"You know what I feel, Mr. Conkwright, and I will not attempt to thank you, but I must say that I was never more surprised in a man. I was told that you were hard and unsympathetic." "Sorry you found me out, sir. Let a lawyer get the name of being kind and they say that he is emotional, but has no logic. Blackstone had to give up poetry. Well, good-day. I'm busy." I ate breakfast at the tavern, nodding over the table; and I was so sleepy that I could scarcely sit my horse as I rode toward home. The day was hot and drowsy was the air, in the road and on the hill-side, where a boy, weary and heavy with the leg-pains of adolescence, was dragging himself after a plow. Once I dozed off to sleep and awoke under a tree, the wise old horse knowing that he could take advantage of my sleepiness to bat his eyes in the shade, and when I spoke to him he started off at a trot as if surprised to find that he had turned aside from his duty. I was nearly home and was riding along half asleep when the frightful squealing of a pig drew my attention down a lane that opened into the road. The animal was caught under a rail fence and his companions were running up to him, one after another, and were raking him with their sharp teeth. I got down and fought off the excited beasts, knocked one of them down for his cruelty, and lifted the fence to liberate the prisoner; and when he was free his companions, the ones that had been ripping his hide, ran up to congratulate him upon his good fortune; and in the whole performance I saw a heartless phase of human life, musing as I rearranged the rails that had been lifted away, and when I straightened up there stood Etheredge looking at me. "These are my hogs," he said. "I didn't know that," I replied, "but I might have known that they were members of your family." "Yes, you might have known a great many things that you have never been wise enough to find out. But I don't want to lash words with you, Mr. Hawes. I simply stopped to tell you that a man who would go out of his way to lift a heavy fence to help a hog is not a bad fellow; and I want to apologize for anything that I have said to anger you. I have nothing against you and I don't blame you for sticking to a friend. One of these days you'll find that I'm not half as bad a fellow as you have had cause to think me. Let us call off our engagement. Is it a go?" "Doctor, I have no desire to kill you, and I think that your death would be the result of our keeping that engagement."