"Ah! no, sir. We're only schoolmates together, sir--in the school of Nature, sir. You know, Mr. Ravenel, all these things about us here are a sort of books, sir." Ravenel smiled and answered very slowly, "Ye-es, sir. Very good reading; worth thirty cents an acre simply as literature." Thirty cents was really so high a price that the fat stranger gave a burst of laughter, but Garnet--"It'll soon be worth thirty dollars an acre, now we've got a good government. Brother March, we'd like to see that superb view of yours from the old field on to the ridge." Ravenel stayed behind with the Judge. John went as guide. "Judge," Ravenel said, as soon as they were alone, "how about John? I believe in your school of nature a little. Solitude for principles, society for character, somebody says. Now, my school was men, and hence the ruin you see----" "Mr. Ravenel, sir! I see no ruin; I----" "Don't you? Well, then, the ruin you don't see." "Oh, sir, you speak in irony! I see a character----" "Yes "--the speaker dug idly in the sand--"all character and no principles. But you don't want John to be all principles and no character? He ought to be going to school, Judge." The father dropped his eyes in pain, but the young man spoke on. "Going to school is a sort of first lesson in citizenship, isn't it?--'specially if it's a free school. Maybe I'm wrong, but I wish Dixie was full of good, strong free schools." "You're not wrong, Mr. Ravenel! You're eminently right, sir." Mr. Ravenel only smiled, was silent for a while, and then said, "But even if it were--I had an impression that you thought you'd sort o' promised John to Rosemont?" The Judge straightened up, distressed. "Mr. Ravenel, I have! I have, sir! It's true; it's true!" "I don't think you did, Judge, you only expressed an intention." But the Judge waived away the distinction with a gesture. "Judge," said the young man, slowly and gently, "wouldn't you probably be sending John to Rosemont if Rosemont were free?" The Judge did not speak or look up. He hunted on the ground for chips. "Why don't you sell some land and send him?" "Oh, Mr. Ravenel, we can't. We just can't! It's the strangest thing in the world, sir! Nobody wants it but lumbermen, and to let them, faw a few cents an acre, sweep ove' it like worms ove' a cotton field--we just can't do it! Mr. Ravenel, what _is_ the reason such a land as this can't be settled up? We'll sell it to any real sett'ehs! But, good Lawd! sir, where air they? Son an' me ain't got no money to impote 'em, sir. The darkies don't know anything but cotton fahmin'--they won't come. Let me tell you, sir, we've made the most flattering offers to capitalists to start this and that. But they all want to wait till we've got a good gov'ment. An' now, here we've got it--in Clearwateh, at least--an' you can see that these two men ain't satisfied!" "What do you reckon's the reason?"