Treadwell could not always be at Trouble Neck while Sandy and Martin were at the factory-building back in the woods; reading palled upon Lans, too, and the bad cooking for his private meals began to attract his attention. That he did not resent anything in his friend's home and make his farewell bow was characteristic of Lansing Treadwell. He was thoroughly good-natured, inordinately selfish, and was consumed by deep-rooted conviction that Sandy Morley owed him a great deal and that he was conferring a mighty honour upon the young man by accepting his hospitality. No doubt arose as to his right in sharing Sandy's home, but as time went on he did, as all weak and vacillating natures do, resent young Morley's strength of character, simplicity and capacity for winning to himself that which Lans felt belonged to him by inherent justice. It had been one thing to know that his Uncle Levi Markham had taken another young man and set him on his feet, but quite another to realize that his uncle had adopted a poor white from the native hills of the Hertfords and was providing him with wings. A new element had entered into Lans.
"It's like Uncle Levi," he bitterly thought, with his Aunt Olive's instructions well in mind, "to so degrade me, my father, and our family. If he could put every upstart on a throne who had hewed his way to the throne, he would be supremely happy."
In these frames of mind Crothers and Treadwell met and exchanged views. If Morley could put a factory up and hope for success, Lans wanted to see the workings of a similar business already on the ground. So, during listless hours, the young man frequented Crothers' neighbourhood, ate at Crothers' boarding-house, and drank with him at The Forge hotel. Not looking for any shortcomings, Lans did not observe them. He found Crothers an agreeable man with a desire to uplift The Hollow by practical, legitimate methods, not fool-flights of fancy. Then, too, Crothers had a fine sense of the fitness of things. He deplored the fact that a man of Sandy Morley's antecedents should, by the vulgar power of money, gain control over the people.
"I tell you, sir," Crothers exclaimed, "the South has got to be reclaimed through blood; not mongrel blood backed by dirty money!"
This sounded very fine to Lans Treadwell.
"Now, I was a thinking this-er-way lately: 'Spose young Hertford came and took command 'stead of young Morley? 'Spose the old place of the Hertfords was rebuilt and the family established here again—what would happen, sir? I put it to you right plain and friendly."
Lans was thrilled. He rose to any vision called up by another; as for himself he was no vision-builder. His face flushed and his eyes flashed.
"I have never thought of it that way," he said; "as you put it, it seems almost an imperative duty that the best Southern blood should return to the hills and reconstruct where and in the manner it alone understands."
"Exactly. Now I reckon you don't know, sir, but there are mighty big back taxes unpaid on the Walden place and—and your forefathers' land, sir. I'm thinking of buying both places in simply from a sense of public spirit. I ain't going to let those smiling acres go into alien hands if I know myself—not if I ruin myself in the deal."
"Few men would show such spirit as that, Mr. Crothers!"