Tears dimmed my eyes as I read and re-read the message.  More than two of those four years had passed and, as the weeks had dragged along I had thought more and more of Sally and the day that was coming.  I had bought a suit of evening clothes and learned to dance and gone out to parties and met many beautiful young ladies but none of them had the charm of Sally.  The memory of youth—­true-hearted, romantic, wonder-working youth—­had enthroned her in its golden castle and was defending her against the present commonplace herd of mere human beings.  No one of them had played with me in the old garden or stood by the wheat-field with flying hair, as yellow as the grain, and delighted me with the sweetest words ever spoken.  No one of them had been glorified with the light and color of a thousand dreams.

I rode in silence, thinking of her and of those beautiful days now receding into the past and of my aunt and uncle.  I had written a letter to them every week and one or the other had answered it.  Between the lines I had detected the note of loneliness.  They had told me the small news of the countryside.  How narrow and monotonous it all seemed to me then!  Rodney Barnes had bought a new farm; John Axtell had been hurt in a runaway; my white mare had got a spavin!

“Hello, mister!”

I started out of my reverie with a little jump of surprise.  A big, rough-dressed, bearded man stood in the middle of the road with a gun on his shoulder.

“Where ye goin’?”

“Up to the Van Heusen place.”

“Where do ye hail from?”

“Cobleskill.”

“On business for Judge Westbrook?”

“Yes.”

“Writs to serve?”

“Yes,” I answered with no thought of my imprudence.

“Say, young man, by hokey nettie!  I advise you to turn right around and go back.”

“Why?”

“’Cause if ye try to serve any writs ye’ll git into trouble.”

“That’s interesting,” I answered.  “I am not seeking a quarrel, but I do want to see how the people feel about the payment of their rents.”

“Say mister, look down into that valley there,” the stranger began.  “See all them houses—­they’re the little houses o’ the poor.  See how smooth the land is?  Who built them houses?  Who cleaned that land?  Was it Mr. Livingston?  By hokey nettie!  I guess not.  The men who live there built the houses an’ cleaned the land.  We ain’t got nothin’ else—­not a dollar!  It’s all gone to the landlord.  I am for the men who made every rod o’ that land an’ who own not a single rod of it.  Years an’ years ago a king gave it to a man who never cut one tree or laid one stone on another.  The deeds say that we must pay a rent o’ so many bushels o’ wheat a year but the land is no good for wheat, an’ ain’t been for a hundred years.  Why, ye see, mister, a good many things have happened in three hundred years.  The land was willin’ to give wheat then an’ a good