“And Prudence—­the Corsons—­Miss Prudence Corson?”

“Oh, ho!  So she’s the one, is she?  Now that reminds me, mebbe I can guess the cute of that captain’s partiality.  That girl’s been kind of lookin’ after your pa and ma, and that same milishy captain’s been kind of lookin’ after the girl.  She got him to let her folks go to Springfield.”

“But that’s the wrong way.”

“Well, now, I don’t want to spleen, but I never did believe Vince Corson was anything more’n a hickory Saint—­and there’s been a lot of talk—­but you get yours from the girl.  If I ain’t been misled, she’s got some ready for you.”

“Bishop, will there be a way for us to get into the temple, for her to be sealed to me?  I’ve looked forward to that, you know.  It would be hard to miss it.”

“The mob’s got the temple, even if you got the girl.  There’s a verse writ in charcoal on the portal:—­

  “’Large house, tall steeple,
    Silly priests, deluded people.’

“That’s how it is for the temple, and the mob’s bunked there.  But the girl may have changed her mind, too.”

The young man’s expression became wistful and gentle, yet serenely sure.

“I guess you never knew Prudence at all well,” he said.  “But come, can’t we go to them?  Isn’t Phin Daggin’s house near?”

“You may git there all right.  But I don’t want my part taken out of the tree of life jest yet.  I ain’t aimin’ to show myself none.  Hark!”

From outside came the measured, swinging tramp of men.

“Come see how the Lord is proving us—­and step light.”

They tiptoed through the other rooms to the front of the house.

“There’s a peek-hole I made this morning—­take it.  I’ll make me one here.  Don’t move the curtain.”

They put their eyes to the holes and were still.  The quick, rhythmic, scuffling tread of feet drew nearer, and a company of armed men marched by with bayonets fixed.  The captain, a handsome, soldierly young fellow, glanced keenly from right to left at the houses along the line of march.

“We’re all right,” said the Bishop, in low tones.  “The cusses have been here once—­unless they happened to see us.  They’re startin’ in now down on the flat to make sure no poor sick critter is left in bed in any of them houses.  Now’s your chance if you want to git up to Daggin’s.  Go out the back way, follow up the alleys, and go in at the back when you git there.  But remember, ’Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward!’ In Clay County we had to eat up the last mule from the tips of his ears to the end of the fly-whipper.  Now we got to pass through the pinches again.  We can’t stand it for ever.”

“The spirit may move us against it, Brother Seth.”

“I wish to hell it would!” replied the Bishop.

CHAPTER III.