He was talking earnestly, and my father was listening--ay, listening-
-and to John Halifax! But whatever the argument was, it failed to
move him. Greatly troubled, but staunch as a rock, my old father
stood, resting his lame foot on a heap of hides. I went to meet him.

"Phineas," said John, anxiously, "come and help me. No, Abel
Fletcher," he added, rather proudly, in reply to a sharp, suspicious
glance at us both; "your son and I only met ten minutes ago, and have
scarcely exchanged a word. But we cannot waste time over that matter
now. Phineas, help me to persuade your father to save his property.
He will not call for the aid of the law, because he is a Friend.
Besides, for the same reason, it might be useless asking."

"Verily!" said my father, with a bitter and meaning smile.

"But he might get his own men to defend his property, and need not do
what he is bent on doing--go to the mill himself."

"Surely," was all Abel Fletcher said, planting his oaken stick
firmly, as firmly as his will, and taking his way to the river-side,
in the direction of the mill.

I caught his arm--"Father, don't go."

"My son," said he, turning on me one of his "iron looks," as I used
to call them--tokens of a nature that might have ran molten once, and
had settled into a hard, moulded mass, of which nothing could
afterwards alter one form, or erase one line--"My son, no opposition.
Any who try that with me fail. If those fellows had waited two days
more I would have sold all my wheat at a hundred shillings the