"O—you think he's a wolf, do you?" said Mr. Deacon. "Well—the doctor's chance aint much the worse of that."
"Don't look very carnivorous," said Mr. Simlins, "but I aint sure. I wouldn't be so quick in my presumptions, Squire. You'll shoot the wrong game one of these days—if you haint already."
"Think so?" said the Squire. "Well, I aint after the game they are, any way, so it don't matter to me which of 'em gets her. Most folks say it's like to be the doctor,—she seems tryin' 'em both by turns."
The riders, on their part, had a short run back on the road they had come, to where there was a hedge and thicket and trees together; and Faith's horse being led close up to the side of the hedge, and she herself provided with a knife, she was free to cut as many lynch-pins as she chose. But at this point Faith handed back the knife. "I can't do it half so well," she said. "I would rather you did it, Mr. Linden."
"You would rather not do it?" he said looking at her. "Is no bread pleasant but that 'eaten in secret'?"
Faith coloured very much. "I didn't care about doing it, Mr. Linden, except to be useful, and for the enterprise of going off for it by myself. And I didn't care about that, more than two minutes."
"You know I had a charge about you before we came out," he said, taking the knife and bending down towards the hedge to use it. "But for that—or a like one in my own mind—you should have had your enterprise. There—I think that may serve the purpose."
The lynch-pin being delivered, the riders left the distressed wagon behind; and again the free road stretched before them; the soft air and light filled all the way and even the brown tree stems with pleasantness. The horses felt they had had a rest and pricked up their ears to be in motion again, and the minds of the riders perhaps felt a stir of the like kind.
"Miss Faith," said Mr. Linden, "a German writer says, that 'one should every day read a fine poem, look upon an excellent picture, hear a little good music, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.'"
"Why do you tell that to me, Mr. Linden?"