"Shouldn't wonder if you did," said Mr. Simlins. "I would if I was you--if I wanted to. Mr. Linden, it was a providential thing, that you should come along at this idiomatical moment. There aint another man in Pattaquasset would ha' done this so good as you." "There is another line of business open to me then," said Mr. Linden, who had begun upon the other end of the piece of cord with opposition fingers. "What _aint_ open to you?" said Mr. Simlins. "Do you know of anything? Give us that cord--will you?" "Yes, you may have it now--the knots are all out," said Mr. Linden, as he put the disentangled cord in the hands of Mr. Simlins and himself in the saddle. "Now Miss Faith, you shall have a lesson in lynch-pins--s'il vous plaît." "You do beat all!" said Squire Deacon looking up from under his hat, and with a voice that kept his eyes company. Faith looked very pretty as she turned her horse in obedience to the intimation given her, with a somewhat demure smile and blush upon her face. Mr. Simlins looked, as well as the Squire, with a different expression. "Well, I guess you're about right!" was his answering remark. "I do believe he can get the whip hand of most things. He's a Say and Seal man, he says." To which, however, the Squire deigned no response. Stooping over his harness, fingering and fitting, he was silent a little; then spoke in a careless, half inquiring half assenting sort of way. "What wonders me is, why he don't marry that girl out of hand. I reckon she'd follow him down that road as easy as she does down others. What's he waiting for?" "I guess he haint pitched upon a likely place to settle yet,"--said Mr. Simlins, in a manner equally careless and devoid of reliable information. Squire Deacon gave a little inarticulate reply. "He'd better hurry up--" he said,--"Dr. Harrison's giving chase." "Is he?" said Mr. Simlins. "He'll be where the dog was when he chased the wolf--if he's spry. I shouldn't wonder." "O--you think he's a wolf, do you?" said Mr. Deacon. "Well--the doctor's chance aint much the worse of that." "Don't look very carnivorous," said Mr. Simlins, "but I aint sure. I wouldn't be so quick in my presumptions, Squire. You'll shoot the wrong game one of these days--if you haint already." "Think so?" said the Squire. "Well, I aint after the game they are, any way, so it don't matter to me which of 'em gets her. Most folks say it's like to be the doctor,--_she_ seems tryin' 'em both by turns." The riders, on their part, had a short run back on the road they had come, to where there was a hedge and thicket and trees together; and Faith's horse being led close up to the side of the hedge, and she herself provided with a knife, she was free to cut as many lynch-pins as she chose. But at this point Faith handed back the knife. "I can't do it half so well," she said. "I would rather you did it, Mr. Linden." "You would rather not do it?" he said looking at her. "Is _no_ bread pleasant but that 'eaten in secret'?"