s coat; an' he struttin' up to Daisy Burn, when she and Miss
Armytage tached the little childher there; an' Miss Linda thinkin' no
more of him than if a snake was watchin' her out ov the bushes. But,
moreover, I heerd him an' his old schemer of a father whispering at the
bee: "Do you go down to herself," said Zack, "an' I'll spake to the
squire." "Sure, my lad," thinks I, "if you do you'll have company along
wid you;" so I dogged him every step of the way.'

Which explains Andy's interposition.

Robert Wynn, when his wrath at the Buntings' presumption subsided,
had gloomy anticipations that this would prove the beginning of an
irreconcilable feud, making the neighbourhood very disagreeable. But not
so. A week afterwards, while he stood watching the workmen building the
dam for the projected mill, he heard the well-known drawl at his elbow,
and turning, beheld the unabashed Zack. He had duly weighed matters for
and against, and found that the squire was too powerful for a pleasant
quarrel, and too big to injure with impunity.

'Wal, Robert, so yer raisin' a sawmill!' he had uttered in a tone of
no agreeable surprise. Mr. Wynn pointed to Davidson, and left _him_ to
settle that point of rivalry.

'We wull divide the custom o' the country, neebor Zack,' quoth the other.

'I don't deny that you have an elegant mill-privilege here; but I guess
that's all you'll have. Whar's grist to come from, or lumber? D'ye think
they'll pass the four roads at the "Corner," whar my mill stands handy?'

'Room eneugh i' the warld for baith o' us,' nodded Davidson; 'a' room
eneugh in Canada for a million ither mills, freend.' And he walked down
the sloping bank to assist at the dam.

This last--a blow at the pocket--seemed to affect Zack far more than
that other blow at the intangible essence, his family honour. He could
see his son Nim set off for the back settlements of Iowa without a pang;
for it is in vulgar Yankee nature to fling abroad the sons and daughters
of a house far and wide into the waters of the world, to make their own
way, to sink or swim as happens. But the new sawmill came between him
and his rest. Before winter the machinery had been noisily at work for
many a day; with huge beams walking up to the saw, and getting perpetually
sliced into clean fresh boards; with an intermittent shooting of slabs
and sawdust into the creek. 'Most eloquent music' did it discourse to
Robert's ears, whose dream of a settlement was thus f