spirit.

Blanchard's unseasoned mind had, in truth, scarcely reached the second
milestone upon the road of man's experience. Some arrive early at the
mental standpoint where the five senses meet and merge in that sixth or
common sense, which may be defined as an integral of the others, and
which is manifested by those who possess it in a just application of all
the experience won from life. But of common sense Will had none. He
could understand laziness and wickedness being made to suffer; he could
read Nature's more self-evident lessons blazoned across every meadow,
displayed in every living organism--that error is instantly punished,
that poor food starves the best seed, that too much water is as bad as
too little, that the race is to the strong, and so forth; but he could
not understand why hard work should go unrewarded, why good intentions
should breed bad results, why the effect of energy, self-denial, right
ambitions, and other excellent qualities is governed by chance; why the
prizes in the great lottery fall to the wise, not to the well-meaning.
He knew himself for a hard worker and a man who accomplished, in all
honesty, the best within his power. What his hand found to do he did
with his might; and the fact that his head, as often as not, prompted
his hand to the wrong thing escaped him. He regarded his life as
exemplary, felt that he was doing all that might in reason be demanded,
and confidently looked towards Providence to do the rest. To find
Providence unwilling to help him brought a wave of riotous indignation
through his mind on each occasion of making that discovery. These waves,
sweeping at irregular intervals over Will, left the mark of their high
tides, and his mind, now swinging like a pendulum before this last
buffet dealt by Fate in semblance of the Duchy's man, plunged him into a
huge discontent with all things. He was ripe for mischief and would have
quarrelled with his shadow; but he did worse--he quarrelled with his
mother.

She visited him that afternoon, viewed his shattered scheme, and
listened as Will poured the great outrage upon her ear. Coming up at his
express invitation to learn the secret, which he had kept from her that
her joy might be the greater, Mrs. Blanchard only arrived in time to see
his disappointment. She knew the Duchy for a bad enemy, and perhaps at
the bottom of her conservative heart felt no particular delight at the
spectacle of Newtake enlarging its borders. She t