"'Tain't like a fool," she declared, lifting her tearful face. "Ef 'tis, then the law's a fool—the law, ez ye set sech store on. Ain't the law agin diggin' up folks's bones? I ain't a-goin' ter do nothin' 'bout'n it, but ef ennybody war cotched at sech in the mounting-folks's buryin'-groun' they'd hev a few ounces o' lead ter tote off inside of 'em ef they could git away at all, an' ye know they would."
The difference of their standpoint—his normal views unconsciously modified by the talk of the scientific theorist, in which sentiment was easily subordinated to the acquisition of valuable knowledge, none of which could he adequately impart at second hand to her, quivering as she was with the idea of sacrilege and the sanctity of the tomb—baffled him for the moment; he hesitated; he found no words to convey the impressions he had received; then he gave way to the anger always the sequence of the antagonism of opinion between them.
"Ye don't sense nuthin', an' ye dun' no' nuthin', an' ye can't l'arn nuthin'."
"I don't want ter l'arn sech ez ye 'pear ter pick up in the settlemints," she retorted, with spirit. "Robbin' the dead an' sech! I'd ruther stay at home an' jes' 'sociate with leetle Moses—a sight ruther."
"I hedn't!" he declared, roughly. He rose to his feet. "I don't hev no peace at home. I reckon I mought ez well go whar I don't get quar'led with ez much. I mought jes' ez well be at the infair ez hyar."
"Jes' ez well," she sarcastically assented.
He stepped past her into the room to lay aside his shot-pouch and powder-horn, as not meet accoutrement for a festive gathering.
"Ye hed better kerry yer rifle. Ain't ye 'feared ef ye leave it hyar I mought take aim at suthin' in the Leetle People's buryin'-ground?" she said, looking up at him from her lowly seat on the floor, her eyes hard and dry and bright.
"Edzac'ly—fool enough fur ennything," he declared; but it was empty-handed that he stepped out into the moonlight.
She made no effort to detain him; she did not call him back. He paused when in the shadow of the great hickory-trees about the spring, and looked up at the little house. The moon was above the mountains, nearly full and radiant. Trailing luminous mists crept over the summits after it, and caught the light. All the world shared in its gracious splendors now, and the great gap, the gorge of the river, bereft of the unique illumination its rugged vistas had monopolized while all was dark about it, seemed melancholy and pensive, of reduced prominence and blurred effect.