It did not take them long to make ready, and soon Midnight was speeding
through the darkness. This time it was no leisurely jog, but the pace she
well knew how to set when her master was forth on important business.
Across the river she sped, then over hill and valley, which echoed with
the merry jingle of the bells. For some time Parson John did not speak,
and seemed to be intent solely upon Midnight.

"Dan," he remarked at length, as they wound slowly up a steep hill, "it's
a mean thing, isn't it, to get many, many good things from someone, and
never do anything in return, and not even to say 'Thank you?'"

The lad started at these words, and but for the darkness a flush would
have been seen upon his face. "What does the parson mean?" he thought.
"That was about what Farrington said. To get, and give nothing in return;
to be a sucker and a sponger."

But the parson needed no reply. He did not even notice Dan's silence.

"Yes," he continued; "it's a mean thing. But that's just what Tim Fraser's
been doing all his life. The good Lord has given him so many blessings of
health, home, fine wife and children, and notwithstanding all these
blessings, he's been ever against Him. He curses and swears, laughs at
religion, and you saw what he did this afternoon."

"'Tis mean, awful mean," Dan replied, as the parson paused, and flicked
the snow with his whip. "But maybe he's sorry, now, that he's hurt."

"Maybe he is, Dan. But it's a mean thing to give the best of life to
Satan, and to give the dregs, the last few days, when the body is too weak