a sword in her eye against you for that, Bandy?"
asked the other.

Bandy looked cautiously about him, and said in a whisper:

"Because it's connected with her family, and follows it."

He then proceeded to the kitchen, and having secured his pack, he made
as rapid a disappearance as possible from about the premises.




CHAPTER VII. A Council of Two

--Visit to Beech Grove.--The Herbalist


Woodward now amused himself by walking and riding about the country
and viewing its scenery, most of which he had forgotten during his long
absence from home. It was not at all singular in that dark state of
popular superstition and ignorance, that the shower of blood should,
somehow or another, be associated with him and his detested mother. Of
course, the association was vague, and the people knew not how to apply
it to their circumstances. As they believed, however, that Mrs. Lindsay
possessed the power of overlooking cattle, which was considered an evil
gift, and in some mysterious manner connected with the evil spirit, and
as they remembered--for superstition, like guilt, always possesses a
good memory--that even in his young days, when little more than a child,
her son Harry was remarkable for having eyes of a different color, from