gloves, the high hat and boots, asserting themselves blackly beyond all other hats and boots, with a dumb envy and wonder. Nor was poor Laddoun, either, much to blame, if he accepted himself at the same valuation. The men about him had labeled him with the highest stamp mark, even when they were all boys together.
He went tramping along, his heavy boots crunching on the needles of the pines, roaring out one of his everlasting songs. He was one of those men who constantly feel their blood, which happened in his case to be slightly thick and viscous; men with nervous lips, the balls of whose eyes habitually inflate and contract, and whose lids are often wet with tears. His nerves were all on edge now; the days were full of zest and triumph; full of thoughts of the medicines he had invented; of his wife, of the place he meant to hold in the village. Two or three generations back, one of his Milesian ancestors had rid himself of the family fortune in a few years of tempestuous jollity and hospitality; but his blood, eyes, and uncertain lips had stayed behind as heirlooms, and Laddoun had them now, with all that they implied.
While he was in the middle of the woods he met Galbraith, whom the village people called his shop-boy, but whom Laddoun, in his melodramatic way, had dubbed his familiar. To him, as he walked home with him, carrying his basket and tin cases of roots, he relieved his mind of his plans: how Van Zeldt was to be pushed up, and a school-house got under way, and a poor contribution taken up before winter, and also a public subscription for a testimonial to old Doctor Noanes.
"They do such things in towns, Dallas, eh? And I'm mining the old fellow's practice. Besides, it will bring the people together. We need unity, centralization," with a sweep of his eye over the hamlet, as though it covered a vast community, ending with a glance for approval at the tall, raw-boned lad beside him, who was watching his face eagerly with a bewildered look.
"I've no doubt you're right, Laddoun," he said, gently; "there are a good many words I don't know the meaning of yet," quietly shifting the tin cases to the other arm.
"So? Poor fellow! It will come in time," putting one hand on the bony shoulders, and looking kindly into the girlish face. "Say! Galbraith, these are a cursedly old cut—your trowsers. I must rig you out new for the wedding. It's a shame I let you wear a shirt like this," pulling out the ragged edge of clean flannel about his neck. "I'm a poor patron, they'll say."
Dallas looked down at his uncouth rig, and laughed: a hearty roar of a laugh. "But I'll only take what I earn," said he.
"Pshaw! there should be no such talk between you and me." They exchanged a swift, significant glance, which gave to the boy's face for the instant a curiously old, worn look.
"Why shouldn't I give to you? There's nobody in Manasquan to whom I don't mean to give a lift."
"Look what you're doing! Curse it, you lout! look there!" savagely dragging Laddoun off the path.
"What do you mean? Nothing but a lame quail! Bah!" stooping coolly over the mangled mass of bloody feathers which Dallas picked up and turned over, drawing quick, spasmodic breaths, which made Laddoun smile as he would at the rage of a child.
"Why, you young viper! you'll turn on the hand that feeds you?" good naturedly. "Your muscles are steel, Dallas. You shook me as if I were a stick. Put that thing down; I did not see it."
The quivering of the bird on his palm seemed to madden the boy. "You did not see it? You see nothing, George Laddoun. You've nobody to speak the truth to you but me. It's well enough to keep your eyes on the sky, making plans, and let your feet and hands do what they will. But murder comes of it."
George Laddoun's face, against the background of the tree on which he
