at the iron furnace. Quarrel there was none, nor any
shadow of enmity; but the Dabneys were lords of the soil, and the
Gordons were craftsmen.

Even in war the distinction was maintained. The Dabneys, father and son,
were officers, having their commissions at the enrolment; while Caleb
Gordon, whose name headed the list of the Paradise volunteers, began and
ended a private in the ranks.

In the years of heart-hardenings which followed, a breach was opened,
narrow at first, and never very deep, but wide enough to serve. Caleb
Gordon had accepted defeat openly and honestly, and for this the
unreconstructed Major had never fully forgiven him. It was an added
proof that there was no redeeming drop of the _sang azure_ in the Gordon
veins--and Major Caspar was as scrupulously polite to Caleb Gordon's
wife as he would have been, and was, to the helpmate of Tike Bryerson,
mountaineer and distiller of illicit whisky.

Thomas Jefferson was vaguely indignant when Pettigrass came to ask his
father to go forthwith to the manor-house. In the mouth of the foreman
the invitation took on something of the flavor of a command. Besides,
since the Major's return from New York, Thomas Jefferson had a grudge
against him of a purely private and personal nature.

None the less, he was eager for news when his father came back, and
though he got it only from overhearing the answer to his mother's
question, it was satisfyingly thrilling.

"It's mighty near as we talked, Martha. The Major lumps the railroad in
with all the other improvements, calls 'em Yankee, and h'ists his
battle-flag. The engineer, that smart young fellow with the peaked
whiskers and the eye-glasses, went to see him this evenin' about the
right of way down the valley, and got himself slung off the porch of the
great house into a posy bed."

"There is going to be trouble, Caleb; now you mark my words. You mustn't
mix up in it."

"I don't allow to, if I can he'p it. The railroad's goin' to be a mighty
good thing for us if I can get Mr. Downing to put in a side-track for
the furnace."

Following this there were other conferences, the Major unbending
sufficiently to come and sit on the Gordon porch in the cool of the
evening. The iron-master, as one still in touch with the moving world,
gave good advice. Failing to buy, the railroad company might possibly
seek to bully a right of way through the valley. But in that case, there
would certainly be redress in the courts for t