Perhaps he might risk it. And, diving into his trousers
pockets, he watched the old man's eyes. If they followed his hand, he
would risk it. But they did not. Withdrawing his hand, he said:

"Have a cigar?"

The old fellow's dark face twinkled.

"I don' know," he said, "as I ever smoked one; but I can have a darned
old try!"

"Take the lot," said Felix, and shuffled into the other's pocket the
contents of his cigar-case. "If you get through one, you'll want the
rest. They're pretty good."

"Ah!" said the old man. "Shuldn' wonder, neither."

"Good-by. I hope your leg will soon be better."

"Thank 'ee, sir. Good-by, thank 'ee!"

Looking back from the turning, Felix saw him still standing there in the
middle of the empty street.

Having undertaken to meet his mother, who was returning this afternoon to
Becket, he had still two hours to put away, and passing Mr. Pogram's
house, he turned into a path across a clover-field and sat down on a
stile. He had many thoughts, sitting at the foot of this little
town--which his great-grandfather had brought about. And chiefly he
thought of the old man he had been talking to, sent there, as it seemed
to him, by Providence, to afford a prototype for his 'The Last of the
Laborers.' Wonderful that the old fellow should talk of loving 'the
Land,' whereon he must have toiled for sixty years or so, at a number of
shillings per week, that would certainly not buy the cigars he had
shovelled into that ragged pocket. Wonderful! And yet, a marvellous
sweet thing, when all was said--this land! Changing its sheen and
texture, the feel of its air, its very scent, from day to day. This land
with myriad offspring of flowers and flying folk; the majestic and
untiring march of seasons: Spring and its wistful ecstasy of saplings,
and its yearning, wild, wind-loosened heart; gleam and song, blossom and
cloud, and the swift white rain; each upturned leaf so little and so glad
to flutter; each wood and field so full of peeping things! Summer! Ah!
Summer, when on the solemn old trees the long days shone and lingered,
and the glory of the meadows and the murmur of life and the scent of
flowers bewildered tranquillity, till surcharge of warmth and beauty
brooded into dark passion, and broke! And Autumn, in mellow haze down on
the fields and woods; smears of gold already on the beeches, smears of
crimson on the rowans, the apple-trees still burdened, and a flax-blue
sky well-nigh mer