ever seen without them, except in the meeting-house on a Sunday--when
he went, which was not often. There was a tradition that he in his
boots, just home from a quail sortie in the swamp, had once invaded
the best parlor, where his wife had her lady friends to tea, and
which boasted a real Turkey carpet--the only one in town.

Eben Merritt in these great hunting-boots, clad as to the rest of him
in stout old buckskin and rough coat and leather waistcoat, with his
fair and ruddy face well covered by his golden furze of beard, which
hung over his breast, lounged heavily on the hearth, and waited with
a noble patience, eschewing all desire of fishing, until this pale,
grave little lad should declare his errand.

But Jerome, with the great Squire standing waiting before him, felt
suddenly tongue-tied. He was not scared, though his heart beat fast;
it was only that the words would not come.

The Squire watched him kindly with his bright, twinkling blue eyes
under his brush of yellow hair. "Take your time," said he, and threw
one arm up over the mantel-shelf, and stood as if it were easier for
him than to sit, and indeed it might have been so, for from his
stalking of woods and long motionless watches at the lair of game, he
had had good opportunities to accustom himself to rest at ease upon
his feet.

Jerome might have spoken sooner had the Squire moved away from before
him and taken his eyes from his face, for sometimes too ardent
attention becomes a citadel for storming to a young and modest soul.
However, at last he turned his own head aside, and his black eyes
from the Squire's keen blue eyes, and would then have spoken had not