T was a little after sunrise; the family had just left the breakfast-table when Bishop walked in; his shoes and trousers were damp with dew and covered with the dust of the road. His wife saw him entering the gate and called out to him from the hall:

“Well, I declare! Didn't you go to Atlanta?”

He came slowly up the steps, dragging his feet after him. He had the appearance of a man beaten by every storm that could fall upon a human being.

“Yes, I went,” he said, doggedly. He passed her and went into the sitting-room, where his brother-inlaw stood at the fireplace lighting his pipe with a live coal of fire on the tip of a stick. Abner Daniel looked at him critically, his brows raised a little as he puffed, but he said nothing. Mrs. Bishop came in behind her husband, sweeping him from head to foot with her searching eyes.

“You don't mean to tell me you walked out heer this mornin',” she cried. “Lord have mercy!”

“I don't know as I've prepared any set speech on the subject,” said her husband, testily; “but I walked. I could 'a' gone to a livery an' ordered out a team, but I believe thar's more'n one way o' wearin' sackcloth an' ashes, an' the sooner I begin the better I 'll feel.” Abner Daniel winked; the scriptural allusion appealed to his fancy, and he smiled impulsively.

“That thar is,” he said. “Thar's a whole way an' a half way. Some folks jest wear it next to the skin whar it don't show, with broadcloth ur silk on the outside. They think ef it scratches a little that 'll satisfy the Lord an' hoodwink other folks. But I believe He meant it to be whole hog or none.”

Mrs. Bishop was deaf to this philosophy. “I don't see,” she said, in her own field of reflection—“I don't see, I say, how you got to Atlanta; attended to business; seed Adele; an' got back heer at sunrise. Why, Alfred—”

But Bishop interrupted her. “Have you all had prayers yet?”

“No, you know we hain't,” said his wife, wondering over his strange manner. “I reckon it can pass jest this once, bein' as you are tired an' hain't had nothin' to eat.”

“No, it can't pass, nuther; I don't want to touch a mouthful; tell the rest of 'em to come in, an' you fetch me the Book.”

“Well!” Mrs. Bishop went out and told the negro woman and her daughter to stop washing the dishes and go in to prayer. Then she hurried out to the back porch, where Alan was oiling his gun.

“Something's happened to yore pa,” she said. “He acts queer, an' says sech strange things. He walked all the way from Darley this morning, an' now wants to have prayers 'fore he touches a bite o' breakfast. I reckon we are ruined.”

“I'm afraid that's it,” opined her son, as he put down his gun and followed her into the sitting-room. Here the two negroes stood against the wall. Abner Daniel was smoking and Bishop held the big family Bible on his quivering knees.

“Ef you mean to keep it up,” Abner was saying, argumentatively, “all right an' good; but I don't believe in sudden spurts o' worship. My hosses is hitched up ready to haul a load o' bark to the tannery, an' it may throw me a little late at dinner; but ef you are a-goin' to make a daily business of it I'm with you.”

“I'm a-goin' to be regular from now on,” said Bishop, slowly turning the leaves of the tome. “I forgot whar I read last.”

“You didn't finish about Samson tyin' all them foxes' tails together,” said Abner Daniel, as he knocked the hot ashes from his pipe into the palm of his hand and tossed them into the chimney. “That sorter interested me. I wondered how that was a-goin' to end. I'd hate to have a passle o' foxes with torches to the'r tails turned loose in my wheat jest 'fore cuttin' time. It must 'a' been a sight. I wondered how that was a-goin' to end.”

“You 'll wonder how yo're a-goin' to end if you don't be more respectful,” said his sister.

“Like the foxes, I reckon,” grinned Abner, “with a eternal torch tied to me. Well, ef I am treated that away, I 'll go into the business o' destruction an' set fire to everything I run across.”

“Ain' t you goin' to tell us what you did in Atlanta 'fore you have prayer?” asked Mrs. Bishop, almost resentfully.

“No, I hain't!” Bishop snapped. “I 'll tell you soon enough. I reckon I won't read this mornin'; let's pray.”

They all knelt reverently, and yet with some curiosity, for Bishop often suited his prayers to important occasions, and it struck them that he might now allude to the subject bound up within him.

“Lord, God Almighty,” he began, his lower lip hanging and quivering, as were his hands clasped in the seat of his chair, “Thou knowest the struggle Thy creatures are makin' on the face of Thy green globe to live up to the best of the'r lights an' standards. As I bend before Thee this mornin' I realize how small a bein' I am in Thy sight, an' that I ort to bow in humble submission to Thy will, an' I do. For many yeers this family has enjoyed Thy bounteous blessings. We've had good health, an' the influence of a Bible-readin', God-fearin' community, an' our childern has been educated in a way that raised 'em head an' shoulders above many o' the'r associates an' even blood kin. I don't know exactly whar an' how I've sinned; but I know I have displeased Thee, fer Thy scourge has fallen hard an' heavy on my ambitions. I wanted to see my boy heer, a good, obedient son, an' my daughter thar in Atlanta, able to hold the'r heads up among the folks they mix with, an' so I reached out. Maybe it was forbidden fruit helt out by a snake in the devil's service. I don't know—Thou knowest. Anyways, I steered my course out o' the calm waters o' content an' peace o' soul into the whirlpool rapids o' avarice an' greed. I'lowed I was in a safe haven an' didn't dream o' the storm-clouds hangin' over me till they bust in fury on my head. Now, Lord, my Father, give them hearts of patience an' forgiveness fer the blunders of Thy servant. What I done, I done in the bull-headed way that I've always done things; but I meant good an' not harm. These things we ask in the name o' Jesus Christ, our blessed Lord an' Master. Amen.”

