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Bacheller, Irving, 1859-1950

"Darrel of the Blessed Isles"


"We could wear the same boots," he had remarked to Darrel.
"Had I to do such penance I should be damned," the tinker had
answered. "Look, boy, mine are the larger by far. There's a man
coming to see me at the Christmas time--a man o' busy feet. That
pair in your hands I bought for him."
"Day before yesterday," said Tunk, that evening, "I was up in the
sugar-bush after a bit o' hickory, an' I see a man there, an' I
didn't have no idee who 'twas. He was tall and had white hair an'
whiskers an' a short blue coat. When I first see him he was
settin' on a log, but 'fore I come nigh he got up an' made off."
Although meagre, the description was sufficient. Trove had no
longer any doubt of this--that the stranger he had seen at Darrel's
had been hiding in the bush that day whose events were now so
important.
Whoever had brought the money, he must have known much of the plans
and habits of the young man, and, the night before Trove's arrival
at Robin's Inn, he came, probably, to the sugar woods, where he
spent the next day in hiding.
The young man was deeply troubled. Polly and her mother sat well
into the night with him, hearing the story of his life, which he
told in full, saving only the sin of his father.


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