id="id00127">Verty looked.

"What do you see!"

"An Indian!" said Verty, laughing, and raising his shaggy head.

"You see nothing of the sort," said Mr. Rushton, with asperity; "you see simply a white boy tanned—an Anglo-Saxon turned into mahogany by wind and sun. There, sir! there," added Mr. Rushton, seeing Verty was about to reply, "don't argue the question with me. I am sick of arguing, and won't indulge you. Take this fine little lady here, and go and make love to her—the Squire and myself have business."

Then Mr. Rushton scowled upon the company generally, and pushed them out of the room, so to speak, with his eyes; even Miss Lavinia was forced to obey, and disappeared.

Five minutes afterwards, Verty might have been seen taking his way back sadly, on his little animal, toward the hills, while Redbud was undergoing that most disagreeable of all ceremonies, a "lecture," which lecture was delivered by Miss Lavinia, in her own private apartment, with a solemnity, which caused Redbud to class herself with the greatest criminals which the world had ever produced. Miss Lavinia proved, conclusively, that all persons of the male sex were uninterruptedly engaged in endeavoring to espouse all persons of the female sex, and that the world, generally, was a vale of tears, of scheming and deception. Having elevated and cheered Redbud's spirits, by this profound philosophy, and further enlivened her by declaring that she must leave Apple Orchard on the morrow, Miss Lavinia descended.

She entered the dining-room where the Squire and Mr. Rushton were talking, and took her seat near the window. Mr. Rushton immediately became dumb.

Miss Lavinia said it was a fine day.

Mr. Rushton growled.

Miss Lavinia made one or two additional attempts to direct the conversation on general topics; but the surly guest strangled her incipient attempts with pitiless indifference. Finally, Miss Lavinia sailed out of the room with stately dignity, and disappeared.

Mr. Rushton looked after her, smiling grimly.

"The fact is, Squire," he said, "that your cousin, Miss Lavinia, is a true woman. Hang it, can't a man come and talk a little business with a neighbor without being intruded upon? Outrageous!"

The Squire seemed to regard his guest's surliness with as little attention as Verty had displayed.

"A true woman in other ways is she, Rushton," he said, smiling—"I grant you she is a little severe and prim, and fond of taking her dignified portion of every conversation; but she's a faithful and high-toned woman. You have seen too much character in your Courts to judge of the kernel from the husk."

"The devil take the Courts! I'm sick of 'em," said Mr. Rushton, with great fervor, "and as to character, there is no character anywhere, or in anybody." Having enunciated which proposition, Mr. Rushton rose to go.

The Squire rose too, holding him by the button.

"I'd like to argue that point with you," he said, laughing. "Come now, tell me how—"

"I won't—I refuse—I will not argue."

"Stay to dinner, then, and I promise not to wrangle."

"No—I never stay to dinner! A pretty figure my docket would cut, if I staid to your dinners and discussions! You've got the deeds I came to see you about; my business is done; I'm going back."

"To that beautiful town of Winchester!" laughed the Squire, following his grim guest out.

"Abominable place!" growled Rushton; "and that Roundjacket is positively growing insupportable. I believe that fellow has a mania on the subject of marrying, and he runs me nearly crazy. Then, there's his confounded poem, which he persists in reading to himself nearly aloud."

"His poem?" asked the Squire.

"Yes, sir! his abominable, trashy, revolting poem, called—'The Rise and Progress of the Certiorari.' The consequence of all which, is—here's my horse; find the martingale, you black cub!—the consequence is, that my office work is not done as it should be, and I shall be compelled to get another clerk in addition to that villain, Roundjacket."

"Why not exchange with some one?"

"How?"

"Roundjacket going elsewhere—to Hall's, say."

Mr. Rushton scowled.

"Because he is no common clerk; would not live elsewhere, and because I can't get along without him," he said. "Hang him, he's the greatest pest in Christendom!"

"I have heard of a young gentleman called Jinks," the Squire said, with a sly laugh, "what say you to him for number two?"

"Burn Jinks!" cried Mr. Rushton, "he's a jack-a-napes, and if he comes within the reach of my cane, I'll break it over his rascally shoulders! I'd rather have this Indian cub who has just left us."

"That's all very well; but you can't get him."

"Can't get him?" asked Rushton, grimly, as he got into the saddle.

"He would never consent to coop himself up in Winchester. True, my little Redbud, who is a great friend of his, has taught him to read, and even to write in a measure, but he's a true Indian, whether such by descent or not. He would die of the confinement. Remember what I said about character just now, and acknowledge the blunder you committed when you took the position that there was no such thing."

Rushton growled, and bent his brows on the laughing Squire.

"I said," he replied, grimly, "that there was no character to be found anywhere; and you may take it as you choose, you'll try and extract an argument out of it either way. I don't mean to take part in it. As to this cub of the woods, you say I couldn't make anything of him—see if I don't! You have provoked me into the thing—defied me—and I accept the challenge."

"What! you will capture Verty, that roving bird?"

"Yes; and make of this roving swallow another bird called a secretary. I suppose you've read some natural history, and know there's such a feathered thing."

"Yes."

"Very well," said Mr. Rushton, kicking his horse, and cramming his cocked hat down on his forehead. "I'll show you how little you know of human nature and character. I'll take this wild Indian boy, brought up in the woods, and as free and careless as a deer, and in six months I'll change him into a canting, crop-eared, whining pen-machine, with quills behind his ears, and a back always bending humbly. I'll take this honest barbarian and make a civilized and enlightened individual out of him—that is to say, I'll change him into a rascal and a hypocrite."

With which misanthropic words Mr. Rushton nodded in a surly way to the smiling Squire, and took his way down the road toward Winchester.

"Well, well," said the old gentleman, looking after him, "Rushton seems to be growing rougher than ever;—what a pity that so noble a heart should have such a husk. His was a hard trial, however—we should not be surprised. Rough-headed fellow! he thinks he can do everything with that resolute will of his;—but the idea of chaining to a writing-desk that wild boy, Verty!"

And the old gentleman re-entered the house smiling cheerfully, as was his wont.

CHAPTER IV.

HOW VERTY THOUGHT, AND PLAYED, AND DREAMED.

Verty took his weary way westward through the splendid autumn woods, gazing with his dreamy Indian expression on the variegated leaves, listening to the far cries of birds, and speaking at times to Longears and