me to the North Gore
grew up, and they did not grow up to be just such men and women as their
fathers and mothers had been. It is not necessary to say whether they
were worse men or better. They were different. There was not much
change in the manner of life in many of the homes. The Sabbath was as
strictly kept, and the young people were as strictly taught and
catechised and looked after in Scottish fashion as of old, and they bade
fair to grow up as cautious and as "douce," and as much attached to old
ways and customs as if they had been brought up on the other side of the
sea, quite beyond the reach of Yankee innovations and free-and-easy
colonial ways. But even the most "douce" and cautious amongst them were
without the stiffness and strength of the old-time prejudice, and the
young people of the different sections of the township, brought together
in the many pleasant ways that are open to young people in country
places, no longer kept apart as their fathers had done.

There were troubles in Gershom still of various kinds, misunderstandings
and quarrels, and violations of the golden rule between individuals and
between families, and some of them took colour, and some of them took
strength, from national feeling and national prejudice; but there were
no longer two distinct communities living side by side in the town, as
there once had been. And by and by, when old Mr Grant and Deacon
Turner, and some others of the good men who had held with one or other
of them on earth, were gone to sit down to eat bread together in the
kingdom of heaven, the good men they had left behind them drew closer
together by slow degrees. And when Mr Hollister grew old and feeble,
and unable to do duty as pastor of the village church, all agreed that
the chief consideration, in the appointment of a successor, must be the
getting of such a man as might be able to unite the people of all
sections into one congregation at last.

This was the state of things in Gershom when it began to be whispered
that there was serious trouble arising between Jacob Holt and old Mr
Fleming.

CHAPTER TWO.

THE FLEMINGS.

There were already a good many openings in the North Gore woods when the
Flemings took possession of the partially cleared farm lying half-way
between it and the village, at a little distance from the road. They
built on it a house of grey, unhewn stone, long and low like the home
they had "left on the other side of the sea."