It was not so dreary in the dark depths of the cavern as in the still white world without; and the constable of the district, one Ephraim Todd, found the flare of the open furnace and the far-reaching lights, red among the glooms, and a perch on an empty barrel, and the warm generosities of the jug, a genial transition. Nevertheless he protested.
'You-uns oughter be plumb 'shamed, Pete,' he said, 'ter toll me hyar, an' me a off'cer o' the law.'
'Ye hev been hyar often afore, the Lord above knows,' asseverated Pete, 'an' ye needed mighty little tollin'.'
'But I warn't a off'cer o' the law then,' said the constable, wrestling with his official conscience. 'An' I hev tuk a oath an' am under bonds. An' hyar I be a-consortin' with law-breakers, an' 'tain't becomin' in a off'cer o' the law.'
'Ye ain't tuk no oath, nor entered into no bonds ter keep yer throat ez dry ez a limekiln,' retorted Pete. 'Jes' take a swig at that thar jug an' hand it over hyar, will ye, an' hold yer jaw.'
Thus readily the official conscience, never rampant, was pacified. The constable had formerly been, as Pete said, an habitué of the place, but since his elevation to office he had made himself scarce, in deference to the promptings of that newly acquired sense of dignity and propriety.
Should some chemical process obliterate for a time a leopard's spots, consider the satisfaction of the creature to find himself once more restored to his natural polka-dots; and such was the complacence of the constable, with his artificial conscience evaporated and his heart mottled with its native instincts of good and evil. He was glad to be back in the enjoyment of the affluent hospitalities of the moonshiner's jug.
He was a big, portly fellow, hardly more symmetrical than the barrel upon which he was seated. He had an inexhaustible fund of good humour, and was not even angry when Pete, in sheer contrariety, told him the reason for his enticement to the still.
He said he would be glad enough if Rick Tyler could swear out anything that would benefit the parson, and declared that he believed only Micajah Green's malice could have compassed his incarceration.
''Cajah inquired o' me whar this place war, Pete,' he said, 'a-purtendin' like he hed been hyar wunst. But I jes' tole him 'twar ez safe ez a unhatched deedie in a aig—an' I batted my eye, jes' so, an' he shet up purty quick.'