Harkless wondered if his costume were not an injustice to his companion,
but he did not regret it; he would wear his best court suit, his laces and
velvets, for deference to that lady. It was a painful thing to remember
his dusty rustiness of the night before, the awful Carlow cut of his coat,
and his formless black cravat; the same felt hat he wore again to-night,
perforce, but it was brushed--brushed almost to holes in spots, and
somehow he had added a touch of shape to it. His dress-coat was an
antique; fashions had changed, no doubt; he did not know; possibly she
would recognize its vintage--but it was a dress-coat.
Lige walked along talking; Harkless answering "Yes" and "No" at random.
The woodland-spiced air was like champagne to him; the road under foot so
elastic and springy that he felt like a thoroughbred before a race; he
wanted to lift his foot knee-high at every step, he had so much energy to
spare. In the midst of a speech of Lige's about the look of the wheat he
suddenly gave out a sigh so deep, so heartfelt, so vibrant, so profound,
that Willetts turned with astonishment; but when his eye reached his
companion's face, Harkless was smiling. The editor extended his hand.
"Shake hands, Lige," he cried.
The moon peeped over the shoulder of an eastern wood, and the young men
suddenly descried their long shadows stretching in front of them. Harkless
turned to look at the silhouetted town, the tree-tops and roofs and the
Methodist church spire, silvered at the edges.
"Do you see that town, Willetts?" he asked, laying his fingers on his
companion's sleeve. "That's the best town in the United States!"
"I always kind of thought you didn't much like it," said the other,
puzzled. "Seemed to me you always sort of wished you hadn't settled here."
A little further on they passed Mr. Fisbee. He was walking into the
village with his head thrown back, a strange thing for him. They gave him
a friendly greeting and passed on.
"Well, it beats me!" observed Lige, when the old man was out of hearing.
"He's be'n there to supper again. He was there all day yesterday, and with
'em at the lecture, and at the deepo day before and he looks like another
man, and dressed up--for him--to beat thunder----What do you expect makes
him so thick out there all of a sudden?"
"I hadn't thought about it. The judge and he have been friends a good
while, haven't they?"