The Squire laughed. "Sit down," he ordered; "you won't hurt the
pelt." And then he asked, to put him at his ease, "Did you ever
shoot a fox, sir?"

"No, sir."

"Ever fire a gun?"

"No, sir."

"Want to?"

"Yes, sir."

Jerome did not respond with the ready eagerness which the Squire had
expected. He had suddenly resolved, in his kindness and pity towards
his fatherless state, knowing well the longings of a boy, to take him
out in the field and let him fire his gun, and change, if he could,
that sad old look he wore, even if he fished none that day; but
Jerome disappointed him in his purpose. "He hasn't much spirit," he
thought, and stood upon the hearth, before the open fireplace, and
said no more, but waited to hear what Jerome had come for.

The Squire was far from an old man, though he seemed so to the boy.
He was scarcely middle-aged, and indeed many still called him the
"young Squire," as they had done when his father died, some fifteen
years before. He was a massively built man, standing a good six feet
tall in his boots; and in his boots, thick-soled, and rusty with old
mud splashes, reaching high above his knees over his buckskin
breeches, Squire Eben Merritt almost always stood. He was scarcely