Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Down the Ravine by Mary Noailles Murfree
page 69 of 130 (53%)
encircling woods, the brown stretch of spent tan, the little gray
shed, and within it, hanging upon a peg, the butternut jeans coat, a
stiff white paper protruding from its pocket.

That grant, he thought, had taken from him his rights. He would
destroy it--he would tear it into bits, and cast it to the turbulent
mountain winds. It was not his, to be sure. But was it justly
Nate's?--he had no right to enter the land down the ravine.

And so Birt argued with his conscience.

Now wherever Conscience calls a halt, it is no place for Reason to
debate the question. The way ahead is no thoroughfare.

Birt did not recognize the tearing of the paper as stealing, but he
knew that all this was morally wrong, although he would not admit
it. He would not forego his revenge--it was too dear; he was too
deeply injured. In the anger that possessed his every faculty, he
did not appreciate its futility.

There were other facts which he did NOT know. He was ignorant that
the deed which he contemplated was a crime in the estimation of the
law, a penitentiary offense.

And toward this terrible pitfall he trudged in the darkness, saying
over and again to himself, "I'll git even with Nate Griggs; he'll
hev no grant, no land, no gold--no more 'n me. I'll git even with
him."

His progress seemed incredibly slow as he groped along the path.
DigitalOcean Referral Badge