Shattuck took confidence. "That isn't the way to make her like you, and that's what you want."
"Hain't Rhodes been thar lately?" demanded Guthrie. "I axed her, but she hev got sech a tormentin' way she wouldn't tell me."
"Only to talk to Mrs. Yates, and see if he could do anything to help her to hear from her husband. Oh, Rhodes would like Letitia a deal better if she could vote for him. He would go to see her every day then, you might be sure."
Guthrie cast a glance of frowning contempt over his shoulder at Rhodes; then, with a sudden change of tone, he said: "I hev been mightily troubled in my mind lately 'bout'n him. I war fitten ter hope in my heart ez he wouldn't git well, though I hev been layin' off ter repent some, fur I know that ain't well pleasin' ter the Sperit. I wouldn't hold Rhodes no gredge ef 'twarn't fur her. An' though she showed she hed ruther dance with him than with me, she don't 'pear ter like him noways special. An' sometimes I feel like I ought ter make myse'f easy."
The pitiable vacillations of a lover's hopes and fears appealed to Shattuck. The strength of the man's will, the sternness, almost savagery, of his character, added a force to all that he said, not lessened by Shattuck's knowledge of the object of his affections, or, rather, that upon that aerial and whimsical identity little knowledge was predicable. His disposition was to reassure, to soothe.
"Oh, you may indeed make yourself easy as far as Rhodes is concerned," he insisted. "Rhodes is thinking about nothing in this world but his election, and you ought to show a generous, friendly spirit, and vote for him, and let by-gones be by-gones."
"Oh, Lord! I'd jes' ez soon vote him inter a seat 'mongst the choir o' archangels ez not—though he'd look mighty comical thar, I'm a-thinkin'—ef I war sure ez he warn't gittin' ahead o' me 'bout Litt Pettingill."
He sighed deeply, and cast an absorbed, unseeing glance over the landscape. His strong brawny hand, still on Shattuck's arm, trembled slightly.
"I ain't like other men, stranger. I never loved nobody but her in all my life. Hate hev been my portion. Hard licks hev been my policy, an' the more ye air ready ter give, the less ye hev ter take. That's the way the world goes."
And Shattuck could not gainsay this dictum of the mountain philosopher, albeit the world from which he deduced this cogent truth was but the breadth of the cove.