it for an hour or so. A
tall clock in a corner solemnly tolled the hour of nine. In came the
tall woman and asked in the brogue of the Irish:

"Would ye like to go to bed?"

"Yes, I am tired."

She took a candle and led me up a broad oaken stairway and into a room
of the most generous proportions. A big four-post bedstead, draped in
white, stood against a wall. The bed, sheeted in old linen, had quilted
covers. The room was noticeably clean; its furniture of old mahogany
and its carpet comparatively unworn.

When I was undressed I dreaded to put out the candle. For the first time
in years I had a kind of child-fear of the night. But I went to bed at
last and slept rather fitfully, waking often when the cries of the old
squire came flooding through the walls. How I longed for the light of
morning! It came at last and I rose and dressed and seeing the hired man
in the yard, went out-of-doors. He was a good-natured Irishman.

"I'm glad o' the sight o' ye this fine mornin'," said he. "It's a
pleasure to see any one that has all their senses--sure it is."

I went with him to the stable yard where he did his milking and talked
of his long service with the squire.

"We was glad when he wrote for Kate to come," he said. "But, sure, I
don't think it's done him any good. He's gone wild since she got here.
He was always fond o' his family spite o' all they say. Did ye see the
second table in the dinin'-room? Sure, that's stood there ever since his
first wife et her last meal on it, just as it was then, sor--the same
cloth, the same dishes, the same sugar in the bowl, the same pickles in
the jar. He was like one o' them big rocks in the field there--ye
couldn't move him when he put his foot down."

Kate met me at the door when I went back into the house and kissed my
cheek and again I heard those half-spoken words, "My boy." I ate my
breakfast with her and when I was about to get into my saddle at the
door I gave her a hug and, as she tenderly patted my cheek, a smile
lighted her countenance so that it seemed to shine upon me. I have never
forgotten its serenity and sweetness.

CHAPTER XVIII

I START IN A LONG WAY

I journeyed to Canton in the midst of the haying season. After the long
stretches of forest road we hurried along between fragrant fields of
drying hay. At each tavern we first entered the barroom where the
landlord--always a well-dressed man of much dignity and filled with the
news of the time, tha