full of ambitions and dreams, found himself a creature he had never
known, a something conscience-stricken, yet half-abandoned, and with a
leaden weight upon his feet to keep them from carrying him away from
the temptation.

He would force himself to a solitary day at times, and go out into the
country with dog and gun, and tramp for miles, and wonder at himself.
He had all sorts of fancies. He thought of his wickedness and his
wasted time, and compared himself with the great men in the books who
had been in similar evil straits,--with Marc Antony, with King Arthur
in Gwendolen's enchanted castle, and with Geraint the strong but
slothful,--rather far-fetched this last comparison,--and of all the
rest. It was a grotesque variety, but amid it all he really suffered.
And he would make good resolves and, for the moment, firm ones, and
return to town when the dew was falling and the moonlight coming, and
the tale was but retold. And the woman was wise, as women are, and
conscienceless, yet suffering a little, too.

She had found more than a summer's toy, and she had grown to fear the
great boy in his moods, and to want to keep him, and to doubt the
measure of her art. This must be a hard thing, too, for such splendid
pirates to bear. They may not even scuttle all the craft they capture.

And the root of all evil is sometimes the root of all good. The dollar
pulls all ways. Harlson must earn his way. One day his father dropped
a chance word regarding some one, miles in the country, who wanted a
fence built inclosing a tract out of the wood. It was isolated work, a
task of a month or two for a strong man, a mere laborer. Young Harlson
became interested.