Ten days ago he could not have believed that, however closely harried, his tongue would ever so forget its formula as thus to repudiate his alignment with the Plain People, and to claim to rank with “the quality.”
Under other circumstances the two mountaineers might have resented this arrogation of superiority. They were, however, by virtue of their law-breaking, a trifle more worldly-wise than their stolid compatriots of the hills. It had been in some sort an education; had familiarized them with the springs of commercial action, the relations of producer and consumer, the value of money or its equivalent; had endowed them with an appreciation of emergency and an ingenuity in expedients and makeshifts; had forced upon their contemplation the operations of the law; and their great personal risk had superinduced care, thoughtfulness, and the exercise of a certain rude logic.
As they unconsciously sought to realize Harshaw’s position in the world, resources, opportunity, their suspicion that he was a spy gradually waned.
There was a pause. The candle sputtered on the timber where it had been placed, the flame now rising apparently with an effort to touch a resinous knot in the wood just above it, and now crouching in a sudden gust from a crevice hard by. The rain came down with redoubled force for a few moments, then subsided again into its former steady, monotonous fall. Harshaw’s senses, preternaturally keen now, detected an almost imperceptible stir on the ladder that ascended to the loft. He knew as well as if he had seen the coterie that Marvin’s wife and the rest of the moonshiners were sitting on the rounds, listening and awaiting the announcement of his fate. Perhaps it was this which prompted his reply, when Marvin said pettishly,—
“It air all M’ria’s fault. Ef she hedn’t been so powerful quick ter git down the gun, ye’d hev never knowed nor axed whar ye war, nor s’picioned nuthin’.”
“Yes, I would, though,” Harshaw declared.
Marvin once more looked over his shoulder, and the lawyer quaked at the risk he ran.
“I saw Tad, you know, and I was figurin’ round, big as all-out-of-doors, how I was going to produce him in court, and she thought I meant right off. Then, the minute I saw you I knew you,—and I had heard that girl say you were moonshining.”
“Ai-yi! Sam Marvin!” cried a shrill feminine voice from the primitive stairway, “that’s what ye got fur tryin’ ter put the blame on me!”