in my ears last Sunday that I was obleeged to put up my hands to keep
'em from splittin'. Have you ever marked, Mr. Doolittle, havin' had the
experience of ninety years, that when a man once takes up with a heresy,
he shouts a heap louder than them that was born an' baptised in it? It
seems as if they can't desert the ancient ways without defying 'em as
well."

"'Tis so, 'tis so," admitted old Adam, wagging his head, "but Abel
Revercomb was al'ays the sort that could measure nothin' less than a
bushel. The pity with big-natured folk is that they plough up a mountain
and trip at last over a pea-vine!"

From the gloom and brightness of the Applegate road there emerged the
large figure of a young man, who led a handsome grey mare by the halter.
As he moved against the coloured screen of the leaves something of the
beauty of the desolate landscape showed in his face--the look of almost
autumnal sadness that one finds, occasionally, in the eyes of the
imaginative rustic. He wore a pair of sheepskin leggins into which the
ends of his corduroy trousers were stuffed slightly below the knees. His
head was bare, and from the open neck of his blue flannel shirt, faded
from many washings, the muscles in his throat stood out like cords in
the red-brown flesh. From his uncovered dark hair to his heavy boots, he
was powdered with the white dust of his mill, the smell of which floated
to the group under the mulberry tree as he passed up the walk to the
tavern.

"I lay he seed Molly Merryweather comin' up from the low grounds,"
remarked Solomon, when the young man had moved out of earshot.

"Thar's truth spoken for once, if only by accident," retorted old Adam.