had been at the Temple all the other nights, which made Reverdy laugh with
guilty joy.

"One o' the Hounds--no, it was Jim Redfield hisself--stopped on the way
out, and he says, 'What's this I hear? You say you ain't goin' to die.'
And Dylks he lifts his hands up over his head and he says, 'This shell
will fall off'; and Jim he says, 'I've got half a mind to _crack_
your shell,' and the believers they got round, and begun to hustle Jim
off, but Dylks he told them to let him alone, and he says, 'I can endure
strong meat, but I must be fed on milk for a while.' What you s'pose he
meant, Squire?"

Braile took his pipe out and cackled toothlessly. "I'm almost afraid to
think, Abel. Something awful, though. You say Sally told you?"

"Yes."

"I should think Sally would know what he meant, if anybody." He looked at
Abel, and Sally's husband joined him in safe derision. "Tell you anything
else?"

"Well, no, not just in so many words. But it 'pears he's been teachun'
round all sorts of things in private, like. Who do you reckon he says he
is?"

"Not John the Baptist, I hope. I don't know where we should get the
locusts and wild honey for him in _this_ settlement. Might try
grasshoppers, but the last bee-tree in the Bottom was cut down when I was
a boy. I got a piece of the comb."