"That's further, my dear," replied Butler, "than I choose you should run at this time of night. It is dark, my pretty girl."
"Gracious!" returned Mary with natural emotion, "do you think I am afraid to go as far as the garden in the dark? We have no witches or fairies in our hills to hurt us: and if we had, I know how to keep them away."
"And how might that be?"
"By saying my prayers, sir. My father taught me, before my head was as high as the back of this chair, a good many prayers: and he told me they would protect me from all sorts of harm, if I only said them in right earnest. And I hear many old people, who ought to know, say the same thing."
"Your father taught you well and wisely," replied Butler; "prayer will guard us against many ills, and chiefly against ourselves. But against the harm that others may do us, we should not forget that prudence is also a good safeguard. It is always well to avoid a dangerous path."
"But, for all that," said the maiden smiling, "I am not afraid to go as far as the garden."
"If you mean to get the corn," interrupted Mistress Adair, in no very kindly tone, "you had as well go without all this talk. I warrant if you listen to every man who thinks it worth while to jabber in your ear, you will find harm enough, without going far to seek it."
"I thought it was only civil to speak when I was spoken to," replied Mary, with an air of mortification. "But I will be gone this moment:" and with these words the girl went forth upon her errand.
A moment only elapsed when the door was abruptly thrown open, and the tall and swarthy figure of Wat Adair strode into the room. The glare of the blazing faggots of pine which had been thrown on the fire to light up the apartment, fell broadly over his person, and flung a black and uncouth shadow across the floor and upon the opposite wall; thus magnifying his proportions and imparting a picturesque character to his outward man. A thin, dark, weather-beaten countenance, animated by a bright and restless eye, expressed cunning rather than hardihood, and seemed habitually to alternate between the manifestations of waggish vivacity and distrust. The person of this individual might be said, from its want of symmetry and from a certain slovenly and ungraceful stoop in the head and shoulders, to have been protracted, rather than tall. It better deserved the description of sinewy than muscular, and communicated the idea of toughness in a greater degree than strength. His arms and legs were long; and the habit of keeping the knee bent as he walked, suggested a remote resemblance in his gait to that of a panther and other animals of the same species; it seemed to be adapted to a sudden leap or spring.
His dress was a coarse and short hunting-shirt of dingy green, trimmed with a profusion of fringe, and sufficiently open at the collar to disclose his long and gaunt neck; a black leather belt supported a hunting knife and wallet; whilst a pair of rude deer-skin moccasins and a cap manufactured from the skin of some wild animal, and now deprived of its hair by long use, supplied the indispensable gear to either extremity of his person.