"The next time I'll take better aim!" called Archie, turning away. "I'll
shoot as straight as the man who gave your uncle his deserts down at
Poplar Spring!"

Whistling to his dogs, he ran on for a short distance; then vaulting the
rail fence he disappeared into the tangle of willows beside the stream
which flowed down from the mill.

While he watched him the anger in Gay's face faded slowly into disgust.

"Now I've stirred up a hornet's nest," he thought, annoyed by his
impetuosity. "Who, I wonder, was the fellow, and what a fool--what a
tremendous fool I have been!"

With his love of ease, of comfort, of popularity, the situation appeared
to him to be almost intolerable. The whole swarm would be at his head
now, he supposed; for instead of silencing the angry buzzing around his
uncle's memory, he had probably raised a tumult which would deafen his
own ears before it was over. Here, as in other hours and scenes, his
resolve had acted less as a restraint than as a spur which had impelled
him to the opposite extreme of conduct.

Still rebuking his impulsiveness, he shouldered his gun again, and
followed slowly in the direction Archie had taken. The half bared
willows by the brook distilled sparkling drops as the small red sun rose
higher over the meadows, and it was against the shimmering background of
foliage, that the figure of Blossom Revercomb appeared suddenly out of
the mist. Her scant skirts were lifted from the cobwebs on the grass,
and her mouth was parted while she called softly after a cow that had
strayed down to the willows.