leaned, grew suddenly of a deathly white; but he gave neither word nor motion, only to lean forward, and scan with half-shut eyes the boy's face as he turned the quail over gently in his hand, putting it to his check again and again, as a woman would be apt to do. If Galbraith had any thought beyond the bird, he held it out of sight with a skill which baffled Laddoun. Presently, he laid it down softly.
"It's dead now," stretching out his arms with a long breath. "I was rough with you, Laddoun," turning to him.
"Yes," with aloud, uncadenced laugh; "I should say you were cursedly rough. You forget who you are, and who I am, Dallas."
"I don't forget," quietly gathering his scattered roots into his basket. "But you have had an easy life. Now, when I see a thing put under foot like that, I think I feel the lash on my own back again."
"If you remember the lash, you oughtn't to forget who took it off," keeping the same intent scrutiny on every shade of meaning in the boy's face. "Whatever comes to me, there are reasons why you should be true to me, Galbraith."
There was nothing melodramatic in Dallas to answer this touch. "You've been a good friend to me. Mr. Laddoun," he said, simply, "but I mean to tell you the truth for all that;" and picking up his basket he jogged along in a grave silence. Laddoun followed him, making, with laborious efforts, indifferent remarks from time to time; but all the vivacity and spirit had died out of him. He tried to shut his eyes to the boy's past life, and look at him with a stranger's cool judgment. Was there no secret hid under this old-fashioned sincerity, this simple-hearted, credulous nature? There was not a child in the village who would not run after the queer, lank boy to make him head in the game of ball or marbles, nor an old woman who had not some time shared her cup of tea with him. Laddoun scanned, as a man on trial for his life would the faces of the jury, the unmarked features of the lad, pausing again and again on his eyes. They always had baffled him. The rest of the face held nothing; it was but a child's—indistinctive; worn perhaps by hunger or want, but the eyes were deep set and sparkling, full of sweet temper and laughter.
Nothing more? Was there any power of reticence in them to hold back a fatal secret for life?
George Laddoun could not tell; they had baffled a keener inspection than his, and that not long ago; even while he watched him now they turned on him, steady and honest. One thing he knew, that they belonged to something stronger than himself.
Galbraith, boy like, forgot his trouble after a while; began to whistle shrilly, grubbing under the scrubby bushes for roots, after his usual fashion, stopping when they came to an open bit of sand to set down his basket and turn summer saults to the other end. Laddoun waited good-naturedly, leaning on the fence.
"Well done, Dallas!"
"I'm growing too fat—I’m not as limber as I was," looking down with a pleased laugh.
"I'm sorry that I worried you, Galbraith," placing his hand on his shoulder in a half-timid, deprecating way, very different from the patronizing tap on the back which was his ordinary greeting to the villagers. "I'd no mind to bring up old times to you. They're dead and gone now."
Galbraith nodded. One of those vague notions which children have crossed his mind—a wonder whether those old times were not dead and in hell; but the impression was but slight, and a moment afterwards, with a loud hillo! he was rooting under some leaves for a great bee-ant, like a lump of crimson velvet.
"I want you, sir, and some of your brothers! Yo, ho!" caging it in a leaf.
"Poor Dall! There's nothing in his brain but childish folly," thought Laddoun as he strode on. "He throws all trouble of old times out of his mind, just as water on the boil gets rid of scum and dirt a-top;" and with a sudden feeling of relief, he began to throw snatches
