He is now mighty fond of the needful, and won't hear to our
marriage until I have a good foundation, and something to go upon. It is
this, you see, which keeps me here, shoulder to shoulder with these men
whom I like just as little perhaps as yourself; and it was because the
soldiers came upon us just as I was beginning to lay up a little from my
earnings, that made me desperate. I dreaded to lose what I had been so
long working for; and whenever the thought of Kate came through my
brain, I grew rash and ready for any mischief--and this is just the way
in which I ran headlong into this difficulty."
"It is melancholy, Forrester, to think that, with such a feeling as that
you profess for this young woman, you should be so little regardful of
her peace or your own; that you should plunge so madly into strife and
crime, and proceed to the commission of acts which not only embitter
your life, but must defeat the very hopes and expectations for which you
live."
"It's the nature of the beast," replied the woodman, with a melancholy
shake of the head, in a phrase which has become a proverb of familiar
use in the South.
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