"Thought you'd be on the spot for once, did you, Rube?" inquired Hi

Holler. "Well, seeing you're here, we might accommodate you, by

getting up a murder, or a row, or something. 'Twould be too bad to

have nothing happen, seeing you are on hand for once."

The choir joined heartily in the laugh on the constable, who waited

till it had subsided and then said: "Well, what's the matter with jailing all of you for disturbing the

public peace. There's law for it--'disturbin' the public peace with

strange sounds at late and unusual hours of the night.'"

"All right, constable," said Cynthia, "I suppose you'll drive us to

jail in that rig o' yourn. I'd be willing to stay there six months for

the sake o' driving behind so spry a piece of horse-flesh as that."

"'Tain't the horseflesh she's after, constable, it's the driver.

Everyone 'round here knows how Cynthia dew admire you."

"Professional jealousy is what's at the bottom of this," declared Kate,

"the choir is jealous of Uncle Rube's reputation as a singer, and Uncle

Rube does not care for the choir's new-fangled methods of singing.

Rivalry! Rivalry! That's what the matter."

"That's right, Miss Kate," squeaked the constable, "they're jealous of

my singing. There ain't one of 'em, with all their scaling, and

do-re-mi-ing can touch me. If I turned professional to-day, I'd make

more'n all of 'em put together."

"That's cause they'd pay you to quit. Ha, ha," said Hi Holler.

And so the evening passed with the banter that invariably took place

when Rube was of the party. It was late when they left the Squire's,

the constable going along with them, and all singing merrily as birds

on a summer morning.

David went out under the stars and smoked innumerable pipes, but they

did not give their customary solace to-night. There was an upheaval

going on in his well regulated mind. "Who was she? What was the

mystery about her? How did a girl like that come to be tramping about

the country looking for work?" Her manner of speaking, the very

intonations of her voice, her choice of words, all proclaimed her from

a different world from theirs. He had noticed her hands, white and

fragile, and her small delicate wrists. They did not belong to a

working woman.

And her eyes, that seemed to hold the sorrows of centuries in their

liquid depths. What was the mystery of it all? And that insolent city

chap! What a look he had given her. The memory of it made Dave's

hands come together as if he were strangling something. But it was all

too deep for him. The lights glimmered in the rooms upstairs. His

father walked to the outer gate to say good-night to Mr. Sanderson--and

he tried to justify the feeling of hatred he felt toward Sanderson, but

could not. The sound of a shutter being drawn in, caused him to look

up. Anna, leaned out in the moonlight for a moment before drawing in

the blind. Dave took off his hat--it was an unconscious act of

reverence. The next moment, the grave, shy countryman had smiled at

his sentimentality. The shutters closed and all was dark, but Dave

continued to think and smoke far into the night.




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