"Well, well, and you have come to stay," his father said for the tenth time, rubbing his hands along his knee in ecstasy, "to stay." "It'll be great to know that I don't have to run away at the end of the summer, won't it?" "It'll jist be the answer to all my prayers, Lad. I feel I am no use in the world at all, now that you have made me give up all work." He gave his son a glance of loving reproach. For while Roderick had managed to get his education, he had managed too, to do wonderful things with the little farm, so that his father had long ago given up the work he had resumed after his year's illness. And Aunt Kirsty had a servant-girl in the kitchen now, and devoted all her time to her garden and her Bible. "You've jist made your father a useless old body. But I jist can't be minding, for I see how you can be taking up all my work. There's the Jericho Road waiting for you, Lad." The young man smiled indulgently. "And what do you think I can do there, Father? Unless Mike Cassidy goes to law as usual." "Ah, but is jist you that can. Edward will be finding great opportunities for helping folk and he has not the time now. There's that poor bit English body, Perkins, and his family, and there's Mike as you say, though Father Tracy would be straightening him up something fine. But you must jist see that he doesn't go to law any more. And then there's poor Peter Fiddle." The younger man laughed. "Peter is the kind of poor we have with us always, Dad. Is he behaving any better?" "Och, indeed I sometime think I see a decided improvement," exclaimed Old Angus, with the optimism that had refused to give Peter Fiddle up through years of drunkenness and failure. "We must jist keep hold of him, and the good Lord will save Peter yet, never fear." Roderick was silent. Personally he had no faith in Peter McDuff the elder. He had gone on through the years fiddling and singing and telling stories, his drunken sprees showing a constantly diminishing interval between. Every one in Algonquin, except Angus McRae, had given him up long ago, but his old friend still held on to him with a faith which was really the only thing that kept old Peter from complete ruin. But Roderick had the impatience of youth with failure, and though he had inherited his father's warm heart, he was not at all happy at the thought of becoming guardian of all the poor unfortunates of the town who in one way or the other had fallen among thieves.