Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/264

 his boyhood, he might have looked at it with disgust for his brother's shiftlessness. He looked at it rather as if it were a property on which he was compelled to take a mortgage. He looked at it obviously with an eye to his own interests. He looked at it predaciously, speculatively, but with distaste.

Distaste was uppermost in the way he looked at the man. He had not seen his brother for fifteen years, but he had no doubt that here was Matt himself. It might have been a hired man, but he knew that Matt could not even pay the wages of such a slouching "buckwheater" as this. It was evidently Matt—going fishing.

He waited, watching him approach. Matt did not raise his eyes till he was close. Then he took in the horse first before he turned his mild attention to the driver. He accepted the challenge of Ben's keen stare with no sign of recognition.

"Well?" Ben said. "Don't you know me?"

He got no answer. Matt looked at his clothes, at his hands, and then at the horse again in a silent acceptance of him that was worse than indifference. It was the sort of acceptance that you might get from a friend's dog that dislikes you and lets you pass without a sound, without so much as a sniff at your heels, regarding you inscrutably.

Ben's mouth was sufficiently tight-lipped at its