brute instinct.  What he called “getting even” kept him in difficulties, and when he made things unpleasant or worse for the offenders, his constant state of induced indifference to consequences left him careless and satisfied.  When there was not enough whisky to be had, his wild acts of revengeful malice were succeeded by such childlike terror as Penhallow’s words produced.  ’The preacher would have him arrested; the Squire would not interfere.  Some day he would get even with him too!’ There was now, however, no recourse but flight.  He hastened home and finding his mother absent searched roughly until by accident as he let fall her Bible, a bank note dropped out.  There were others, some sixty dollars or more, her meagre savings.  He took it all without the least indecision.  At dark after her return he ate the supper she provided.  When she had gone to bed, he packed some clothes in a canvas bag and went quietly out upon the highway.  Opposite to the smoking ruin of the rectory he halted.  He muttered, “I’ve got even with him anyhow!”

As he murmured his satisfaction, a man left on guard crossed the road.  “Halloa!  Where are you bound, Peter?”

“Goin’ after a job.  Bad fire, wasn’t it—­hard on the preacher!”

“Hard.  He’s well lodged at the Squire’s, and I do hear it was insured.  Nobody’s much the worse, and it will make a fine bit of work for some of us.  Who done it, I wonder?”

“How should I know!  Good-night.”

When out of sight, he turned and said, “I ain’t got even yet.  Them rich people’s hard to beat.  Damn the Squire!  I’ll get even with him some day.”  He was bitterly disappointed.  “Gosh!  I ran that nigger out, and now I’m a runaway too.  It’s queer.”

At Westways Crossing he waited until an empty freight train was switched off to let the night express go by.  Then he stowed himself away in an open box-car and had a comfortable sense of relief as it rolled eastward.  He felt sure that the Squire’s last words meant that he might be arrested and that immediate flight was his only chance of escape.

He thus passes, like Josiah, for some years out of my story.  He had money, was when sober a clever carpenter, and felt, therefore, no fear of his future.  He had the shrewd conviction that the Squire at least would not be displeased to get rid of him, and would not be very eager to have him pursued.

James Penhallow was disagreeably aware that it was his duty to bring about the punishment of his drunken foster-brother, but he did not like it.  When the next morning he was about to mount his horse, he saw Mrs. Lamb, now an aged woman, coming slowly up the avenue.  As she came to the steps of the porch, Penhallow went to meet her, giving the help of his hand.

“Good-morning, Ellen,” he said, “what brings you here over the snow this frosty day?  Do you want to see Mrs. Penhallow?”

For a moment she was too breathless to answer.  The withered leanness of the weary old face moved in an effort to speak, but was defeated by emotion.  She gasped, “Let me set down.”