“It might be done in the night-time, Gran’pap, an’ no one be the wiser.”
Some fate was surely leading Dannie to his own undoing.
“No, that’d be cowardly, an’ no Pickett was ever yet a coward.”
Dannie winced as though his grandfather had dealt him a physical blow.
They were walking on down the road now toward the graveyard wall. The bitterness in the old man’s heart forced itself again to his lips.
“They might ’a’ taken my land, an’ my road, an’ my stream, an’ my gap, an’ all, if they’d only ’a’ let my graveyard alone. I can’t stand that. I won’t stand that. I’ll fight that. I’ll show ’em that imposin’ on the livin’ is one thing an’ insultin’ the dead is another. I’ll make ’em—”
He stopped suddenly, his gaze fixed on the line of stakes as it skirted the shore of the brook and then crossed to the other side of the stream opposite the graveyard.
“Dannie!” he exclaimed, “look! There they go across the brook. They don’t touch the graveyard. Do you see? They don’t touch it!”
He was pointing with intense excitement to the staked-out curve showing distinctly under the rising bank of fog.