he doctor, once wrote

You need not suppose,—it was! I hate to think of how she suffers. Look at yonder lot of firs and spruce with the gray, green, drooping mosses on them. After a rain that hillside looks like a great cascade. 38You see the moss hangs in arrow-head shapes, like those of falling water. It is so hard to set these simple things in words—you can describe them with half a dozen pencil-marks. I envy you the power. I have to stick to my old habit of word-sketches, about which our friend, the doctor, once wrote, as you know. On Sunday we will have a run up-stream, and a big wood-and-water chat.” As he spoke the canoe slipped around a little headland, and was at once close to the cliff camp. “That doesn’t look very peaceful,” cried Rose. “Oh, they will be killed!” and she started up. “Keep still,” said her father; “you will upset us.” What she saw looked grim enough: a tangle of three boys, rolling down some fifteen feet of graveled slope; then the three afoot; two or three savage blows, fierce cries, and a sudden pause, as Lyndsay called out: “Hullo there!—quit that, Jack! Stop, Ned!” Their faces were very red, their clothes covered with dirt. There was silence and instant obedience. Mrs. Lyndsay stood imploring at the top of the cliff, and Anne was standing by with a queer smile on her face, and her fingers in a book. “Who began it, boys? What is it all about?” Jack spoke first: “Dick hit Ned, and he’s too small for him, and so I hit Dick.” “He might have let us alone. I’m as good as Dick any time,” said the slightest of the lads, with no show of gratitude. “He said I was a fool,” explained Dick. “Ned’s quite a match, but Jack can’t keep out of a row.” 39“And so it was two to one, was it? I can’t stand that: no more fishing to-day or to-morrow, Master Jack.” “Yes, sir.” “And now, what was this war about?” “Well, Ned he said Claverhouse was a bloody villain, and I said he was a gallant gentleman, and Ned said I was a fool.” “That was a difference of sentiment which has cost blood before,” laughed Anne, from the bluff. Ned grinned as he wiped a bloody nose. “Oh, do keep quiet, Anne,” said her brother; “this is my affair. How is it, Ned, and you, Dick? Is it settled? If not, there is room back of the house. This fighting before women is not to my taste. But is all this just as Dick says, Ned?” “Why, father, I—I said it.” And Dick’s face flushed. “You are right, sir; I beg pardon. As you seem indisposed to have it out, shake hands; but an honest shake. It must be peace or war; no sullenness.” “All right, sir. I’m sorry, Dick.”