sound judgment about matters he understood, but he had strong
prejudices and Foster did not think him clever. With his rather
sensitive pride and fastidiousness he was certainly not the man to make
his mark in Canada, and Foster began to understand certain traits of
his comrade's that had puzzled him. Lawrence, although he had keener
intelligence, was not quite so fine a type as his father, and in
consequence stood rough wear better. But he too, in spite of his
physical courage, now and then showed a supine carelessness and tried
to avoid, instead of boldly grappling with, things that jarred.

They set out to go shooting, but Featherstone stopped to talk to
everybody they met, and showed keen interest in such matters as the
turnip crop and the price of sheep. It was clear that he was liked and
respected. Sometimes he turned aside to examine tottering gates and
blocked ditches, and commented to Foster upon the economics of farming
and the burden of taxes. The latter soon gathered that there was not
much profit to be derived from a small moorland estate and his host was
far from rich. It looked as if it had cost him, and perhaps his
family, some self-denial to send the money that had once or twice
enabled Lawrence, and Foster with him, to weather a crisis.

At noon they were given a better lunch than Foster had often been
satisfied with at a lonely farm, where Featherstone spoke of him as his
son's partner, and seemed to take an ingenuous pride in making it known
that Lawrence was prospering. This gave Foster a hint that he acted on
later. They, however, shot a brace of partridges in a turnip field, a
widgeon that rose from a reedy tarn, and a woodcock that sprang out of
a holly thicket in a bog. It was a day of gleams of sunlight, passing
showers, and mist that rolled about the hills and swept away, leaving
the long slopes in transient brightness, checkered with the green of