“I’m not going.  I’d rather you should have the flowers.”  And Phil spoke the truth this time.

Celia, who was altogether too young to occupy seriously the mind of a lad of twelve, had nevertheless gained an ascendancy over him because of her willful, perverse, and sometimes scornful ways, and because she was different from the other girls of the school.  She had read many more books than Phil, for she had access to a library, and she could tell him much of a world that he only heard of through books and newspapers, which latter he had no habit of reading.  He liked, therefore, to be with Celia, not withstanding her little airs of superiority, and if she patronized him, as she certainly did, probably the simple-minded young gentleman, who was unconsciously bred in the belief that he and his own kin had no superiors anywhere, never noticed it.  To be sure they quarreled a good deal, but truth to say Phil was never more fascinated with the little witch, whom he felt himself strong enough to protect, than when she showed a pretty temper.  He rather liked to be ordered about by the little tyrant.  And sometimes he wished that Murad Ault, the big boy of the school, would be rude to the small damsel, so that he could show her how a knight would act under such circumstances.  Murad Ault stood to Phil for the satanic element in his peaceful world.  He was not only big and strong of limb and broad of chest, but he was very swarthy, and had closely curled black hair.  He feared nothing, not even the teacher, and was always doing some dare-devil thing to frighten the children.  And because he was dark, morose, and made no friends, and wished none, but went solitary his own dark way, Phil fancied that he must have Spanish blood in his veins, and would no doubt grow up to be a pirate.  No other boy in the winter could skate like Murad Ault, with such strength and grace and recklessness—­thin ice and thick ice were all one to him, but he skated along, dashing in and out, and sweeping away up and down the river in a whirl of vigor and daring, like a black marauder.  Yet he was best and most awesome in the swimming pond in summer—­though it was believed that he dared go in in the bitter winter, either by breaking the ice or through an air-hole, and there was a story that he had ventured under the ice as fearless as a cold fish.  No one could dive from such a height as he, or stay so long under water; he liked to stay under long enough to scare the spectators, and then appear at a distance, thrashing about in the water as if he were rescuing himself from drowning, sputtering out at the same time the most diabolical noises —­curses, no doubt, for he had been heard to swear.  But as he skated alone he swam alone, appearing and disappearing at the swimming-place silently, with never a salutation to any one.  And he was as skillful a fisher as he was a swimmer.  No one knew much about him.  He lived with his mother in a little cabin up among the hills, that had about it scant patches of potatoes