During the latter part of the prayer Mrs. Bishop had been staring at her husband through her parted fingers, her face pale and agitated, and as she rose her eyes were glued to his face.

“Now, Alfred,” she said, “what are you goin' to tell us about the railroad? Is it as bad as brother Ab thought it would be?”

Bishop hesitated. It seemed as if he had even then to tear himself from the clutch of his natural stubbornness. He looked into all the anxious, waiting faces before he spoke, and then he gave in.

“Ab made a good guess. Ef I'd 'a' had his sense, or Alan' s, I'd 'a' made a better trader. It's like Ab said it was, only a sight wuss—a powerful sight wuss!”

“Wuss?” gasped his wife, In fresh alarm. “How could it be wuss? Why, brother Ab said—”

“I never have told you the extent o' my draim's,” went on Bishop in the current of confession. “I never even told Perkins yesterday. Fust an' last I've managed to rake in fully twenty thousand acres o' mountain-land. I was goin' on what I'lowed was a dead-shore thing. I secured all I could lay my hands on, an' I did it in secret. I was afeerd even to tell you about what Perkins said, thinkin' it mought leak out an' sp'ile my chances.”

“But, father,” said Alan, “you didn't have enough money to buy all that land.”

“I got it up”—Bishop's face was doggedly pale, almost defiant of his overwhelming disaster—“I mortgaged this farm to get money to buy Maybry and Morton's four thousand acres.”

“The farm you was going to deed to Alan?” gasped his wife. “You didn't include that?”

“Not in that deal,” groaned Bishop. “I swapped that to Phil Parsons fer his poplar an' cypress belt.” The words seemed to cut raspingly into the silence of the big room. Abner Daniel was the only one who seemed unmoved by the confession. He filled his pipe from the bowl on the mantel-piece and pressed the tobacco down with his forefinger; then he kicked the ashes in the chimney till he uncovered a small five coal. He eyed it for a moment, then dipped it up in the shovel, rolled it into his pipe, and began to smoke.

“So I ain't a-goin' to git no yeerly pass over the new road,” he said, his object being to draw his brother-in-law back to Perkins's action in the matter.

“Perkins was a-lyin' to me,” answered Bishop. “He hain't admitted it yet; but he was a-lyin'. His object was to he'p the Tompkins sell out fer a decent price, but he can' t be handled; he's got me on the hip.”

“No,” said Abner. “I'd ruther keep on swappin' gold dollars fer mountain-land an' lettin' it go fer taxes 'an to try to beat a lawyer at his own game. A court-house is like the devil's abode, easy to git into, no outlet, an' nothin' but scorch while you are thar.”

“Hush, fer the name o' goodness!” cried Mrs. Bishop, looking at her husband. “Don't you see he's dyin' from it? Are you all a-goin' to kill 'im? What does a few acres o' land ur debts amount to beside killin' a man 'at's been tryin' to help us all? Alfred, it ain't so mighty awful. You know it ain't! What did me 'n' you have when we started out but a log-house boarded up on the outside? an' now we've got our childern educated an' all of us in good health. I railly believe it's a sin agin God's mercy fer us to moan an' fret under a thing like this.”

“That's the talk,” exclaimed Abner Daniel, enthusiastically. “Now you are gittin' down to brass tacks. I've always contended—”

“For God's sake, don't talk that way!” said Bishop to his wife. “You don't mean a word of it. You are jest a-sayin' it to try to keep me from seein' what a fool I am.”

“You needn't worry about me, father,” said Alan, firmly. “I am able to look out for myself an' for you and mother. It's done, and the best thing to do is to look at it in a sensible way. Besides, a man with twenty thousand acres of mountain-land paid for is not broken, by a long jump.”

“Yes, I'm gone,” said Bishop, a wavering look of gratitude in his eye as he turned to his son. “I figured on it all last night. I can't pay the heavy interest an' come out. I was playin' for big stakes an' got left. Thar's nothin' to do but give up. Me buyin' so much land has made it rise a little, but when I begin to try to sell I won't be able to give it away.”

“Thar's some'n in that,” opined Abner Daniel, as he turned to leave the room. “I reckon I mought as well go haul that tan-bark. I reckon you won't move out 'fore dinner.”

Alan followed him out to the wagon.

“It's pretty tough, Uncle Ab,” he said. “I hadn't the slightest idea it was so bad.”

“I wasn't so shore,” said Daniel. “But I was jest a-thinkin' in thar. You've got a powerful good friend in Rayburn Miller. He's the sharpest speculator in North Georgia; ef I was you, I'd see him an' lay the whole thing before him. He 'll be able to give you good advice, an' I'd take it. A feller that's made as much money as he has at his age won't give a friend bad advice.”

“I thought of him,” said Alan; “but I am a little afraid he will think we want to borrow money, and he never lets out a cent without the best security.”

“Well, you needn't be afeerd on that score,” laughed the old man, as he reached up on the high wagon-seat for his whip. “I once heerd 'im say that business an' friendship wouldn't mix any better'n oil an' water.”