Rough associations had made young Goodwin a rough man. His was a nature buoyant, generous, and complaisant, very likely to take the color of his surroundings. The catalogue of his bad habits is sufficiently shocking to us who live in this better day of Sunday-school morality. He often swore in a way that might have edified the army in Flanders. He spent his Sundays in hunting, fishing, and riding horse-races, except when he was needed to escort his mother to meeting. He bet on cards, and I am afraid he drank to intoxication sometimes. Though he was too proud and manly to lie, and too pure to be unchaste, he was not a promising young man. The chances that he would make a fairly successful trip through life did not preponderate over the chances that he would wreck himself by intemperance and gambling. But his roughness was strangely veined by nobleness. This rude, rollicking, swearing young fellow had a chivalrous loyalty to his mother, which held him always ready to devote himself in any way to her service. On her part, she was, indeed, a woman worthy of reverence. Her father had been one of those fine old Irish gentlemen, with grand manners, extravagant habits, generous impulses, brilliant wit, a ruddy nose, and final bankruptcy. His daughter, Jane Morton, had married Job Goodwin, a returned soldier of the Revolution--a man who was "a poor manager." He lost his patrimony, and, what is worse, lost heart. Upon his wife, therefore, had devolved heavy burdens. But her face was yet fresh, and her hair, even when anchored back to a great tuck-comb, showed an errant, Irish tendency to curl. Morton's hung in waves about his neck, and he cherished his curls, proud of the resemblance to his mother, whom he considered a very queen, to be served right royally. But it was hard--when he had been training the filley from a colt--when he had looked forward for months to this race as a time of triumph--to have so severe a strain put upon his devotion to his mother. When she made the request, he did not reply. He went to the barn and stroked the filley's legs--how perfect they were!--and gave vent to some very old and wicked oaths. He was just making up his mind to throw the saddle on Dolly and be off to the Forks, when his decision was curiously turned by a word from his brother Henry, a lad of twelve, who had followed Morton to the stable, and now stood in the door. "Mort," said he, "I'd go anyhow, if I was you. I wouldn't stand it. You go and run Doll, and lick Bill Conkey's bay fer him. He'll think you're afeard, ef you don't. The old lady hain't got no right to make you set and listen to old Donaldson on sech a purty day as this."