.

"Do you mind givin' me some breakfast, Jude?" he asked humbly. "Iley an'
the chaps is all sound asleep. I hate to wake 'em, an' I never was no
hand to do for myse'f."

"Set and welcome," said Judith, mechanically placing a chair for the one
who had been most resolute of all that Creed must die. So it was that
they were all seated about the board when Blatch Turrentine, without a
word, made his appearance in the door. Without moving his head Jephthah
turned those sombre eyes of his upon his nephew, and regarded him
steadily. The younger man stopped where he was on the threshold.

"So ye ain't dead?" inquired his uncle finally.

"I reckon that ain't news to you, is it?" asked Blatch, making as though
to come in and take his place at the table.

For a moment the loyalty of the tribal head, the hospitality of the
mountaineer, warred in old Jephthah's heart with deep, strong resentment
against this man. Then he said without rising,

"Yes, hit's news. But you may take it that hit's news I ain't heard. I
reckon we'll just leave it that you _air_ dead. The lease on the ground
over thar runs tell next spring. I'll not rue my bargain, but no son of
mine sets his foot on yo' land and stays my son, and you don't put yo'
foot in this house again. You give it out that you was dead--stay dead."

"Oh, I see," said Blatch. "Yo' a-blamin' the whole business on me, air
ye? Well, that's handy. What about them fine fellers that's settin' at
meat with ye now? I reckon the tale goes that I led 'em into all their
meanness."

Jim Cal dropped his head and stared at the bit of cornbread in his pudgy
fingers; Wade glanced up angrily; the twins stirred like young hounds in
leash; but Jephthah quieted them all with a look.

"Blatch," began the head of the house temperately, even sadly, "yo' my
brother's son. Sam and me was chaps together, and I set a heap of store
by him. Sam's been gone more than ten year, and in that time I've aimed
to do by you as I would by a son of my own. I felt that hit was something
I owed to Sam. But ef I owed hit hit's been paid out. Yo' Sam's son, but
also yo' a Blatchley, and I reckon the Blatchley blood had to show up in
ye. My boys is neither better nor worse than others, but when I say that
I don't aim to have you walk with 'em, I say what is my right. What I
owed yo' daddy, and my dead brother, has been paid out--hit's been paid
plumb out."

Now that it was made plain, Blatch took the dismissal hardily.