Supper was just over and Young Matt was on the porch when Mr. Howitt entered the gate.  The young fellow greeted his old friend, and called back into the house, “Here’s Dad, Father.”  As Mr. Matthews came out, Aunt Mollie and Sammy appeared in the doorway.  How like it all was to that other evening.

The mountaineer and the shepherd sat on the front porch, while Young Matt brought the big sorrel and the brown pony to the gate, and with Sammy rode away.  They were going to the Postoffice at the Forks.  “Ain’t had no news for a week,” said Aunt Mollie, as she brought her chair to join the two men.  “And besides, Sammy needs the ride.  There’s goin’ to be a moon, so it’ll be light by the time they start home.”

The sound of the horses’ feet and the voices of the young people died away in the gray woods.  The dusk thickened in the valley below, and, as the light in the west went out, the three friends saw the clump of pines etched black and sharp against the blood red background of the sky.

Old Matt spoke, “Reckon everything’s alright at the ranch, Dad.  How’s the little doctor?  You ought to brung him up with you.”  He watched the shepherd’s face curiously from under his heavy brows, as he pulled at his cob pipe.

“Tired out trampin’ over these hills, I reckon,” ventured Aunt Mollie.  Mr. Howitt tried to answer with some commonplace, but his friends could not but note his confusion.  Mrs. Matthews continued, “I guess you’ll be a leavin’ us pretty soon, now.  Well, I ain’t a blamin’ you; and you’ve sure been a God’s blessin’ to us here in the woods.  I don’t reckon we’re much ’long ’side the fine friends you’ve got back where you come from in the city; and we—­we can’t do nothin’ for you, but—­but—­” The good soul could say no more.

“We’ve often wondered, sir,” added Old Matt, “how you’ve stood it here, an educated man like you.  I reckon, though, there’s somethin’ deep under it all, keepin’ you up; somethin’ that ignorant folks, without no education, like us, can’t understand.”

The old scholar could have cried aloud, but he was forced to sit dumb while the other continued, “You’re goin’ won’t make no difference, though, with what you’ve done.  This neighborhood won’t never go back to what it was before you come.  It can’t with all you’ve taught us, and with Sammy stayin’ here to keep it up.  It’ll be mighty hard, though, to have you go; it sure will, Mr. Howitt.”

Looking up, the shepherd said quietly, “I expect to live here until the end if you will let me.  But I fear you will not want me to stay when you know what I’ve come to tell you this evening.”

The mountaineer straightened his huge form as he returned, “Dad, there ain’t nothin’ on earth or in hell could change what we think of you, and we don’t want to hear nothin’ about you that you don’t like to tell us.  We ain’t a carin’ what sent you to the hills.  We’re takin’ you for what you are.  And there ain’t nothin’ can change that.”