had been against him and he had got slack. Indeed this was Charnock's
trouble; when a job got difficult, he did not stay with it.

Festing crossed the fall back-set, where the loam from the frost-split
clods stuck to his boots, passed the sod stable, noting that one end was
falling down, and was met on the veranda by Charnock's dogs. They sprang
upon him with welcoming barks, and pushing through them, he entered
the untidy living-room. Charnock sat at a table strewn with papers that
looked like bills, and there was a smear of ink on his chin.

"Hallo!" he said. "Sit down and take a smoke while I get through with
these."

Festing pulled a chair into his favorite corner by the stove and looked
about when he had lighted his pipe. The room was comfortless and bare,
with cracked, board walls, from which beads of resin exuded. A moose
head hung above a rack of expensive English guns, a piano stood in
a corner, and lumps of the _gumbo_ soil that lay about the floor had
gathered among its legs. Greasy supper plates occupied the end of the
table, and the boards round the stove were blackened by the distillate
that dripped from the joint where the pipe went through the ceiling.
These things were significant, particularly the last, since one need not
burn green wood, which had caused the tarry stain, and the joint could
have been made tight.

Then Festing glanced at Charnock. The latter was a handsome man of about
Festing's age. He had a high color and an easy smile, but he had, so
to speak, degenerated since he came to Canada. Festing remembered
his keenness and careless good-humor when he began to farm, but
disappointment had blunted the first, though his carelessness remained.