"Well--I don't know--" said the old gentleman;--"those times would make the prettiest figure in a story or a romance, I suppose; but I've tried both, and on the whole," said he with another of his looks at Fleda,--"I think I like these times the best!"
Fleda smiled her acquiescence. His guest could not help thinking to himself that however pacific might be Mr. Ringgan's temper, no man in those days that tried men could have brought to the issue more stern inflexibility and gallant fortitude of bearing. His frame bore evidence of great personal strength, and his eye, with all its mildness, had an unflinching dignity that _could_ never have quailed before danger or duty. And now, while he was recalling with great animation and pleasure the scenes of his more active life, and his blue eye was shining with the fire of other days, his manner had the self-possession and quiet sedateness of triumph that bespeak a man always more ready to do than to say. Perhaps the contemplation of the noble Roman-like old figure before him did not tend to lessen the feeling, even the sigh of regret, with which the young man said,
"There was something then for a man to do!"
"There is always that," said the old gentleman quietly. "God has given every man his work to do; and 'tain't difficult for him to find out what. No man is put here to be idle."
"But," said his companion, with a look in which not a little haughty reserve was mingled with a desire to speak out his thoughts, "half the world are busy about hum-drum concerns and the other half doing nothing, or worse."
"I don't know about that," said Mr. Ringgan;--"that depends upon the way you take things. 'Tain't always the men that make the most noise that are the most good in the world. Hum-drum affairs needn't be hum-drum in the doing of 'em. It is my maxim," said the old gentleman looking at his companion with a singularly open pleasant smile,--"that a man may be great about a'most anything--chopping wood, if he happens to be in that line. I used to go upon that plan, sir. Whatever I have set my hand to do, I have done it as well as I knew how to; and if you follow that rule out you'll not be idle, nor hum-drum neither. Many's the time that I have mowed what would be a day's work for another man, before breakfast."