The mill, dating back to pioneer days, sat by its race with its shaft now idle. About it, the white-boled sycamores crowded among the huge rocks, and the water poured tumultuously over the dam. The walls of mortised logs were chinked with rock and clay. At its porch, two discarded millstones served in lieu of steps. Over the door were fastened a spreading pair of stag-antlers. It looked to Lescott, as he approached, like a scrap of landscape torn from some medieval picture, and the men about its door seemed medieval, too; bearded and gaunt, hard-thewed and sullen.
All of them who stood waiting were men of middle age, or beyond. A number were gray-haired, but they were all of cadet branches. Many of them, like Wile McCager himself, did not bear the name of South, and Samson was the eldest son of the eldest son. They sat on meal-whitened bins and dusty timbers and piled-up sacks. Several crouched on the ground, squatting on their heels, and, as the conference proceeded, they drank moonshine whiskey, and spat solemnly at the floor cracks.
"Hevn't ye noticed a right-smart change in Samson?" inquired old Caleb Wiley of a neighbor, in his octogenarian quaver. "The boy hes done got es quiet an' pious es a missionary."
The other nodded under his battered black felt hat, and beat a tattoo with the end of his long hickory staff.
"He hain't drunk a half-pint of licker to-day," he querulously replied.
"Why in heck don't we run this here pink-faced conjure-doctor outen the mountings?" demanded Caleb, who had drunk more than a half-pint. "He's a-castin' spells over the boy. He's a-practisin' of deviltries."
"We're a-goin' ter see about thet right now," was the response. "We don't 'low to let hit run on no further."
"Samson," began old Wile McCager, clearing his throat and taking up his duty as spokesman, "we're all your kinfolks here, an' we aimed ter ask ye about this here report thet yer 'lowin' ter leave the mountings?"
"What of hit?" countered the boy.
"Hit looks mighty like the war's a-goin' ter be on ag'in pretty soon. Air ye a-goin' ter quit, or air ye a-goin' ter stick? Thet's what we wants ter know."