“Ty Sudley ain't one o' the drinkin' kind,” interpolated the miller, who evidently had the makings of a temperance man. “He never sot foot hyar in his life.”
“Them ez kem a-visitin' hyar,” blustered the boy, full of the significance of his observations and experience, “air either wantin' a drink or two 'thout payin' fur it, or else air tradin' fur liquor ter sell, an' that's the same ez moonshinin' in the law.”
There was a roar of delight from the circle of lumpish figures about the still which told the boy that he had hit very near to the mark. Nehemiah hardly waited for it to subside before he made an effort to divert Leander's attention.
“An' what air you-uns doin' hyar?” he demanded. “Tit for tat.”
“Why,” bluffly declared Leander, “I be a-runnin' away from you-uns. An' I 'lowed the still war one place whar I'd be sure o' not meetin' ye. Not ez I hev got ennything agin moonshinin' nuther,” he added, hastily, mindful of a seeming reflection on his refuge. “Moonshinin' is business, though the United States don't seem ter know it. But I hev hearn ye carry on so pious 'bout not lookin' on the wine whenst it be red, that I 'lowed ye wouldn't like ter look on the still whenst—whenst it's yaller.” He pointed with a burst of callow merriment at the big copper vessel, and once more the easily excited mirth of the circle burst forth irrepressibly.
Encouraged by this applause, Leander resumed: “Why, I even turns my back on the still myself out'n respec' ter the family—Cap'n an' Neighbor bein' so set agin liquor. Cap'n's ekal ter preachin' on it ef ennything onexpected war ter happen ter Brother Vickers. An' when I hev ter view it, I look at it sorter cross-eyed.” The flickering line of light from the crevice of the furnace door showed that he was squinting frightfully, with the much-admired eyes his mother had bequeathed to him, at the rotund shadow, with the yellow gleams of the metal barely suggested in the brown dusk. “So I tuk ter workin' at the mill. An' I hev got nuthin' ter do with the still.” There was a pause. Then, with a strained tone of appeal in his voice, for a future with Uncle Nehe-miah had seemed very terrible to him, “So ye warn't a-sarchin' hyar fur me, war ye, Uncle Nehemiah?”
Nehemiah was at a loss. There is a peculiar glutinous quality in the resolve of a certain type of character which is not allied to steadfastness of purpose, nor has it the enlightened persistence of obstinacy. In view of his earlier account of his purpose he could not avow his errand; it bereft him of naught to disavow it, for Uncle Nehemiah was one of those gifted people who, in common parlance, do not mind what they say. Yet his reluctance to assure Lean-der that he was not the quarry that had led him into these wilds so mastered him, the spurious relinquishment had so the aspect of renunciation, that he hesitated, started to speak, again hesitated, so palpably that Hilary Tarbetts felt impelled to take a hand in the game.
“Why don't ye sati'fy the boy, Yerby?” he said, brusquely. He took his pipe out of his mouth and turned to Leander. “Naw, bub. He's jes tradin' fur bresh whiskey, that's all; he's sorter skeery 'bout bein' a wild-catter, an' he didn't want ye ter know it.”
The point of red light, the glow of his pipe, the only exponent of his presence in the dusky recess where he sat, shifted with a quick, decisive motion as he restored it to his lips.
The blood rushed to Nehemiah's head; he was dizzy for a moment; he heard his heart thump heavily; he saw, or he fancied he saw, the luminous distention of Leander's eyes as this Goliath of his battles was thus delivered into his hands. To meet him here proved nothing; the law was not violated by Nehemiah in the mere knowledge that illicit whiskey was in process of manufacture; a dozen different errands might have brought him. But this statement put a sword, as it were, into the boy's hands, and he dared not deny it.