Great Possessions by David Grayson
page 51 of 143 (35%)
page 51 of 143 (35%)
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He came out of a thicket of hemlocks like a wraith of the past, a gray and crabbed figure, and confronted me there in the wide field. I suppose he thought he had caught me at last. I was not at all startled or even surprised, for as I look back upon it now I know that I had always been expecting him. Indeed, I felt a lift of the spirit, the kind of jauntiness with which one meets a crucial adventure. He stood there for a moment quite silent, a grim figure of denial, and I facing him. "You are on my land, sir," he said. I answered him instantly and in a way wholly unexpected to myself: "You are breathing my air, sir." He looked at me dully, but with a curious glint of fear in his eye, fear and anger, too. "Did you see the sign down there? This land is posted." "Yes," I said, "I have seen your signs. But let me ask you: If I were not here would you own this land any more than you do now? Would it yield you any better crops?" It is never the way of those who live in posted enclosures, of whatever sort, to reason. They assert. "This land is posted," said the old man doggedly. |
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