"He hasn't much spirit," he thought, and stood upon the hearth, before the open fireplace, and said no more, but waited to hear what Jerome had come for.
The Squire was far from an old man, though he seemed so to the boy.
He was scarcely middle-aged, and indeed many still called him the "young Squire," as they had done when his father died, some fifteen years before.

He was a massively built man, standing a good six feet tall in his boots; and in his boots, thick-soled, and rusty with old mud splashes, reaching high above his knees over his buckskin breeches, Squire Eben Merritt almost always stood.

He was scarcely ever seen without them, except in the meeting-house on a Sunday--when he went, which was not often.

There was a tradition that he in his boots, just home from a quail sortie in the swamp, had once invaded the best parlor, where his wife had her lady friends to tea, and which boasted a real Turkey carpet--the only one in town.
Eben Merritt in these great hunting-boots, clad as to the rest of him in stout old buckskin and rough coat and leather waistcoat, with his fair and ruddy face well covered by his golden furze of beard, which hung over his breast, lounged heavily on the hearth, and waited with a noble patience, eschewing all desire of fishing, until this pale, grave little lad should declare his errand.
But Jerome, with the great Squire standing waiting before him, felt suddenly tongue-tied.

He was not scared, though his heart beat fast; it was only that the words would not come.
The Squire watched him kindly with his bright, twinkling blue eyes under his brush of yellow hair.