“Leave him be, yerself,” retorted the tanner.
When Birt mounted the mule, and rode out of the yard, he glanced back and saw that Rufe had approached the shed; judging by his gestures, he was asking a variety of questions touching the art of tanning, to which Byers amicably responded.
The mists were shifting as Birt went on and on. He heard the acorns dropping from the chestnut-oaks - sign that the wind was awake in the woods. Like a glittering, polished blade, at last a slanting sunbeam fell. It split the gloom, and a radiant afternoon seemed to emerge. The moist leaves shone; far down the aisles of the woods the fugitive mists, in elusive dryadic suggestions, chased each other into the distance. Although the song-birds were all silent, there was a chirping somewhere - cheerful sound! He had almost reached his destination when a sudden rustling in the undergrowth by the roadside caused him to turn and glance back.
Two or three shoats lifted their heads and were gazing at him with surprise, and a certain disfavor, as if they did not quite like his looks. A bevy of barefooted, tow-headed children were making mud pies in a marshy dip close by. An ancient hound, that had renounced the chase and assumed in his old age the office of tutor, seemed to preside with dignity and judgment. He, too, had descried the approach of the stranger. He growled, but made no other demonstration.
“Whar’s Nate?” Birt called out, for these were the children of Nate’s eldest brother.
For a moment there was no reply. Then the smallest of the small boys shrilly piped out, “He hev gone away! - him an’ gran’dad’s claybank mare.”
Another unexpected development! “When will he come back?”
“Ain’t goin’ ter come back fur two weeks.”
“Whar ’bouts hev he gone?” asked Birt amazed.
“Dunno,” responded the same little fellow.