n't stay here in Oakville, and see another man living in these
rooms, and plowing my fields, and driving his cows to my old pasture
lots. That would finish me like a galloping consumption."

Every day he shrunk with a strange dread from the wrench of parting
with the familiar place and with all that he associated with his wife.
This was really the ordeal which shook his soul, and not the fear that
he would be unable to earn his bread elsewhere. The unstable
multitude, who are forever fancying that they would be better off
somewhere else or at something else, can have no comprehension of this
deep-rooted love of locality and the binding power of long association.
They regard such men as Holcroft as little better than plodding oxen.
The highest tribute which some people can pay to a man, however, is to
show that they do not and cannot understand him. But the farmer was
quite indifferent whether he was understood or not. He gave no thought
to what people said or might say. What were people to him? He only
had a hunted, pathetic sense of being hedged in and driven to bay.
Even to his neighbors, there was more of the humorous than the tragic
in his plight. It was supposed that he had a goodly sum in the bank,
and gossips said that he and his wife thought more of increasing this
hoard than of each other, and that old Holcroft's mourning was chiefly
for a business partner. His domestic tribulations evoked mirth rather
than sympathy; and as the news spread from farmhouse to cottage of his
summary bundling of Bridget and her satellites out of doors, there were
both hilarity and satisfaction.

While there was little commiseration for the farmer, there was decided
disapprobation of the dishonest Irish tribe, and all were glad that the
gang had received a lesson which might restrain them from preying upon
others.

Holcroft was partly to blame for his present isolation. Remote rural
populations are given to strong prejudices, especially against those
who are thought to be well-off from an oversaving spirit; and who,
worse still, are unsocial. Almost anything will be forgiven sooner
than "thinking one's self better than the other folks;" and that is the
usual interpretation of shy, reticent people. But there had been a
decided tinge of selfishness in the Holcrofts' habit of seclusion; for
it became a habit rather than a principle. While they cherished no
active dislike to their neighbors, or sense of superiority, these we