Instead of magnifying the damnation of those who follow not the truth (as the village understood it), she was content to semi-quote: "Those that are not against me are with me," and "A kind heart is the mark of His chosen." And then she made a final utterance, an echo really of her father: "If any man do anything sincerely, believing that thereby he is worshipping God, he is worshipping God." Then her fate was sealed, and all who marked the blazing eyes, the hollow cheeks, the yet more hollow chest and cough, saw in it all the hand of an offended God destroying a blasphemer, and shook their heads knowingly when the end came.
So Rolf was left alone in life, with a common school education, a thorough knowledge of the Bible and of "Robinson Crusoe," a vague tradition of God everywhere, and a deep distrust of those who should have been his own people.
The day of the little funeral he left the village of Redding to tramp over the unknown road to the unknown south where his almost unknown Uncle Michael had a farm and, possibly, a home for him.
Fifteen miles that day, a night's rest in a barn, twenty-five miles the next day, and Rolf had found his future home.
"Come in, lad," was the not unfriendly reception, for his arrival was happily fallen on a brief spell of good humour, and a strong, fifteen-year-old boy is a distinct asset on a farm..