"Queer, what a pleasant time I had. Yet we are all, practically, enemies. Each side feels that the other side has been at fault. Anyway, I seem to hear Salome saying: 'Judge not my children by the mistakes of their parents.' Nor will I; of that I am resolved. I'll give even that top-lofty lad, Hallam, a fair show, by and by. I must test him a little longer first, then I'll begin. That is, if he's made of the right stuff. As for Amy, she's a witch. She's wheedled the heart right out of me with her bright, unflinching, honest eyes. Talked to me about getting up a 'club' for the mill folks. 'The right sort of club, with books and pictures and everything helpful.' The saucebox! and she earning the mighty wage of two-fifty per week. Well, all in good course. I haven't toiled a lifetime to attain my object, then relinquish it without a little enjoyment of it; though, after all, possession isn't everything. The struggle was about as enjoyable as the result. But I succeeded! I am master of Fairacres, of Ardsley Mills, of half all Ardsley township. The old family is still on top. But, I'll buy Cuthbert's great picture and burn it up--sometime. Hmm. Wonder where that visionary Frederic Kaye is, of whose unpractical schemes I am reaping the benefit. Odd--buried himself in California, so to speak, and the only visible proofs that he had ever reached that happy land are a couple of braying burros.--Hello! hello, I say! Who's that? What's up?" The shadow which had dogged the track of the mill owner's phaeton had suddenly become a reality. His horse was seized, forced backward, the horsewhip wrenched from its socket, and before he could defend himself Mr. Wingate's head and shoulders felt the cuts of the whip, delivered in swift and furious intensity. "Hold on! hold--on! What--who--stop, stop, _s-t-o-p_! You're killing me! What's wanted? It's murder--_murder_!" And again after another visitation of stripes, that awful cry of "mur-der!" The word holds its own horror. No one can thus hear it shouted, in the stillness of the night, unmoved. It affected even the ferocious assailant of the lonely old man, and arrested his further blows. "Murder." That meant death, prison, everything that was hateful. Even to Fayette's dull brain there penetrated some realization of what his present deed implied. For this was he who had waylaid an "enemy" on the highroad and beaten him into unconsciousness. Then he remembered his own wrongs, and his anger flamed afresh. "Thought you could do all the lickin', did ye? How many times did _you_ have _me_ thrashed? What did you care if the man who thrashed me 'bout killed me? What was I, only 'Bony,' out o' the poor farm! Ugh, you old rascal! Take that, and that, and that. Huckleberries! but it's fun to settle such scores."