the
bushes that hung low over the water, they left it there and took their
way by the side of Ythan Burn. But he would not be hurried. As a boy
he had liked more than anything else in the world, loitering through the
fields and woods with Ben, and it gave him great satisfaction to
discover that he had not outgrown this liking. He forgot his fine
manners and fine clothes, his college friends and pleasures and
troubles; and Ben forgot Aunt Betsey, and that he was doing wrong, and
they wandered on as they had done hundreds of times before.

For though no one, not even his Aunt Betsey, thought Ben very bright,
Clifton would have taken his word about beast and bird and creeping
thing, and about all the growing life in the woods, rather than the word
of any other ten in Gershom. They made no haste, there fore, in the
direction of the Scott school-house, but wound in and out among the wood
paths, using eyes and ears in the midst of the rejoicing life of which
the forest was so full at that June season.

They kept along the side of the brook, and by and by came out of the
woods on the edge of the fine strip of land which old Mr Fleming had
made foot by foot from the swamp. There was no finer land in the
township, none that had been more faithfully dealt with than this. Ben
uttered an exclamation of admiration as he looked over it to the hill
beyond. Even Clifton, who knew less and cared less about land than he
did, sympathised with his admiration.

"He might mow it now, and have a second crop before fall," said Ben,
with enthusiasm. "It would be a shame to spoil so fine a meadow by
building a factory on it, wouldn't it?"

"It would spoil it for hay, but factories are not bad in a place, I tell
you. It might be a good thing to put one here."

"Not for Mr Fleming. He don't care for factories. He made the meadow
out of the swamp, and nobody else has any business with it, whatever
they may say about mortgages and things."

"But who is talking about mortgages and things?" asked Clifton,
laughing.

"Oh, most everybody in Gershom is talking. I don't know much about it
myself. And Jacob's one of your folks, and you'd be mad if I told you
all that folks say."

Clifton laughed.

"Jacob isn't any more one of my folks than you are--nor so much. Do you
suppose I would stay away from meeting to come out here with Jacob? Not
if I know it."

"He wouldn't want you to, I don't suppose."

"Not he. He doesn't care h