very road at two o'clock in the
morning, and to see three galloping horsemen, one of them on a horse
with a white left forefoot and a white nose? What business had he
watching Dr. Small as he went home from the bedside of a dying patient
near daylight in the morning? And because he felt guilty he felt cross
with Mirandy, and to her remark about Hannah he only replied that
"Hannah was a smart girl."

"Yes," said Mirandy, "Bud thinks so."

"Does he?" said Ralph.

"I should say so. What's him and her been a-courtin' fer for a year ef
he didn't think she was smart? Marm don't like it; but ef Bud and her
does, and they seem to, I don't see as it's marm's lookout."

When one is wretched, there is a pleasure in being entirely wretched.
Ralph felt that he must have committed some unknown crime, and that some
Nemesis was following him. Was Hannah deceitful? At least, if she were
not, he felt sure that he could supplant Bud. But what right had he to
supplant Bud?

"Did you hear the news?" cried Shocky, running out to meet him. "The
Dutchman's house was robbed last night."

Ralph thought of the three men on horseback, and to save his life he
could not help associating Dr. Small with them. And then he remembered
the sorrel horse with the left forefoot and muzzle white, and he
recalled the sound he had heard as of the lifting of a latch. And it
really seemed to him that in knowing what he did he was in some sense
guilty of the robbery.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 17: Written in 1871.]

CHAPTER VII.

OMINOUS REMARKS OF MR. JONES.

The school-master's mind was like ancient Gaul--divided into three
parts. With one part he mechanically performed his school duties. With
another he asked himself, What shall I do about the robbery? And with
the third he debated about Bud and Hannah. For Bud was not present, and
it was clear that he was angry, and there was a storm brewing. In fact,
it seemed to Ralph that there was a storm brewing all round the sky. For
Pete Jones was evidently angry at the thought of having been watched,
and it was fair to suppose that Dr. Small was not in any better humor
than usual. And so, between Bud's jealousy and revenge and the suspicion
and resentment of the men engaged in the robbery at "the Dutchman's" (as
the only German in the whole region was called), Ralph's excited nerves
had cause for tremor. At one moment he would resolve to have Hannah at
all costs. In the next his conscience would ques