Letitia looked up, her interest in all that interested Shattuck shining in her eyes. "That's the very word what I told him," she said. "He'd better kem an' dig at night, whenst the moon shines, like he done afore."
A sudden angry pain thrilled through Guthrie. It was only yesterday that Shattuck had received his permission to make these investigations upon his land; had sought it with deepening deference and solicitude, as if it were essential. And when at last it had been granted, it was in disregard of previous refusals, in despite of his repugnance, and his primitive sense of sacrilege. Thus he had been overborne by the facile influence of this suave stranger, with his ready smile and his pleasant eyes, and his frank off-hand speech. It must have been that to work freely and openly in broad daylight had become a necessary condition of Shattuck's success, for evidently he had been here before—when the moon shone!
Whether it were because of some inward monition, which by an unconscious process served Guthrie's interest, or some latent, undeveloped suspicion astir in his mind, he gave no intimation of his thought; he held himself plastic to the discovery which he felt imminent in the air. He could not, however, meet her eyes; as he sought an alternative, perhaps it was as happy an idea as any that could have come at a more propitious and reflective moment to draw out one of the pistols that he wore in his belt and turn it in his hand; he had an incidental preoccupied air as he glanced successively into the empty chambers.
"Did he find ennything then, d'ye know, Litt?"
"I dun'no'. I ain't seen him sence till las' night," she replied, unsuspiciously.
He had snapped the barrel in place and silently sighted the pistol at a flying bird, as if he had in view some experiment of marksmanship. Moses had ceased his femininely domestic labors, with the wisp of flax hanging motionless in his limp hand. Here was matter more to his mind, attesting his inherent masculine taste; he winked very hard at every sharp clash of the steel, but bent forward with wide uplifted eyes, a tremulous, absorbed, open mouth, and watched the big man's attitude as he held up the weapon to a line with his eye, his whole massive figure, from the great slouch hat to his jingling spurs, clearly imposed upon the fair morning sky.
"HE HAD SNAPPED THE BARREL IN PLACE."