shepherding here and there would take a leap up in value; and his
judgment had been right. His prosperity had all come since George went
away with Cassy Mavor. His anger at George had been the more acute,
because the thing happened at a time when his affairs were on the edge of
a precipice. He had won through it, but only by the merest shave, and it
had all left him with a bad spot in his heart, in spite of his "having
religion." Whenever he remembered George, he instinctively thought of
those black days when a Land and Cattle Syndicate was crowding him over
the edge into the chasm of failure, and came so near doing it. A few
thousand dollars less to put up here and there, and he would have been
ruined; his blood became hotter whenever he thought of it. He had had to
fight the worst of it through alone, for George, who had been useful as a
kind of buyer and seller, who was ever all things to all men, and ready
with quip and jest, and not a little uncertain as to truth--to which the
old man shut his eyes when there was a "deal" on--had, in the end, been
of no use at all, and had seemed to go to pieces just when he was most
needed. His father had put it all down to Cassy Mavor, who had unsettled
things since she had come to Lumley's, and being a man of very few ideas,
he cherished those he had with an exaggerated care. Prosperity had not
softened him; it had given him an arrogance unduly emphasised by a
reputation for rigid virtue and honesty. The indirect attack which
Andrew now made on George's memory roused him to anger, as much because
it seemed to challenge his own judgment as cast a slight on the name of
the boy whom he had cast off, yet who had a firmer hold on his heart than
any human being ever had. It had only been pride which had prevented him
from making it up with George before it was too late; but, all the more,
he was set against the woman who "kicked up her heels for a living"; and,
all the more, he resented Black Andy, who, in his own grim way, had
managed to remain a partner with him in their present prosperity, and had
done so little for it.