As I made to go from him, he started off again. "You don't happen to be a married man, wi' a wife and bairns?" he asked. "No, Donald. Thank goodness! What made you ask that?" "Oh! I thought maybe you were and that was the way you liked the words o' my bit song." I left the tinker finishing his belated breakfast and hurried down the road toward the village. The sun was getting high in the heavens, birds were singing and the spring workers were busy in the fields. I took the side track down the rough pathway leading to Modley Farm. My good friend, big, brawny, bluff Tom Tanner,--who was standing under the porch,--hailed me from a distance, with his usual merry shout. "Where away, George? Feeling fit for our trip?" he asked as I got up to him. "I am sorry, old boy, but, so far as I am concerned, the trip is off. I just hurried down to tell you and Jim. "You see, Tom, there is going to be a House Party up there this week-end and my dad's mighty anxious to have me at home; so much so, that I would offend him if I went off. Being merely George Brammerton, I must bow to the paternal commands, although I would rather, a hundred times, be at the games." Tom's face fell, and I could see he was disappointed. I knew how much he enjoyed those week-end excursions of ours. "The fact is," I explained, "there is going to be a marriage up there pretty soon, and, naturally, I am wanted to meet the lady." "Great Scott! George,--you are not trying to break it gently to me? You are not going to get married, are you?" he asked in consternation. I laughed loudly. "Lord, no! Not for a kingdom. It is my big brother Harry." Tom seemed relieved. He even sighed. "I'm glad to hear you say it, George, for there's a lot of fine athletic meetings coming on during the next three or four months and it would be a pity to miss them for, for,---- Oh! hang it all! you know what I mean. You're such a queer, serious, determined sort of customer, that it's hard to say what you will do next." He looked so solemn over the matter that I laughed again. His kind-hearted old mother, who had been at work in the kitchen and had overheard our conversation, came to the doorway and placed her arms lovingly around our broad shoulders.