the high loom of the hills. Up on the short grass in the cooler
air, with nothing between him and those swarming stars, he lost his
rage. It never lasted long--hers was more enduring. With the innate
lordliness of a brother he already put it down to jealousy. Sheila was
hurt that he should want any one but her; as if his love for Nedda would
make any difference to their resolution to get justice for Tryst and the
Gaunts, and show those landed tyrants once for all that they could not
ride roughshod.

Nedda! with her dark eyes, so quick and clear, so loving when they
looked at him! Nedda, soft and innocent, the touch of whose lips had
turned his heart to something strange within him, and wakened such
feelings of chivalry! Nedda! To see whom for half a minute he felt he
would walk a hundred miles.

This boy's education had been administered solely by his mother till
he was fourteen, and she had brought him up on mathematics, French,
and heroism. His extensive reading of history had been focussed on the
personality of heroes, chiefly knights errant, and revolutionaries. He
had carried the worship of them to the Agricultural College, where he
had spent four years; and a rather rough time there had not succeeded in
knocking romance out of him. He had found that you could not have such
beliefs comfortably without fighting for them, and though he ended his
career with the reputation of a rebel and a champion of the weak, he
had had to earn it. To this day he still fed himself on stories of
rebellions and fine deeds. The figures of Spartacus, Montrose, Hofer,
Garibaldi, Hampden, and John Nicholson, were more real to him than
the people among whom he lived, though he had learned never to
mention--especially not to the matter-of-fact Sheila--his encompassing
cloud of heroes; but, when he was alone, he pranced a bit with them, and
promised himself that he too would reach the stars. So you may sometimes
see a little, grave boy walking through a field, unwatched as he
believes, suddenly fling his feet and his head every which way. An
active nature, romantic, without being dreamy and book-loving, is
not too prone to the attacks of love; such a one is likely to survive
unscathed to a maturer age. But Nedda had seduced him, partly by the
appeal of her touchingly manifest love and admiration, and chiefly by
her eyes, through which he seemed to see such a loyal, and loving little
soul looking. She had that indefinable something which lo