is own behalf that he did not know of the
existence of the mill, and that the miller, being an ungenial and
choleric man, might have perversely lent himself to resisting his demand
for the custody of the young runaway. No, he told himself emphatically,
and with good logic, too, the miller's acrimony rose from the fact of
a stranger's discovery of the still and the danger of his introduction
into its charmed circle. And that reflection reminded him anew of his
own danger here--not from the lawless denizens of the place, but from
the forces which he himself had evoked, and again he glanced out toward
the water-fall as fearful of the raiders as any moonshiner of them all.

But what sudden glory was on the waters, mystic, white, an opaque
brilliance upon the swirling foam and the bounding spray, a crystalline
glitter upon the smooth expanse of the swift cataract! The moon was in
the sky, and its light, with noiseless tread, sought out strange,
lonely places, and illusions were astir in the solitudes. Pensive peace,
thoughts too subtle for speech to shape, spiritual yearnings, were
familiars of the hour and of this melancholy splendor; but he knew none
of them, and the sight gave him no joy. He only thought that this was a
night for the saddle, for the quiet invasion of the woods, when the few
dwellers by the way-side were lost in slumber. He trembled anew at
the thought of the raiders whom he himself had summoned; he forgot his
curses on their laggard service; he upbraided himself again that he had
not earlier made shift to depart by some means--by any means--before
the night came with this great emblazoning bold-faced moon that but
prolonged the day; and he started to his feet with a galvanic jerk and a
sharp exclamation when swift steps were heard on the rocks outside, and
a man with the lightness of a deer sprang down the ledges and into the
great arched opening of the place.

"'Tain't nobody but Hil'ry," observed Isham Beaton, half in reproach,
half in reassurance. The pervasive light without dissipated in some
degree the gloom within the grotto; a sort of gray visibility was on
the appurtenances and the figures about the still, not strong enough to
suggest color, but giving contour. His fright had been marked, he knew;
a sort of surprised reflectiveness was in the manner of several of the
moonshiners, and Ne-hemiah, with his ready fears, fancied that this
inopportune show of terror had revived their suspicions of him.