No woman, he felt, had the right to affront so openly a man's ideal
of what the sex should be. When he spoke of her behind her back it was
with indignant sympathy as "poor Miss Kesiah," or "that poor good soul
Kesiah Blount"--for in spite of a natural bent for logic, and more than
forty years of sedulous attendance upon the law, he harboured at the
bottom of his heart an unreasonable conviction that Kesiah's plainness
was, somehow, the result of her not having chosen to be pretty.
"Any sport, Jonathan?" he inquired cheerfully, while he buttered his
waffles. "If I scared up one Molly Cotton-tail out of the briars I did
at least fifty."
"No, I didn't get a shot," replied Gay, "but I met a poacher on my land
who appeared to have been more successful. There seems to be absolutely
no respect for a man's property rights in this part of the country. The
fellow actually had the impudence to stop and bandy words with me."
"Well, you mustn't be too hard on him. His ancestors, doubtless, shot
over your fields for generations, and he'd probably look upon an attempt
to enforce the game laws as an infringement of his privileges.
Pages:
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132