Two snow-besprinkled, travel-stained men, came in out of the darkness and stood revealed in the glowing fire-light as Sandy McKay and Tom Loker. "Welcome home! However did you get here?" asked the squire warmly shaking their hands, and making room for them at the fire. "We thought you were prisoners in the hulks at Sackett's Harbour." "So we were," replied Tom Loker with all his old _sang froid_, "longer than we wanted." "How did you like picking oakum for the Yankees, Sandy?" asked Zenas. "Nae oakum picked I," said Sandy with an air of grim determination. "It was clean against ma conscience to gi' aid or comfort to the King's enemies in ony way." "What did they say to that?" asked the squire. "I thought they had a way of overcoming scruple's of that sort." "They could na owercome mine," said Sandy. "They jest clapped him in the bilboes and kept him there for one while," interjected Tom. "For me, I'd rather pick all day at the tarred rope though it _was_ hard on the fingers." "Did they use you well otherwise?" asked Kate with commiseration in her voice. "Prisoners can na be choosers, Miss Katharine," responded Sandy. "I suppose our treatment was naithing by ordinair. We hadna thae oaten bannocks and hot kale ye aftens gave us. But warst o' a' was bein' pent in the close hot hulks 'tween decks, whaur ye couldna stan' upricht wi'out knocking your heid again the timmers, and whaur ye gat na a sough o' the blessed air o' heaven save what stole in through the wee port-holes. How we tholed it sae lang I dinna ken. We faured better after yon Methody parson came." "Ay, he wor a good un, he wor," said Tom. "Who was he?" asked Kate with much interest. "He wuzzn't much to look at," continued Tom; "that is, there wuzzn't much of him. But he had a heart big as a mountain; ther wuz nothin he wouldn't do for them poor prisoners. 'He wuz come to preach salvation,' he said, 'to them that wuz bound.' Case wuz his name,--a leettle man, but worth mor'n a dozen ornary men. I remember one day he came 'long side with a boat load of tea, coffee, sugar, and several jars of milk for the prisoners; and he preached, and prayed, and exhorted so long that it seemed as if he couldn't tear hisself away." We may be allowed here to quote, in illustration of the labours of that heroic man, Elder Case, to whom Canadian Methodism owes such a debt of gratitude, extracts of two of his letters written about this period: