Now, if this be true of the whole, it may be true of a part." "Abiram, out with your grievances like a man," interrupted the squatter, with a hoarse laugh.

"You want to pray! But of what use will it be, according to your own doctrine, to serve God five minutes and the devil an hour?
Harkee, friend; I'm not much of a husband-man, but this I know to my cost; that to make a right good crop, even on the richest bottom, there must be hard labour; and your {snufflers} liken the 'arth to a field of corn, and the men, who live on it, to its yield.

Now I tell you, Abiram, that you are no better than a thistle or a mullin; yea, ye ar' wood of too open a pore to be good even to burn!" The malign glance, which shot from the scowling eye of Abiram, announced the angry character of his feelings, but as the furtive look quailed, immediately, before the unmoved, steady, countenance of the squatter, it also betrayed how much the bolder spirit of the latter had obtained the mastery over his craven nature.
Content with his ascendency, which was too apparent, and had been too often exerted on similar occasions, to leave him in any doubt of its extent, Ishmael coolly continued the discourse, by adverting more directly to his future plans.
"You will own the justice of paying every one in kind," he said; "I have been robbed of my stock, and I have a scheme to make myself as good as before, by taking hoof for hoof; or for that matter, when a man is put to the trouble of bargaining for both sides, he is a fool if he don't pay himself something in the way of commission." As the squatter made this declaration in a tone which was a little excited by the humour of the moment, four or five of his lounging sons, who had been leaning against the foot of the rock, came forward with the indolent step so common to the family.
"I have been calling Ellen Wade, who is on the rock keeping the look-out, to know if there is any thing to be seen," observed the eldest of the young men; "and she shakes her head, for an answer.

Ellen is sparing of her words for a woman; and might be taught manners at least, without spoiling her good looks." Ishmael cast his eye upward to the place, where the offending, but unconscious girl was holding her anxious watch.

She was seated at the edge of the uppermost crag, by the side of the little tent, and at least two hundred feet above the level of the plain.