Slowly they walked down the hill and he pondered over what she had said, but a simple heart is often a suspicious heart; rustic faith is afraid of itself, and he did not believe her. He was not wise enough to see that in her eye he was a moral Hercules. He did not know that in his great strength, in his very awkwardness, there was a fascination for this woman who had drunk wine from a golden goblet and found it bitter. On every creed there are dark spots, and in his devotion to his calling he was afraid that she had come to him as a temptation, to lead him away from the work of saving souls. Sometimes he caught himself foolishly wishing that suddenly she might develop into a man, the evil one himself, that he might defy him; and then the softness of her words would bring shame upon him and he would mutter imprecations against himself.
"The sun is no longer shining upon it, but in my mind that hill-top will always glow," she said when they had reached the road. "It must ever remain a gold-tipped promontory of the past."
"Ma'm, I don't know what you mean."
CHAPTER IX.
AT DRY FORK.
The next day was Sunday, and immediately after breakfast Jasper announced that he was going "to haul a passel of them" over to church, the place of worship and of gossip being about five miles distant. And when everything was made ready, Mrs. Mayfield was delighted to find upon going out to the gate that they were to be drawn by two enormous oxen. But Margaret objected. "Thar air two hosses out yander at the stable, and it is jest one of Jasper's pranks to take these steers," she said. "And I jest know he's a doin' it to humiliate me." The old man, pretending to fix the yoke, ducked his head to hide his grinning countenance. "Hosses out thar, but here we go like niggers to a camp-meetin'," she went on. "I'm not goin'."
"Oh, do go, Mrs. Starbuck," Mrs. Mayfield pleaded.
"No, I won't go a step. I won't be shamed in this way."
"Sorry, Margaret," said Jasper. "I 'lowed you'd enjoy yo'se'f, still if you don't want to go thar's no way of compellin' you. Wall, climb up, everybody."