A change was impending. Clouds had come with the wind, from the west to meet the moon. Though tipped with the glint of silver, the black portent was not disguised. Rain or snow, it mattered not which. The young mountaineer held the door open to show the darkening sky and the glittering earth, and looked over his shoulder with a triumphant glance.
'That will settle the footprints,' he said.
There was something so cruel in his face, so deadly in his eyes, a ferocious satisfaction in the promised security so like the savage joy of a skulking beast, that it roused a normal impulse in the breast of the man who read the thoughts of his fellow-men like an open book. Kelsey was himself again.
He raised his hand suddenly, with an imperative gesture.
'Listen ter me!' he said, with that enthusiasm kindling in his eyes which they honoured sometimes as the light of religion, and sometimes reviled as frenzy. 'Ye'll repent o' yer deeds this night! An' the jedgmint o' the Lord will foller ye! Yer father's grey hairs will go down in sorrow ter the grave, but his mind will die before his body. An' some of you-uns will languish in jail, an' know the despair o' the bars. An' he that is bravest 'mongst ye will mark how his shadder dogs him. An' ye will strike yer hands tergether, an' say, "That the day hed never dawned, that the night hed never kem fur we-uns!" An' ye'll wisht ye hed died afore! An' but for the coward in the blood, ye would take yer own life then! An' ye'll look at the grave before ye, an' hope ez it all ends thar!'
His eyes blazed. He had risen to his feet in the intensity of his fervour. And whether it was religion or whether it was lunacy it transfigured him.
They had all quailed before him, half overborne by the strength of his emotion, and half in deprecation, because of their faith in his mysterious foreknowledge. But as he turned, pushed back his chair, and hastily started toward the door, they lost the impression. Pete first recovered himself.
'Wh-wh-whar be you-uns a-goin'?' he demanded roughly.
The parson turned fiercely. He thrust out his hand with a gesture of repudiation, and once more he lifted the latch.
'Naw, ye ain't g-g-goin',' said Pete, with cool decision, throwing himself against the door. 'Ye hev sot 'mongst we-uns an' h-hearn our plans. Ye 'peared ter gin yer cornsent w-when dad said ye could go 'long. Dad thought ye'd like ter hev a s-sheer in payin' yer own grudge. We hev tole ye what we hev tole no other livin' man. An' now ye hev got ter hev our reason ter h-h-hold yer yaw. I don't like ter s-shoot a man down under our own roof ez kem hyar frien'ly, but ef ye fools with that thar latch agin, I reckon I'll be obleeged ter do it.'