Uncle Dick turned, and looked reproachfully at the distraught girl. A great tenderness shone from the black eyes, in which age had not dimmed the brilliance. As she saw the emotion there, a gasp of rapturous relief broke from Plutina's lips. The stern restraints of her training were broken down in that moment. She dropped to her knees by the old man's side, and seized his hands, and kissed them, and pressed them to her bosom. He released one of them presently, and laid it gently on the dusk masses of his grandchild's hair in silent blessing. His voice, when at last he spoke, was softer than she had heard it ever before.
"Why, Tiny, ye mustn't be afeared o' yer ole gran'pap. I thinks a heap o' my kin, an' ye're the clusest. I loves ye gal--more'n anythin' er anybody else in the world, though I wouldn't want Alviry to hear thet. I hain't mindin' what ye done none. I'd stan' by ye, Tiny, if he had the hull cussed Gov'ment at yer back. I hain't got no likin' fer revenuers, but I got a heap less for Dan Hodges."
He paused for a moment and lifted his hand from the girl's head to stroke the gray beard thoughtfully, before he continued: "I been thinkin' a right-smart lot o' things jest lately. I 'low I'm a-gittin' old, mebby. An' I opine as 'tween the revenuers and Dan Hodges, I hain't so much agin the Gov'ment as I was."
Again, he fell silent, as if in embarrassment over an admission so at variance with the tenets of a lifetime. Then he spoke with sudden briskness: "But ye'd orter a-killed the critter then an' thar, Tiny!"
"I jest somehow couldn't, Gran'pap. I'm shore sorry." The girl felt poignant shame for the weakness thus rebuked.
"I 'low I hain't likely to have no sech feelin's a-holdin' o' me back," Uncle Dick remarked, drily. "Hit's my foolishness bailin' 'im out got us in the pizen mess. I 'low I'll cancel the bond. But, fust, I'd have to take the skunk to the jail-house, dead er alive. He'll stan' some urgin', I reckon."
"Ye'll be keerful, Gran'pap," Plutina exclaimed anxiously, as she stood up.
"Now, don't ye worrit none," Uncle Dick ordered, tartly. His usual rather dictatorial manner in the household returned to him. "You-all run along. I want to think."
The girl went obediently. The reaction from despair brought joyousness. Of a sudden, she became aware of the blending perfumes of the wild flowers and the lilting of an amorous thrush in the wood. Her lids narrowed to dreamy contemplation of the green-and-gold traceries on the ground, where the sunlight fell dappled through screening foliage. Fear was fled from her. Her thought flew to Zeke, in longing as always, but now in a longing made happy with hopes. There might be a letter awaiting her from New York--perhaps even with a word of promise for his return. She smiled, radiant with fond anticipations. Then, after a word of explanation to Alvira, she set off at a brisk pace over the trail toward Cherry Lane.