belief that he and his
own kin had no superiors anywhere, never noticed it. To be sure they
quarreled a good deal, but truth to say Phil was never more fascinated
with the little witch, whom he felt himself strong enough to protect,
than when she showed a pretty temper. He rather liked to be ordered
about by the little tyrant. And sometimes he wished that Murad Ault,
the big boy of the school, would be rude to the small damsel, so that
he could show her how a knight would act under such circumstances. Murad
Ault stood to Phil for the satanic element in his peaceful world. He
was not only big and strong of limb and broad of chest, but he was very
swarthy, and had closely curled black hair. He feared nothing, not even
the teacher, and was always doing some dare-devil thing to frighten
the children. And because he was dark, morose, and made no friends, and
wished none, but went solitary his own dark way, Phil fancied that he
must have Spanish blood in his veins, and would no doubt grow up to be
a pirate. No other boy in the winter could skate like Murad Ault, with
such strength and grace and recklessness--thin ice and thick ice were
all one to him, but he skated along, dashing in and out, and sweeping
away up and down the river in a whirl of vigor and daring, like a black
marauder. Yet he was best and most awesome in the swimming pond in
summer--though it was believed that he dared go in in the bitter winter,
either by breaking the ice or through an air-hole, and there was a story
that he had ventured under the ice as fearless as a cold fish. No one
could dive from such a height as he, or stay so long under water; he
liked to stay under long enough to scare the spectators, and then appear
at a distance, thrashing about in the water as if he were rescuing
himself from drowning, sputtering out at the same time the most
diabolical noises--curses, no doubt, for he had been heard to swear.
But as he skated alone he swam alone, appearing and disappearing at the
swimming-place silently, with never a salutation to any one. And he was
as skillful a fisher as he was a swimmer. No one knew much about him.
He lived with his mother in a little cabin up among the hills, that had
about it scant patches of potatoes and corn and beans, a garden fenced
in by stumproots, as ill-cared for as the shanty. Where they came from
no one knew. How they lived was a matter of conjecture, though the
mother gathered herbs and berries and bartered them at