“He is going to rent it, I suppose?”

“No; I believe he means to turn it into some kind of a factory—­ and, I rather think, will connect therewith a distillery.  This is a fine grain-growing country, as you know.  If he does set up a distillery he’ll make a fine thing of it.  Grain has been too low in this section for some years; this all the farmers have felt, and they are very much pleased at the idea.  It will help them wonderfully.  I always thought my mill a great thing for the farmers; but what I did for them was a mere song compared to the advantage of an extensive distillery.”

“Judge Hammond is one of your richest men?”

“Yes—­the richest in the county.  And what is more, he’s a shrewd, far-seeing man, and knows how to multiply his riches.”

“How is his son Willy coming on?”

“Oh! first-rate.”

The landlord’s eyes fell under the searching look I bent upon him.

“How old is he now?”

“Just twenty.”

“A critical age,” I remarked.

“So people say; but I didn’t find it so,” answered Slade, a little distantly.

“The impulses within and the temptations without, are the measure of its dangers.  At his age, you were, no doubt, daily employed at hard work.”

“I was, and no mistake.”

“Thousands and hundreds of thousands are indebted to useful work, occupying many hours through each day, and leaving them with wearied bodies at night, for their safe passage from yielding youth to firm, resisting manhood.  It might not he with you as it is now, had leisure and freedom to go in and out when you pleased been offered at the age of nineteen.”

“I can’t tell as to that,” said the landlord, shrugging his shoulders.  “But I don’t see that Willy Hammond is in any especial danger.  He is a young man with many admirable qualities—­is social-liberal—­generous almost to a fault—­but has good common sense, and wit enough, I take it, to keep out of harm’s way.”

A man passing the house at the moment, gave Simon Slade an opportunity to break off a conversation that was not, I could see, altogether agreeable.  As he left me, I arose and stepped into the bar-room.  Frank, the landlord’s son, was behind the bar.  He had grown considerably in the year—­and from a rather delicate, innocent-looking boy, to a stout, bold lad.  His face was rounder, and had a gross, sensual expression, that showed itself particularly about the mouth.  The man Green was standing beside the bar talking to him, and I noticed that Frank laughed heartily, at some low, half obscene remarks that he was making.  In the midst of these, Flora, the sister of Frank, a really beautiful girl, came in to get something from the bar.  Green spoke to her familiarly, and Flora answered him with a perceptibly heightening color.

I glanced toward Frank, half expecting to see an indignant flush on his young face.  But no—­he looked on with a smile!  “Ah!” thought I, “have the boy’s pure impulses so soon died out in this fatal atmosphere?  Can he bear to see those evil eyes—­he knows they are evil—­rest upon the face of his sister? or to hear those lips, only a moment since polluted with vile words, address her with the familiarity of a friend?”