The Spectator., 1915-12-07
mt nuver dared ter cross him

halnt nuVer dared ter cross him afore."
 No she cried bitterly, he will wei come the chance to humiliate and to refuse my plea He has been waiting for this: to see me come to him sup pliant on pended knee. and then to laugh at me and turn me away" She paused and added brokenly: And yet I've got to go to him in surrender-to be refused-but I'll go."
 Listen" said the preacher, and hrs words carried that soft quality of paci- fication which she had once or twice heard before. "Thar's a heap worse fellers than Bad Anse Havey. Elf ye could jest hev seed yore way ter treat him a leetle diff'rent-"
 How could I?" demanded Juanita hotly. How could be friends with a murderer and keep my self-respect? ?"
 The brown-faced man looked up at her and spoke simply.
 I've done kept mine," he said.
 The girl rose
 Will you go with me?" she asked little weakly. "I don't feel quite strong enough to go over there alone While they are humbling me l would like to have a friend at hand I think it would help little.'
 I'm ready now" and so. with the man who had guided her on other mis- sions, she set out to make what terms she could with the enemy she had so stubbornly defied
 It seemed an interminable journey though they took the short cut of the foot-trail over the hills.
 The house that had come down to Anse Havey had been built almost a century before. 1t was originally placed in a section so large that else where it would have been a domain-a tract held under the original Virginia grant. Since those days much of it hsd been parceled out as marriage DOT tions to younger generations.
 Cabins that had once housed slaves barns. a smoke house. an icehouse. and small hamlet of dependent shacks clustered about a clearing which had been put there rather to avoid surprise than to give space for gardening The Havey of two generations ago had been something of hermit scholar. and in his son had lurked a diminish ing craze for books and an increasing passion for leadership.
 The feud had blazed to it's fiercest heat in his day. and the father of Bad Anse Havey had been the first Bad Anse. His son had succeeded to the title as right of heritage. and had been trained to wear it like fighting man. Though he might be a whelp of the wolf breed, the boy was strong whelp and one in whom slept latent possibilities and anomalous qualities. for in him broke out afresh the love of books.
 It might have surprised his newspa- per biographers to know how deeply he had conned the few volumes on the rotting shelves of the brick house. or how deeply he had thought along some lines It might have amazed them had they heard the fire and romance with which he quoted the wise counsel of the foolish Polonius. Beware of en- tering a quarrel, but being in. so bear thee that the opposer may beware of thee"
 As to entering a quarrel. it sutficed his logic that he had been born into it that he had "heired" his hatreds
 And because in these parts his ia, ther had held almost dictatorial pow CTS. it had pleased him to send his son. just come to his majority. down to the state capital as a member of the legis- lature and the son had gone to sit for while among lawmakers.