"That's what I say, an' he with his ma to look after. He wounded one o' the officers, an' it's bound to go hard with him. You needn't look so skeered, Armindy"—raising his voice and looking over at the girl, "'Lishy's safe."
"Oh, yes; 'Lishy's safe. I'm only thinkin' o' what might 'a' happened to him." She laughed loudly, then gathered up her work and rushed into the house.
With slow, uncertain steps a man walked along the settlement road through Beaver Cove. His clothes hung loosely from his slightly stooping shoulders; he leaned on a stick. All about him were the joyful influences of spring. The mountains were clothed in palest green, and every stream could boast its share of laurel and rhododendron abloom along its banks. The man drew in deep breaths of the fine air; his eyes wandered lingeringly over scenes familiar, yet long unvisited. Once he stooped and drank from a clear, shallow stream purling along the road, and, drawing his sleeve across his mouth, muttered softly:
"Ah, that's good. I ain't drunk nothin' like it in more'n four years."
He sat down on a fallen tree rotting on the roadside, to rest a few minutes. A market-wagon, white-covered and drawn by a yoke of sleek oxen, rumbled down the hill. In the driver the wayfarer recognized an old neighbor.
"Howdy, Mr. Davis?"
Davis stared, then leaped from the wagon.
"Why—why—it's Eph'um Hurd, ain't it?"
"What's left o' him," said Ephraim, rising, and shaking hands with his old friend.
"Well, you do look used up an' peaked."