d the thought of the son who, in his father's eyes, had
been as much above him as one human being could well be above another,
in goodness, in cleverness, in beauty, in all that makes a man worthy of
love and honour from his fellows, and he grew sick sometimes with the
thought of it all.

But he never spoke much of all this even to his wife. It was years
before the old squire knew that it was not all right between Mr Fleming
and Jacob, and he never knew all the bitterness of the old man's
feelings. Gershom people generally knew that there was no love lost
between them, but even Mrs Fleming hardly knew how utterly her husband
had become possessed of the feelings which embittered his life.

All this hurt Jacob far less than it hurt himself. Indeed, it cannot be
said that it affected Jacob at all, in the way of making him ashamed or
remorseful. It affected in some measure the opinion of a few of his
fellow-townsmen, and gave to those who had a grudge against him for
other reasons, an opportunity of saying hard things against him. But
Jacob cared little for all this, and until he had been thwarted by him
in the matter of the land on the bank of the river, had given few of his
thoughts to Mr Fleming.

But who can say what the stern old man had endured all these years while
his silent anger, which was almost hatred, was living and rankling in
his heart? Even while he believed that it was the sin that he hated,
and not the sinner, it had been like a canker within him. His
conscience permitted the stern avoidance of this man, but it was not
always silent as to the neglect or the positive avoidance of duties,
which the presence of this man made distasteful, and at times even
impossible to him.

When Jacob, according to the hopeful verdict of his friends, became a
changed man, and cast in his lot with the people of God, it had needed
the utmost exercise of the strong restraint which he imposed on himself,
as far as outward acts were concerned, to keep him from crying out
against what seemed to him to be a profanation of God's ordinances.
After old Mr Hollister's death, when others fell in with the new order
of things, and one after another of his old friends found his place in
the church, he kept back and remained a spectator, even when he would
gladly have gone with them.

It was only his strong sense of the duty he owed to his family, that
took him to the new church at all, and it was to be feared that had it
not b