THREE:"I brung her here myself, I tell you. I felt unusually peart last night. Felt that I had to snatch something jest to keep my hand in, like. Couldn't find nothin' else on four legs worth takin', and couldn't take nothin' that couldn't walk. So I took her. You kin send me to the guard-house if you want to. I expect I deserve it."But regret is part of a subjunctive vocabulary. At least one writer has noted that the subjunctive is the mark of civilization. This may be true: it seems true: in Cadnan's case, at any rate, it certainly was true. Uncivilized, he spent little time in subjunctive moods. All that he had done, all that Marvor had done, was open to him, and he remembered it oftenbut, once the bad first minutes were past, he remembered everything with less and less regret. The mixture, as it stood, was heady enough for Cadnan's untrained emotions.
THREE:"It'll be a shame to take them across the Ohio river in this shape," said Si in deep vexation. "They'll shoot one another's heads off in the first fight, if they've guns in their hands."
THREE:"They say that when a man starts down the path of sin and crime the road seems greased for his swift progress. The other day I begun with petty larceny and chicken stealin'. To-day it's bin highway robbery, premeditated murder, horse stealin', grand larceny, and tellin' a deliberate lie. What'll I be doin' this time next week? I must git that old man's horse and buckboard back to him somehow, and pay him for his vittles. But how'm I goin' to do it? The army's terribly demoralizin'. I must git Si back home soon, or I won't be fit to associate with anybody outside the penitentiary. How kin I ever go to the communion table agin?"
