ted firs grew in a dip of the cliff, but on
the level ground the farmer had felled every tree. The homestead itself
was ugly; but the land was green, and the sea lay broad and blue, its
breast swelling to the evening sun. The air blew sweet over field and
cliff, add the music of the incoming tide was heard below the
pine-fringed bank. Caius, however, was not in the receptive mind which
appreciates outward things. His attention was not thoroughly aroused
from himself till the sound of harsh voices struck his ear.

Between the farmhouse and the barns, on a place worn bare by the feet of
men and animals, the farmer and his wife stood in hot dispute. The
woman, tall, gaunt, and ill-dressed, spoke fast, passion and misery in
all her attitude and in every tone and gesture. The man, chunky in
figure and churlish in demeanour, held a horsewhip in his hand,
answering his wife back word for word in language both profane and
violent.

It did not occur to Caius that the whip was in his hand otherwise than
by accident. The men in that part of the world were not in the habit of
beating their wives, but no sooner did he see the quarrel than his wrath
rose hot against the man. The woman being the weaker, he took for
granted that she was entirely in the right. He faltered in his walk,
and, hesitating, stood to look. His path was too far off for him to hear
the words that were poured forth in such torrents of passion. The boy's
strong sentiment prompted him to run and collar the man; his judgment
made him doubt whether it was a good thing to interfere between man and
wife; a certain latent cowardice in his heart made him afraid to venture
nearer. The sum of his emotions caused him to stop, go on a few paces,
and stop to look and listen again, his heart full of concern. In this
way he was drawing further away, when he saw the farmer step nearer his
wife and menace her with the whip; in an instant more he had struck her,
and Caius had run about twenty feet forward to interfere, and halted
again, because he was afraid to approach so angry and powerful a man.

Caius saw the woman clearly now, and how she received this attack. She
stood quite still at her full stature, ceasing to speak or to
gesticulate, folded her arms and looked at her husband. The look in her
hard, dark face, the pose of her gaunt figure, said more clearly than
any passionate words, "Hold, if you value your life! you have gone too
far; you have heaped up punishment enoug