If he had no other to gossip with, he
provided imaginary company and talked to his own ears. He thought
himself a most powerful and agile man, boasting often that he still
kept the vigour of his youth. On his errands in the village he
often broke into an awkward gallop, like a child at play. When he
slackened pace it was to shake his head solemnly, as if something
had reminded him of the wickedness of the world.
"If I dared tell all I knew," he would whisper suggestively, and
then proceed to tell much more than he could possibly have known.
Any one of many may have started his tongue, but the shortcomings
of one Ezekiel Swackhammer were for him an ever present help and
provocation. If there were nothing new to talk about, there was
always Swackhammer. Poor Swackhammer had done everything he ought
not to have done. The good God himself was the only being that had
the approval of old Riley Brooke. It was curious--that turning of
his tongue from the slander of men to the praise of God. And of
the goodness of the Almighty he was quite as sure as of the badness
of men. Assurance of his own salvation had come to him one day
when he was shearing sheep, and when, as he related often, finding
himself on his knees to shear, he remained to pray.
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