myself up to my full height (even then I was not very tall) I looked him
unflinchingly in the face as I said,--"touch _me_ if you _dare_, I have
borne blows enough from you, and for little cause, but you shall _never_
strike me again. If you lay a hand upon me it will be worse for you."
Wild with anger I knew not what I said. The strength of a lad of my age
would, of course, have been as nothing against that of the sturdy
farmer; but, had he attempted to flog me, I certainly should have
resisted to the utmost of my ability. I know not how it was, but after
regarding me for a few moments with angry astonishment, he turned away
without any further attempt to fulfil his threat of flogging me. I
turned and was leaving the house when he called after me, in a voice,
which upon any previous occasion, would have frightened me into
submission.

"Come back, I say, this instant." I had now lost all fear and replied,
in a voice which I hardly recognized as my own, "go back, _never_.
Should I be compelled to beg my bread from door to door, I will never
stay another day under your roof." With these words I ran from the
house, and soon reached the little brown cottage in the village three
miles distant where lived my mother and sister Flora.




CHAPTER II.


I never knew a father's protecting care and watchful love; for he died
when I was but little more than three years old; and my sister Flora a
babe in our mother's arms. No prettier village could at that time have