superstition running from mind to mind in the neighborhood, and catching
like fire in dry grass. The rumor came in different voices, some piously
meant to shake him with fear in the scorner's seat which he held so
stubbornly; some in their doubt seeking the help of his powerful unfaith;
but he required their news from them all with the same mocking. They were
not of the Scribes and Pharisees, the pillars of the Temple, the wise and
rich and proud who had been the first to follow Dylks, but the poorer and
lowlier sort who wavered before the example of their betters, and were
willing to submit it to the searching of the old Sadducee's scrutiny.

The morning after Abel Reverdy had finished his work at the Cross Roads,
and had returned to the cares patiently awaiting him at home he rode his
claybank so hesitantly toward the Squire's cabin that his desire to stop
and talk was plain, and Braile called to him: "Well, Abel, what do they
think of the Prophet over at Wilkins's? Many converts? Many dipped or
sprinkled, as the case required?"

Reverdy drew rein and faced the Squire with a solemnity presently
yielding to his natural desire to grin at any form of joke, and his belief
that when the Squire indulged such flagrant irreverence as this he must be
joking. Yet he answered evasively: "You hearn't he says now he hain't
never go'n to die?"

"No. But I'm not surprised to hear it; about the next thing on the
docket. Did he say that at the Cross Roads?"

"Said it right here in Leatherwood. Sally told me the first thing when I
got home. You wasn't at the Temple last night, I reckon?"

"Well, not _last_ night," Braile said with an implication that he