"My quarrel is not with you, I tell you, but with your psalm-singing master—"
"And ain't that meself?" interrupted Teddy. "What's mine is his, and what's his is mine, and what's me is both, and what's both is me, barring neither one is my own, but all belong to Master Harvey, and Miss Cora, God bless their souls. Don't talk of quarreling wid him and being friendly to me, ye murtherin' spalpeen! Jist come down here a bit, I say, if ye's got a spick of honor in yer rusty shirt."
"My ill-will is not toward you, although, I repeat, if you step in my way you may find it a dangerous matter. You think I tried to shoot you, but you are mistaken. Do you suppose I could have come as near and missed without doing so on purpose? To-night I could have brought you and your master, or his wife, and sent you all out of the world in a twinkling. I've roamed the woods too long to miscarry at a dozen yards."
Teddy began to realize that the man told the truth, yet it cannot be said that his anger was abated, although a strong curiosity mingled with it.
"And what's yer raison for acting in that shtyle, to as good a man as iver asked God's blessing on a sunny morning, and who wouldn't tread on one of yer corns, that is, if yer big feet isn't all corns, like a toad's back, as I suspict, from the manner in which ye leaps over the ground."
"He knows who I am, and he knows he has given me good cause to remind him of my existence. He can tell you, if he chooses; I shall not. But let yourself and him take warning from what you already know."
"And be the same token, let yourself be taking warning. As sure as I'm the ninth son of the seventh mother, I'll—"
The hunter was gone!