see another man living in these rooms, and plowing my fields, and driving his
cows to my old pasture lots. That would finish me like a galloping
consumption."

Every day he shrunk with a strange dread from the wrench of parting with the
familiar place and with all that he associated with his wife. This was really
the ordeal which shook his soul, and not the fear that he would be unable to
earn his bread elsewhere. The unstable multitude, who are forever fancying
that they would be better off somewhere else or at something else, can have no
comprehension of this deep-rooted love of locality and the binding power of
long association. They regard such men as Holcroft as little better than
plodding oxen. The highest tribute which some people can pay to a man,
however, is to show that they do not and cannot understand him. But the
farmer was quite indifferent whether he was understood or not. He gave no
thought to what people said or might say. What were people to him? He only
had a hunted, pathetic sense of being hedged in and driven to bay. Even to
his neighbors, there was more of the humorous than the tragic in his plight.
It was supposed that he had a goodly sum in the bank, and gossips said that he
and his wife thought more of increasing this hoard than of each other, and
that old Holcroft's mourning was chiefly for a business partner. His domestic
tribulations evoked mirth rather than sympathy; and as the news spread from
farmhouse to cottage of his summary bundling of Bridget and her satellites out
of doors, there were both hilarity and satisfaction.

While there was little commiseration for the farmer, there was decided
disapprobation of the dishonest Irish tribe, and all were glad that the gang
had received a lesson which might restrain them from preying upon others.

Holcroft was partly to blame for his present isolation. Remote rural
populations are given to strong prejudices, especially against those who are