I can see the place now--the mountain black and dismal, the moon low and strange-looking, the little waterhole glittering in the half-light, and this dark bird hooting away in the night.

An odd feeling seemed to come over my mind, and if it had been the devil himself standing on the dead limb it could not have had a worse effect on me as I stopped there, uncertain whether to turn to the right or the left.
We don't often know in this world sometimes whether we are turning off along a road where we shall never come back from, or whether we can go just a little way and look at the far-off hills and new rivers, and come home safe.
I remember the whole lot of bad-meaning thoughts coming with a rush over my heart, and I laughed at myself for being so soft as to choose a hard-working, pokey kind of life at the word of a slow fellow like George, when I might be riding about the country on a fine horse, eating and drinking of the best, and only doing what people said half the old settlers had made their money by.
Poor Aileen told me afterwards that if she'd thought for a moment I could be turned she'd have gone down on her knees and never got up till I promised to keep straight and begin to work at honest daily labour like a man--like a man who hoped to end his days in a good house, on a good farm, with a good wife and nice children round him, and not in a prison cell.

Some people would call the first, after years of honest work, and being always able to look every one in the face, being more of a man than the other.

But people have different ways and different ideas.
'Come, Ailie,' I said, 'are you going to whine and cry all night?
I shall be afraid to come home if you're going to be like this.

What's the message from father ?' She wiped away her tears, and, putting her hand on my shoulder, looked steadily into my face.
'Poor boy--poor, dear Dick,' she said, 'I feel as if I should see that fresh face of yours looking very different some day or other.