burst calmed down, 'in course if, as you think,
it's what he was made a-purpose for---- Well, I say no more. I never
was one to hinterfere with, or so much as even to question, the will of
the Almighty in aught. I'm not like some in that.'

'How you do run on, Binks!' sulkily put in Alick. He felt rather
cornered by the old man's plain speaking. 'And it's all very fine for
you to talk; you and Theo say the same things. But if you'd to grind
away, when the sun's shining and the sea dancing before your eyes, at
rubbishy old Latin grammars and arithmetic, and all the rest of it,
you'd be the first to grumble. Oh, I wish a hundred times in the day
that I was only Ned Dempster, who's out all hours, free as any lark!'
ended Alick, with a sudden burst of energy that nearly sent him
toppling off the sea-wall.

'Ned Dempster!' echoed Binks in amaze. Then, after turning over a few
spadefuls of earth, he looked up to say epigrammatically, 'Well, young
muster, what Ned is, I was. And what I am, Ned will be! There! D'ye
take my meaning? 'Cos I, when a b'y, was like Ned, free as any lark in
the air, so when I came to be a man without no book-larnin' in the
pockets o' my brain, I had to grope my way about in the world. Many's
the time it's bin all dark, round and round, 'cept in the faces of
other folk where I seed the light o' understanding shinin' about them
things as I couldn't make out. 'Tain't so to say comforable for a
grown man to feel that; but it's what you'll come to, young muster, if
you gits your will to go free as free!' and Binks set to work on his
refractory carrots with renewed energy.

CHAPTER II

A NOVEL TRADE

There was something so quaint about Binks, the old handy-man, that
nobody resented his preachings at them. Not the Carnegy boys, at
least, not even Alick, who was no fool. He knew, if he had allowed
himself to say so fairly and squarely, that a man without education
must of necessity make but a poor show in the world among his
fellow-men. But Alick was incorrigibly lazy, and he had grown up so
far without attempting to get the reins of his idle, pleasure-loving
self between his own fingers. Geoff, on the other hand, though a
regular pickle of a boy, did manage to scramble through his lessons,
and to present a more decent appearance therein, doubtful as it was if
he thoroughly digested what learning he took in.

He was a greater favourite in the neighbourhood than Alick; and as he