sons who know of our
retreat, and might be troublesome, are safe in our possession. They will
hardly escape until we let them, and before we do so we shall first see
that they can give us no further necessity for caution. Of our own
party, none are permitted to know the secrets of our hiding-place, but
those in whom we may trust confidently. I have taken care to provide for
the doubtful at some distance in the adjoining woods, exaggerating so
greatly the danger of exposure, that they will hardly venture to be seen
under any circumstances by anybody. Once let these two weeks go over,
and I have no fears; we shall have no difficulties then."

"And what's to be done with the pedler and the fool? I say, Guy, there
must be no more blood--I will not agree to it. The fact is, I feel more
and more dismal every day since that poor fellow's death; and now that
the youngster's taken, the thought is like fire in my brain, which tells
me he may suffer for our crime."

"Why, you are grown parson. Would you go and save him, by giving up the
true criminal? I shall look for it after this, and consider myself no
longer in safety. If you go on in this manner, I shall begin to meditate
an off-hand journey to the Mississippi."

"Ay, and the sooner we all go the better--though, to be plain, Guy, let
this affair once blow over and I care not to go with _you_ any longer.
We must then cut loose for ever. I am not a good man, I know--anything
but that; but you have carried me on, step by step, until I am what I am
afraid to name to myself. You found me a rogue--you have made me a--"

"Why do you hesitate? Speak it out, Munro; it is a large step gained
toward reform when we learn to name truly our offences to ourselves."

"I dare not. The thought is sufficiently horrible without the thing. I
hear some devil whispering it too frequently in my ears, to venture upon
its utterance myself. But you--how you can live without feeling it,
after your experience, which has been so much more dreadful than mine, I
know not."

"I do feel it, Munro, but have long since ceased to fear it. The
reiteration takes away the terror which is due rather to the novelty
than to the offence. But when I began, I felt it. The first sleep I had
after the affair of Jessup was full of tortures. The old man, I thought,
lay beside me in my bed; his blood ran under me, and clotted around me,
and fastened me there, while his gashed face kept peering into mine, and
his eyes da