But it was the man's soul of Saunders McQuhirr which had come to him as a birthright—born out of a glance. He was a boy no longer. And that night, as his father Yabel stood looking over his scanty acres with a kind of grim satisfaction in the golden array of corn stooks, his son Alexander went quietly up to him.
"Father," he said, "next week I shall be one-and-twenty!" In times of stress they spoke the English of the schools and of the Bible.
His father turned a deep-set irascible eye upon him. The thick over-brooding brows lowered convulsively above him. A kind of illuminating flash like faint sheet lightning passed over the stern face. A week ago, nay, even twenty-four hours ago, Saunders McQuhirr would have trembled to have his father look at him thus. But—he had bound up a girl's finger since then, and seen her eyes wet.
"Well, what of that?" The words came fiercely from Yabel, with a rising anger in them, a kind of trumpet blare heralding the storm.
"I am thinking of taking a herd's place at the term!" said Alexander, quietly.
Yabel lifted his great body off the dyke-top, on which he had been leaning with his elbows. He towered a good four inches above his son, though my father was always considered a tall man.
"You—you are going to take a herd's place—at the term—-you?" he said, slowly and incredulously.
"Yes," answered his son; "you will not need me. There is no outgate for me here, and I have my way to make in the world."
"And what need have you of an outgate, sir?" cried his father. "Have I housed you and schooled you and reared you that, when at last you are of some use, you should leave your father and mother at a word, like a day-labourer on Saturday night?"
"A day-labourer on Saturday night gets his wages—I have not asked for any!"