Irvine, thereupon, refused to
have any more to do with my service; he "wouldn't work no more for
a man as had spoke to him's I had done." I found myself on the
point of the last humiliation--driven to beseech the creature whom
I had just dismissed with insult: but I took the high hand in
despair, said there must be no talk of Irvine coming back unless
matters were to be differently managed; that I would rather chop
firewood for myself than be fooled; and, in short, the Hansons
being eager for the lad's hire, I so imposed upon them with merely
affected resolution, that they ended by begging me to re-employ him
again, on a solemn promise that he should be more industrious. The
promise, I am bound to say, was kept. We soon had a fine pile of
firewood at our door; and if Caliban gave me the cold shoulder and
spared me his conversation, I thought none the worse of him for
that, nor did I find my days much longer for the deprivation.
The leading spirit of the family was, I am inclined to fancy, Mrs.
Hanson. Her social brilliancy somewhat dazzled the others, and she
had more of the small change of sense. It was she who faced
Kelmar, for instance; and perhaps, if she had been alone, Kelmar
would have had no rule within her doors. Rufe, to be sure, had a
fine, sober, open-air attitude of mind, seeing the world without
exaggeration--perhaps, we may even say, without enough; for he
lacked, along with the others, that commercial idealism which puts
so high a value on time and money.
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