"I should be a brute if I did, Plato;" but the blow descended upon the
trunk of the tree against which he had been leaning with terrible force.
Then David Lorimer went striding through the swamp, his great bell spurs
chiming to his uneven, crashing tread.

Plato looked sorrowfully after him. "Poor Massa Davie! He's got de
drefful temper; got it each side ob de house--father and mother, bofe. I
hope de good Massa above will make 'lowances for de young man--got it
bofe ways, he did." And he went thoughtfully back to his work, murmuring
hopes and apologies for the man he loved, with all the forgiving
unselfishness of a prayer in them.

In some respects Plato was right. David Lorimer had inherited, both from
father and mother, an unruly temper. His father was a Scot, dour and
self-willed; his mother had been a Spanish woman, of San Antonio--a
daughter of the grandee family of Yturris. Their marriage had not been a
happy one, and the fiery emotional Southern woman had fretted her life
away against the rugged strength of the will which opposed hers. David
remembered his mother well, and idolized her memory; right or wrong, he
had always espoused her quarrel, and when she died she left, between
father and son, a great gulf.

He had been hard to manage then, but at twenty-two he was beyond all
control, excepting such as his cousin, Lulu Yturri, exercised over him.
But this love, the most pure and powerful influence he acknowledged, had
been positively forbidden. The elder Lorimer declared that there had
been too much Spanish blood in the family; and it is likely his motives
commended themselves to his own conscience. It was certain that the mere
exertion of his will in the matter gave him a pleasure he would not