nd then, like Crockett, 'go ahead.'"

"Still, Mr. Bolton," urged the neighbour mildly, "don't you think it
would be wiser and better to see Mr. Halpin first, and explain to him
how much you are disappointed at finding a right of way for another
farm across the one you have purchased? I am sure some arrangement,
satisfactory to both, can be made. Mr. Halpin, if you take him right,
is not an unreasonable man. He'll do almost any thing to oblige
another. But he is very stubborn if you attempt to drive him. If he
comes home and finds things as they now are, he will feel dreadfully
outraged; and you will become enemies instead of friends."

"It can't be helped now," said Mr. Bolton. "What's done is done."

"It's not yet too late to undo the work," suggested Mr. Dix.

"Yes, it is. I'm not the man to make back-tracks. Good-day, Mr. Dix?"

And speaking to his horse, Mr. Bolton started off at a brisk trot. He
did not feel very comfortable. How could he? He felt that he had done
wrong, and that trouble and mortification were before him. But a
stubborn pride would not let him retrace a few wrong steps taken from a
wrong impulse. To the city he went, transacted his business, and then
turned his face homeward, with a heavy pressure upon his feelings.

"Ah me!" he sighed to himself, as he rode along. "I wish I had thought
twice this morning before I acted once. I needn't have been so
precipitate. But I was provoked to think that any one claimed the right
to make a public road through my farm. If I'd only known that Halpin
was a brother-in-law to Judge Caldwell! That makes the matter so much
worse."

And on rode Mr. Bolton, thinking only of the trouble he had so
needlessly pulled down about his ears.

For the last mile of the way, there had been a gentleman riding along
in advance of Mr. Bolton, and as the horse of the latter made a little
the best speed, he gained on him slowly, until, just as he reached the
point where the road leading to his farm left the turnpike, he came up
with him.

"Mr. Bolton, I believe," said the gentleman, smiling, as both, in
turning into the narrow lane, came up side by side.

"That is my name," was replied.

"And mine is Halpin," returned the other, offering his hand, which Mr.
Bolton could but take, though not so cordially as would have been the
case had the gate opening from his farm into Mr. Halpin's been on its
hinges. "I have often heard my brother-in-law, Judge Caldwell, speak of
you a