"Why, to be sure I will," he said heartily; "the devil himself
won't dare to touch you when I am by, "



BOOK III

THE REVENGE


CHAPTER I. In Which Tobacco is Hero

On an October afternoon some four years later, at the season of
the year when the whole county was fragrant with the curing
tobacco, Christopher Blake passed along the stretch of old road
which divided his farm from the Weatherbys', and, without
entering the porch, called for Jim from the little walk before
the flat whitewashed steps. In response to his voice, Mrs.
Weatherby, a large, motherly looking woman, appeared upon the
threshold, and after chatting a moment, directed him to the log
tobacco barn, where the recently cut crop was "drying out."

"Jim and Jacob are both over thar," she said; " an' a few others,
for the matter of that, who have been helpin' us press new cider
an' drinkin' the old. I'm sure I don't see why they want to
lounge out thar in all that smoke, but thar's no accountin' for
the taste of a man that ever I heard tell of an' I reckon they
kin fancy pretty easy that they are settin' plum in the bowl of a
pipe. It beats me, though, that it do. Why, one mouthful of it is