twelve, had waited with his birdgun in the bushes to shoot
Fletcher when he came in sight, and now as the recollection
returned to him he unconsciously slackened his pace and cast his
eyes about for the spot where he had stood. It was all there just
as it had been that morning--the red clumps of sumach covered
with gray dust, the dried underbrush piled along the fence, and
the brown honeyshucks strewn in the sunny road. For the first
time in his life he was glad at this instant that he had not
killed Fletcher then--that his hand had been stayed that day to
fall the heavier, it might be, at the appointed time. The boy
still chatted eagerly, and when presently the hounds scented a
rabbit in the sassafras beyond the fence, he started with a shout
at the heels of the pursuing pack. Swinging himself over the
brushwood, Christopher followed slowly across the waste of
lifeeverlasting, tearing impatiently through the flowering net
which the wild potato vine cast about his feet.

Through the brilliant October day they hunted over the ragged
fields, resting at noon to eat the slices of bread and bacon
which Christopher had brought in his pocket. As they lay at full
length in the sunshine upon the lifeeverlasting, the young man's
gaze flew like a bird across the landscape--where the gaily
decorated autumn fallows broke in upon the bare tobacco fields
like gaudy patches on a homely garment--to rest upon the far-off
huddled chimneys of Blake Hall. For a time he looked steadily
upon them; then, turning on his side, he drew his harvest hat
over his eyes and began a story of his early adventures behind
the hounds, speaking in half-gay, half-bitter tones.

In the mild autumn weather a faint haze overhung the landscape,