Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/261

Rh trousers well worn and frayed. As the youth tramped along he sang in a high piping voice one of those simple little songs which the playing children sing, and by way of illustration danced up and down and whipped the dust with a long hickory switch. On his heart was no shadow of the cares of men, and for this reason, perhaps, under his torn shirt was two-thirds of the happiness of the world.

As the herd wandered along under the great oaks that lined the roadway and the rays of the morning sun crept down through the green leaves, making queer mottled spots on the sleek cattle and brilliant shifting patches on the dewy grass, one looking on could easily have come to believe that the world had turned back some several hundred years, and this was a grassy forest glade of merry England, and the herd, cattle of the gruff, gigantic Saxon who rode among them on his huge red horse, scowling under his black brows and cursing by St. Withold and St. Dunstan and the soul of Hengist the evil times of the Conqueror that forced him to drive his herd into the thick forest at daybreak in order to preserve it from