Silent, with a sternness of demeanor which he was unable wholly to lay aside even in his friendliest moments, much away[41] from home, and unable to meet the boy on his own level when he was there, deprived of the wife who might have been his interpreter, he had no way of becoming acquainted with his son. Anxious in some way to share in Jim's life, he took the clumsy and mistaken method of letting him have too much pocket-money.

Yet if Jim, thus unguided and overindulged, had gone astray in his conduct, Mr. Edwards was not the man to know his mistake and take the blame. He had in him a rigidity of moral judgment, a dryness of mind which made it certain that if[42] Jim did do what he disapproved, he would visit upon him a punishment at once severe and unsympathetic. The man's air of cold strength excited in the son fear as well as admiration; his reserve kept his naturally affectionate boy at more than arm's length. Poor Mr. Edwards! Poor Jim! Misunderstanding between them was as sure to occur as the rise of to-morrow's sun.

Pat on Jim's speculations about his father's stirring deeds, the gunshot came echoing through the silent barn. Jim ran to the loft door and looked out. He saw smoke curling up from the window of his[43] "den," and knew that it was his own gun that had been fired. Back in the room, a vague masculine figure moved hastily out of the door. Jim looked toward the orchard, and caught sight of another man disappearing in the trees. He was wild with excitement. As he knew that his father was the only person in the house, he was sure that his father had fired the shot.

The tales that he had heard, his belief in his father's life of adventure, made him conclude that here was some smuggler's quarrel. So vividly did