. "No
carpet," he thought, "and no haircloth sofa, and no rocking-chair!"

He stared at the skins of bear and deer which covered the floor, at
the black settle with a high carven back, at a carved chest of black
oak, at the smaller pelts of wolf and fox which decorated walls and
chairs, at a great pair of antlers, and even a noble eagle sitting in
state upon the top of a secretary. Squire Merritt had filled this
room and others with his trophies of the chase, for he had been a
mighty hunter from his youth.

"Sit down, sir," he told Jerome, a little impatiently, for he longed
to be away for his fishing, and the stupid abstraction from purpose
which unwonted spectacles always cause in childhood are perplexing
and annoying to their elders, who cannot leave their concentration
for any sight of the eyes, if they wish.

He indicated a chair, at which Jerome, suddenly brought to himself,
looked dubiously, for it had a fine fox-skin over the back, and he
wondered if he might sit on it or should remove it.

The Squire laughed. "Sit down," he ordered; "you won't hurt the
pelt." And then he asked, to put him at his ease, "Did you ever
shoot a fox, sir?"

"No, sir."

"Ever fire a gun?"

"No, sir."

"Want to?"

"Yes, sir."

Jerome did not respond with the ready eagerness which the Squire had
expected. He had suddenly resolved, in his kindness and pity towards
his fatherless state, knowing well the longings of a boy, to take him
out in the field and let him fire his gun, and change, if he could,
that sad old look he wore, even if he fished none that day; but
Jerome disappointed him in his purpose. "He hasn't much spirit," he
thought, and stood upon the hearth, before the open fireplace, and
said no more, but waited to hear what Jerome had come for.

The Squire was far from an old man, though he seemed so to the boy.
He was scarcely middle-aged, and indeed many still called him the
"young Squire," as they had done when his father died, some fifteen
years before. He was a massively built man, standing a good six feet
tall in his boots; and in his boots, thick-soled, and rusty with old
mud splashes, reaching high above his knees over his buckskin
breeches, Squire Eben Merritt almost always stood. He was scarcely
ever seen without them, except in the meeting-house on a Sunday--when
he went, which was not often. There was a tradition that he in his
boots, just home from a quail sortie in the swamp, had once invaded
the b