across the field, with dog had rejoined him. behind.

Sprat leaping up to lick his face. The
M'Tavit went back, his rod hanging down

Matt walked on sadly, his blood cooled by the sharp air. Another link with the past was broken for ever. He looked back at the simple wooden schoolhouse with the ensign of smoke fluttering above its pitched roof; kinder memories of M'Tavit surged at his heart-his little jests at the expense of the boys, his occasional reminiscences of his native Cape Breton, and of St. John, New Brunswick, with its mighty cathedral, the Life of Napoleon he had lent him last year, his prowess with line and hook the summer he boarded with the Strangs in lieu of school fees; and then-with a sudden flash-came the crowning recollection of his talent for cutting turreted castles, and tigers, and anything you pleased, out of the close-grained biscuits and the chunks of buckwheat cake the children brought for lunch. Matt's thoughts went back to the beginnings of his school career, when M'Tavit had spurred him on to master the alphabet by transforming his buckwheat cake into any animal from ass to zebra. He remembered the joy with which be had ordered and eaten his first elephant. Pausing a moment to cut a stick and drive Sprat off with it, he walked back into the wondering schoolroom.

"Please, sir, I'm sorry I went away so rudely," he said, "and I've cut you a new birch rod."

M'Tavit was touched.

"Thank you," he said simply, as he took it.

"What's the matter?" he roared, seeing Simon the Sneak's hand go up. "Please, sir, hedn't you better try if he hesn't split it and put a hair in ?"

"Grand idea!" yelled M'Tavit grimly.

"How's that?"

And the new birch rod made its trial slash at the raised hand.

CHAPTER IV

"MAN PROPOSES"

MRS. STRANG was busy in Deacon Hailey's kitchen. The providential death of Mrs. Hailey had given her chores to do at the homestead; for female servants-or even male-were scarce in the colony, and Ruth had been brought up by her mother to play on the harpsichord.

When Mrs. Strang got home after a three-mile walk, sometimes through sleet and slush, she would walk up and down till the small hours, spinning carded wool into yarn at her great uncouth wheel, and weeping automatically at her loneliness, reft even of the occasional husband for whom she had forsaken the great naval city of her girlhood, the beautiful century-old capital. "It's 'nough to make a body throw up the position," she would cry hysterically to the deaf rafters, when the children were asleep and only the wind was awake. But the droning wheel went round just the same, steady as the wheel of time (Mrs. Strang moving to and fro like a shuttle), till the task was completed, and morning often found her ill-rested and fractious and lachrymose. Matt would have pitied her more if she had pitied herself less. In the outside world, however, she had no airs of martyrdom, bearing herself genially and independently. At the "revivals" held in private houses she was an important sinful figure, though neither Harriet nor Matt had yet found grace or membership. She smiled a pleasant response to-night when Deacon Hailey came in from the tannery and said "Good evenin'." It was a large, low kitchen, heated by an American stove, with a gleaming dresser and black wooden beams, from which hams hung. The deacon felt more comfortable there than in the room in which Ruth was at that moment engaged in tinkling the harpsichord, a room that contained other archaic heirlooms; old china, a tapestry screen, Scriptural mottoes worked in ancestral hair, and a large coloured lithograph of the Ark on Mount Ararat, for refusing to come away from which Matt had once been clouted by his mother before all the neighbours. The house was indeed uncommonly luxurious, sheltered by double

doors and windows, and warmly wrapped in its winter cincture of tan-bark.

"An' how's Billy?" asked the deacon. "Some folks 'ud say, How's Billy's mother, but thet I can see fur myself, rael bonny and han'sum, thet's a fact. It's sick folk es a Christian should

inquire arter, hey?"

"Billy's jest the same," replied Mrs. Strang, her handsome face clouding.

"No more fits, hey?"

"No, not for a long time, thank God. But he'll never be straight agen."

"Ah, Mrs. Strang, we're all crooked somehow. 'Tis the Lord's will, you may depend. Since my poor Susan was took, my heart's all torn and mangled, my heart-strings kinder twisted 'bout her grave. Ah! never kin I forgit her. Love is love, I allus thinks. My time was spent so happy, plannin' how to make her happyfor 'tis only in makin' others happy that we git happy ourselves, hey? Now I hev no wife to devote myself to, my han's are empty. I go 'bout lookin' everyways fur Sunday."

"Oh, but I'm sure you've never got a minute to spare."

"You may depend," said the deacon proudly. "If I ain't 'tarnally busy, what with the tannery an' the grist-mill an' the farm an' the local mail, it's a pity. I don't believe in neglectin' dooty because your heart's bustin' within." He spat sorrowfully under the stove. 66 'My motto is, 'Take kear o' the minutes, and the holidays 'll take kear o' themselves.' A man hes no time to waste in this oncivilised Province, where stinkin' Indians, that never cleared an acre in their lazy lives, hev the right to encamp on a man's land, an' cut down his best firs an' ashes for their butter-butts and baskets, an' then hev the imperence to want to swop the identical same for your terbacco. It's thievin', I allus thinks, right-down breakin' o' the Commandments, hey?"

66

Well, what kin you expec' from Papists?" replied Mrs. Strang. "Why, fur sixpence the holy fathers forgive 'em all their sins."

