"Exile and Brute Wandering" Summary

Tired of skulking and starving, Inman leaves money for a dinner bag he steals; its contents are disappointing, but he consumes them. Hearing footsteps behind him, Inman ducks into the woods to watch pass a badly cut preacher, Solomon Veasey. He relates how Deacon Johnston and the congregation stripped and beat him and chopped off his hair (a la Samson and Delilah); his fiancy spat in his face, and he was ordered to get out of town before they hung him from the steeple. The girl, Laura Foster, will be "churched" (ostracized) for a while, gossiped about, and eventually married to some old bachelor, and be better off for their relations. Inman still wonders if he should have killed Veasey. Seeing Inman headed west, Veasey falls in with him and talks about his many missteps...