"Well, Perry," the Judge would say, "how is my demon to-day--what is he studying now?" "Studying you, papa; I don't understand you." "The time will come, alas for you!" exclaimed the Judge. "Do I displease you in any thing I do?" "No, my son." "Do you believe I love you?" "Yes, I do believe it. I wish, Perry, it could be returned." The son, under the influence of this discouraging confidence, became serious and melancholy. He would take his gun on his shoulder and wade out into the meadow marshes, as if for game, and there would be seen by other gunners sitting on some old pier or perched on some worm fence, looking straight up at the sky, as if it might answer the riddle of his father's hate and his own unreciprocated affection. He would also, on rainy or cold days, when the inmates could not stir abroad, mount his horse and ride to the almshouse beyond the town mill, and, taking a pleasant story or ballad from his pocket, read to the huddled paupers, as well as to the keeper's family, attracted by his pleasant condescension. By degrees the boy's face also took the shadow worn by his father. "Oh, if they could only love!" remarked the old people around the court-house; "or if they only could admit the real love between them!" The Judge never admitted it; that seemed to be a part of his religion, a duty to himself, if painful, and the son never woke nor retired to rest without searching in that paternal shadow for the kindly gleam of awakened love, yet ever kissed the shadow only, and a brow that was cold. One Christmas Day the river was frozen--a rare event in that genial latitude, and hearing that wild geese were flying down toward the bay creeks and coves, the Judge took his gun and a negro and set off, without waiting for Perry, who was not immediately to be found. An hour later the boy returned and heard of his father's departure, and started on horseback to overtake the carriage. He followed the track beyond the mill and almshouse, and across the heads of several peninsulas or necks leading into the wide tidal river. A few frosted persimmons hung yet to their warty branches; the hulls of last autumn's black walnuts were beneath the spreading boughs; old orchards of peach-trees where the tints of green and bud smouldered in pink contrast to the oft-blackened and sapless branches, set off the purple beads of the haw on the bushes along the lanes. Fish-hawks, flying across the sky, felt the shadow of the flocks of wild ducks flying higher; and rabbits crossed the road so boldly in the face of Perry Whaley, that once a raccoon, limping across a cornfield like a lame spaniel, turned too and took both barrels of Perry's gun without other fright or injury than slightly to hurry its pace. As the young man heard the crows chatter around the corn-shocks and the mocking-bird in some alder-thicket answer and sauce the catbird's scream, he said to himself: