f to beat the ground still quicker. But no Springhaven lad
ever left his baggage. Dan leaped aside first to catch up his basket,
and while he stooped for it, he heard a clear strong voice.

"Who are you, that have dared to come and cut my fence down?"

No ghost could speak like that, even if he could put a fence up. The
inborn courage of the youth revived, and the shame of his fright made
him hardier. He stepped forward again, catching breath as he spoke, and
eager to meet any man in the flesh.

"I am Daniel Tugwell, of Springhaven. And no living man shall deny me of
my rights. I have a right to pass here, and I mean to do it."

Caryl Carne, looking stately in his suit of black velvet, drew sword and
stood behind the shattered barrier. "Are you ready to run against this?"
he asked. "Poor peasant, go back; what are your rights worth?"

"I could smash that skewer at a blow," said Daniel, flourishing his axe
as if to do it; "but my rights, as you say, are not worth the hazard.
What has a poor man to do with rights? Would you stop a man of your own
rank, Squire Carne?"

"Ah, that would be a different thing indeed! Justice wears a sword,
because she is of gentle birth. Work-people with axes must not prate
of rights, or a prison will be their next one. Your right is to be
disdained, young man, because you were not born a gentleman; and your
duty is to receive scorn with your hat off. You like it, probably,
because your father did. But come in, Daniel; I will not deny you of the
only right an English peasant has--the right of the foot to plod in
his father's footsteps. The right of the hand, and the tongue, and the
stomach--even the right of the eye is denied him; but by some freak of
law he has some little right of foot, doubtless to enable him to go and
serve his master."

Dan was amazed, and his better sense aroused. Why should this gentleman
step out of the rank of his birth, to talk in this way? Now and then Dan
himself had indulged in such ideas, but always with a doubt that they
were wicked, and not long enough to make them seem good in his eyes. He
knew that some fellows at "the Club" talked thus; but they were a lot of
idle strangers, who came there chiefly to corrupt the natives, and work
the fish trade out of their hands. These wholesome reflections made him
doubt about accepting Squire Carne's invitation; and it would have been
good for him if that doubt had prevailed, though he trudged a thousand
miles for