"So, 'Mon-soor'," Dave said. "I see you continue to repay the Grays' charity with your mortgaging of this--this wasted flesh, this lost cause! Don't you know that your interference heaps disgrace on my brother's and my sweet Mary's heads? I've not turned this wastrel out afore now, only out of respect for his failing father!"

Hugh emerged momentarily from his crooked stupor and waved his fist in Dave's direction. "Why, you merciless, conniving bastard --!"

The alien engaged Dave's eyes so deeply that he turned away. Mercier relented, and pushed his foundered packet inside.

The lamps flickered on a Saturday evening in John Gray's parlor. Matthew Hurley made good company for him, having taken up a chair next to John. Better company than for Sarah and Mary, who filled the corner by the mostly-superfluous fire. Sarah presented a passable interest, though the knitting in her lap occupied a higher peg. Mary tried no such pretense at all. The boy Tom had made good currency of a counterfeit ailment and fled to bed.

Matthew was twenty-nine, earnest, and as plain as a spinster's night-dress in every respect. He was expected to inherit the elder's presbyter's station at the appropriate time and thus was tolerably regarded as a "catch" by the old people. His estimation among Deer Lick's fillies in their own pastures was quite another.

"Mister Gray, it pleases me to say that the sows farrowed well this spring and I'm expecting a right good crop down at South Fork– I'm seeing tassels already. If fortune holds and prices this fall are fair, I could manage a tenant next year and come to Deer Lick to help my father."

Old Gray waved his hand. "No need to gild your prospects, young Matthew. Providence has already visited my Mary in that department, so your concern should be to pet her and cherish her into days like Sarah and mine. Be that your bond?"

Before he could answer, Mary leapt tearfully into the hallway toward where she and Tom slept. Sarah published a weak smile that failed persuasion, and followed.

John scowled. A commotion outside the house further eroded his plans.

"John Gray! Come and show yourself – and the whelp, Matthew Hurley! Account for my loss and my misery, as the price for your brother's benighted riches!" cried Hugh Gregory from outside, off his pins again.

John and Matthew came out, the elder into the yard and the youth on the porch behind him. Seeing them, Hugh spied and took up an idle hickory limb. He lurched toward them, flailing it with the pitiable menace that only a souse can conjure. Matthew moved forward.

"Inside, Matthew!" John thundered. "See to the women!" He strode to Hugh and pinned his arms to his sides with a bear-hug, thus breaking his purchase on the limb. Hugh's head fell into the crook of his neck, his shoulders sagging and his breast heaving with buried sobs. John satisfied himself that Matthew was inside, and spoke in less martial cadence:

"By all that's holy, boy, it does me pain to see you in such a state, knowing of your true and tender feelings for my Mary. It's small comfort to ye, but there's that about her can't ever be told, while she and Sarah draw breath. All that remains is that they're cared for, which is past either of us now. It's up to the Diety, with my accursed brother in trust and me standing between."

Hugh subsided, tore himself away and gave John a vapored look that the old planter couldn't delve. Hugh scaled his horse and bobbed away into the moonlit dark.

"Pap! Pap!"

Tom burst into his parents' bedroom, a flagging kite in his billowing night-shirt.

"Mary's done gone, and some of her clothes, too!"

The veil of sleep was blasted to rags by Sarah's cries. "O husband! It's come to this, as I long have feared! Your scheme for prosperity has driven our Mary off! Take you and your soulless brother to Hades--!"

"Saddle the dun, Tom!" John cried as he hurtled into his trousers and swaddled himself in his cloak. "Be quick, boy!"

John mounted with the purpose of a much younger man, wheeled and galloped away. A scant hour later, he reined in his lathered steed as the curved drive gave way to the Gregory homestead on Hickory Flat. Its two-storied fa(ade exhibited no light nor other token of occupancy. He hailed it.

"Halloo, Hugh! Hugh Gregory! This is John Gray and I've come for my Mary! Deliver her; nary the hair on her head is harmed will be your benefit, and hers!"

Stillness prevailed, so John moved toward the step. Behind him, a figure coursed from the shadows and delivered a sharp blow across the nape of John's neck. His breath exploded in his throat and he fell into a mortal pirouette. As he turned, he looked upon the phantom, which readied another assault.

"YOU! Murderer!" he gasped, as more blows freed his soul.

Mary Gray stepped out onto the porch. The oil-lamp she bore crashed at her feet when she comprehended her father's lifeless form. She threw herself on his corpse, her fierce, innocent shrieks rending the night's curtain.

The dawn that normally preceded the fearful hosannahs and furtive wool-gathering of another round of Sabbath services in Deer Lick was splintered by the shouts of a mob of its citizens, led down Main Street by Dave Gray. Armed with implements of every gauge and caliber, and a length of stout rope, they supported in their midst Hugh Gregory, trussed to a rail. He looked to have already stood a good particle of the Wrath of God. Exhausted but driven by panic was Mary Gray, who staggered about the regiment's edges, mouthing unheeded pleas.