""Tain't often they've got sixpence, hey? When 'lection day comes round agen I don't vote fur no candidate that don't promise to coop all them greasy Micmacs up in a reservation, same es they do to Newfoundland. They're not fit to mix with hardworkin' Christian folk. Them thar kids o' yourn, now, I hope they're proper industrious. A child kint begin too airly to larn field-work, hey?"

"Ah, they're the best children in the world," said Mrs. Strang. "They'll do anythin' an' eat anythin' e'en a'most, an' never a crost word; thet's a fact."

The deacon suppressed a smile of self-gratulation. Labour was scarcer than ever that year, and in his idea of marrying Harriet Strang, which he was now cautiously about to broach, the possibility of securing the gratuitous services of the elder children counted not a little, enhancing the beauty of his prospective bride. He replied feelingly:

"I'm everlastin' glad to hear it, Mrs. Strang, for I know you kin't afford t' employ outside labour. They're goin' to arx three shillin's a day this summer, the bloodsuckers."

"The labourer is worthy of his hire," " quoted Mrs. Strang.

"Yes, but he allus wants to be highered, hey? A seasonable joke ain't bad in its right place, I allus thinks. You needn't allus be pullin' a long face. Thet Matt of yourn, now, I've seen him with a face like Ole Jupe's fiddle, and walkin' along es slow es a bark-mill turns a'most."

Mrs. Strang sighed.

"Ah, you're a good woman, Mrs. Strang. There's no call to blush, fur it's true. D'ye think Deacon Hailey hesn't got eyes fur what's under his nose? The way you're bringing up them thar kids is a credit to the Province. I only hopes they'll be proper thankful fur it when they're growed up. It makes my heart bleed a'most, I do declare. Many a time I've said to myself, 'Deacon Hailey, 'tis your dooty to do somethin' fur them thar orphans.' Many a time I've thought I'd take the elder ones off your han's. There's plenty o' room in the ole farm-'twere built for children, but there's on'y Ruth left. An' she isn't my own, though when you see a gal around from infancy, you forgits you ain't the father, hey? What a pity poor Sophia's two boys were as delicate as herself!"

Sophia?" murmured Mrs. Strang interrogatively.

"Thet was my fust wife afore you came to these parts. She died young, poor critter. Never shall I forgit her. Ah, there's nothin' like fust love, I allus thinks. If I hedn't wanted to hev children to work for, I should never ha' married agen. But it's a selfish business, workin' for one's own han', I allus thinks, knowin' thet when you die all you've sweated for 'll go to strangers. An' now thet I've on'y got one soul dependent on me, I feels teetotally onswoggled. What do you say? s'pose I relieve you of Mattdooty don't end with passin' the bag round in church, hey?—it's on this airth thet we're called upon to sacrifice ourselves—or better still-s'pose I take Harriet off your han's?"

Mrs. Strang answered hesitatingly, "It is rael kind o' you, deacon. But, of course, Harriet couldn't live here with you." "Hey? Why not?"

"She's too ole."

"And how ole might she be?"

"Gittin' on for seventeen."

66 I guess thet's not too ole for me," he said, with a guffaw. Mrs. Strang paused, startled. The deacon smiled on.

The idea took away her breath. In the embarrassing silence the tinkle of Ruth's harpsichord sounded like an orchestra.

"You-would-raelly-like my Harriet?" Mrs. Strang said at

last.

"You may depend-I've thought a good deal of her, a brisk an' handy young critter with no boardin'-school nonsense 'bout her." He worked his quid carefully into the other cheek, complacently enjoying Mrs. Strang's overwhelmed condition, presumably due to his condescension. "Of course there's heaps of han'sum gals everyways, but booty is only skin-deep, I allus thinks. She's very young, too, but thet's rather in her favour. You, can eddicate 'em if you take 'em young. Train up a child, hey?" "But I'm afeared Harriet wouldn't give up Abner Preep," said Mrs. Strang slowly. "She's the most obstinate gal, thet's a fact." "Hey? She walks out with Abner Preep?"

"No-not thet! I've sot my face agin thet. But I know sho wouldn't give him up, thet's sartin."

Ruth's harpsichord again possessed the silence, trilling forth "Doxology" with an unwarranted presto movement. Mrs. Strang went on: "The time o' your last muddin' frolic she danced with him all night e'en a'most an' druv off home in his sleigh, an' there ain't a quiltin' party or a candy-pullin' or an infare but she contrives to meet him."

"Scendalous !" exclaimed the deacon.

"I don't see nothin' scendalous!" replied Mrs. Strang indignantly. "The young man wants to marry her genuine. 'Pears to me your darter is more scendalous a'most, playin' hymns as if they were hornpipes. I didn't arx my folks if I might meet my poor Davie; we went to dances an' shows together, an' me a Baptist, God forgive me! And Harriet's jest like thet-the hussy-she takes arter her mother."

"But if you were to talk to her!" urged the deacon.

Mrs. Strang shook her head.

"She'd stab herself sooner."

"Stab herself sooner'n give up Abner Preep!" "Sooner'n marry any one else."

The deacon paused to cut himself a wedge of tobacco, imperturbably. There was no trace of his disappointment visible: with characteristic promptitude he was ready for the next best thing.