the former, to the levity and love of mischief which also actively
predominated in the bosom of the youth. Fond of a malicious sort
of fun, and ever on the look-out for subjects of quizzing, it was
in compliance with a purely habitual movement of his mind that he
conjured up that false, glozing story of his religious inclinations,
which had so easily imposed upon the unsuspecting preacher. Never
was proceeding less premeditated, or so completely the result of an
after-thought, than this; and now that it had proved so perfectly
successful--now that he found himself admitted into the very heart
of the little village, and into the bosoms of the people--he began,
for the first time, to feel the awkwardness of the situation in which
he had placed himself, and the responsibilities, if not dangers,
to which it subjected him. To play the part of a mere preacher--to
talk glibly, and with proper unction, in the stereotype phraseology
of the profession--was no difficult matter to a clever young lawyer
of the West, having a due share of the gift of gab, and almost as
profoundly familiar with scripture quotation as Henry Clay himself.
But there was something awkward in the idea of detection, and he
was not unaware of those summary dangers which are likely to follow,
in those wild frontier regions, from the discovery of so doubtful
a personage as "Bro' Wolf" in the clothing of a more innocent
animal. Chief-Justice Lynch is a sacred authority in those parts;
and, in such a case as his, Alfred Stevsns did not doubt that the
church itself would feel it only becoming to provide another sort
of garment for the offender, which, whether pleasant or not, would
at least be likely to stick more closely, and prove less comfortably
warm.

But, once in, there was no help but to play out the game as it had
been begun. Villagers are seldom very sagacious people, and elegant