for powder and lead, said he was as
mad as a grisly bear with a whooping-cough--a remark which, if true,
might tend to throw light on the diseases to which the grisly bear is
liable, but which failed to indicate to any one, except perhaps
trappers, the extent of young Marston's madness. The carpenter and the
blacksmith of the place--who were fast friends and had a pitched battle
only once a month, or twice at most--agreed in saying that he was as mad
as a wild-cat. In short, every one asserted stoutly that the boy was
mad, with the exception of the women of the settlement, who thought him
a fine, bold, handsome fellow; and his own mother, who thought him a
paragon of perfection, and who held the opinion (privately) that, in the
wide range of the habitable globe there was not another like him--and
she was not far wrong!

Now, the whole and sole reason why March Marston was thus deemed a
madman, was that he displayed an insane tendency, at all times and in
all manners, to break his own neck, or to make away with himself in some
similarly violent and uncomfortable manner.

There was not a fence in the whole countryside that March had not bolted
over at full gallop, or ridden crash through if he could not go over it.
There was not a tree within a circuit of four miles from the top of
which he had not fallen. There was not a pond or pool in the
neighbourhood into which he had not soused at some period of his stormy
juvenile career, and there was not a big boy whom he had not fought and
thrashed--or been thrashed by--scores of times.

But for all this March had not a single enemy. He did his companions
many a kind turn; never an unkind one. He fought for love, not for
hatred. He loved a dog--if any one kicked it, he fought him. He loved
a little boy--if any one was cruel to that little boy, he fought him.
He loved fair play--if any one was guilty of foul play, he fought him.
When he was guilty of foul play himself (as was sometimes the case, for
who is perfect?) he felt inclined to jump out of his own body and turn
about and thrash himself! And he would have done so often, had it been
practicable. Yes, there is no doubt whatever about it March Marston was
mad--as mad, after a fashion, as any creature, human or otherwise, you
choose to name.

Young Marston's mother was a handsome, stout, blue-eyed, flaxen-haired
woman, of a little over thirty-five summers. She was an English
emigrant, and had, seventeen years be