fessor Young," he called. "If it is too late,
I will come again."

The door was promptly thrown open.

"Come in," said Tess with a smile. "I thought as how it were someone
else."

"I have been at Deacon Hall's," explained he. "They agree with me that
you ought to go and see your father. I did not tell them why you could
not. Where is the little child?"

Tess glanced at the babe.

"I keeps him in the basket or the box in the daytime, but nights I takes
him to bed with me. The rats be so dum thick that one of them big
fellers would chew the little chap's ear offen him afore I could stop
it."

She said it so naturally, as if she were speaking of the most ordinary
thing, that Young felt a hysterical desire to laugh. It was a dreadful
thought, this of the rat in the box with the babe.

"Are the men netting to-night?" he asked, quickly changing the subject.

"Yep, they be."

"I suppose there is no stopping it," sighed Young; "and they run such
dreadful risks. But, if there were no laws about it, there would be no
fish left in the lake."

Tessibel's brow gathered a thick network of wrinkles. She had heard the
subject discussed and argued from her babyhood days. The best fish in
the waters must be kept for the gentlemen who came for sport during the
season. But the fishermen, who needed bread for their families, were
forced by the law to go without.

"There oughtn't to be no laws about fishin'," she frowned, in decision.
"It air wicked, when brats air a-wantin' bread and beans."

Young saw danger ahead in the argument, so he switched to the
home-coming of the minister's family. From that he again spoke of the
infant, who was whimpering a little. Tess took him up, and warmed the
milk.

"I shall go now, child," said Young, rising. "You are tired. You ought
to go to bed."

"Yep, I air tired, I air," answered Tess, wearily "Good-night."

Once out upon the shore, Young looked back at the hut. It was dark. He
saw three boats flit silently by him toward the city, as if phantoms
guided them. They crossed the moonbeams, and Young lost them in the dark
shadows near the shore.

CHAPTER XXXI

Keeping to the water's edge, Professor Young walked rapidly toward
Ithaca. He knew that further up the shore the fishermen were drawing
their nets; he did not wish to advance upon them. Since knowing Tessibel
Skinner, he had become more lenient toward the law-breakers.

He turned into the forest at the side of the Hogh