“Now, I look at it differently. He's going, like he said he would, and we've got to let him go in his own way, and bring down the New Jerusalem Over-the-Mountains, or anywhere else he pleases, so he don't bring it down in Leatherwood.”
“I say so, too, Matthew. He's keeping his word the best he can, poor lying soul. They wouldn't let him back out now.”
“I don't want you to trouble him, Jim Redfield, till you have a warrant from me,” Braile resumed, braced by his wife's support. “And I want you to keep the Hounds away, and give Dylks a fair start. You know the law won't let you touch him. Now do you hear?”
“I hear,” Redfield said sullenly, with the consent which Braile read in his words. “But if there's any more such goings on as we've had here to-night, I won't answer for the rest of his scalp.”
He hurried forward from the elderly couple and overtook the Gillespies walking rapidly. Hughey Blake had just fallen away from them and stood disconsolately looking after them.
“Is that you, James Redfield?” David Gillespie asked, peering at him in the night's dimness. “This is the man that helped me to get you a lock of that scoundrel's hair,” he said to his daughter.
She answered nothing in acknowledgment of the introduction, but Redfield said, coming round to her side and suiting his step to hers, “I would like to go home with you till my road passes yours.”
“Well,” she said, “if you ain't ashamed to be seen with such a fool. Nobody can see you to-night,” she added, bitterly, including him in her self-scorn.
“You needn't imply that I like it to be in the dark. I would like to walk with you in broad day past all the houses in Leatherwood. But I don't suppose you'd let me.” She did not say anything, and he added, “I'm going to ask you to the first chance.” Still she did not say anything, though her father had fallen behind and left the talk wholly to them.