o him all
that part of their affairs that would have taken him away from home. He
was a born farmer; his forefathers had been farmers for as many
generations as he could trace, and he had a hereditary reverence for
mother earth as the giver of bread to man. He took pleasure in the work
of the farm, labouring patiently and cheerfully to bring it to the
highest productiveness which the soil and the variable Canadian climate
would permit. Hollows were filled and heights were levelled, and the
wide stretch of lowland on either side of the Burn near its mouth, was
year by year made to yield. A road or two to be cleared and drained and
tilled, and one might have travelled a summer day through the fine
farming country without seeing a finer farm than he made it at last.

And all this time the farm, with his interest in it and his labour on
it, was doing a good work for him, and he grew to love the place as his
home, and the home of the little children who were growing up about him.

But just as a tranquil gloaming seemed to be closing over their
changeful day of life, a new and heavy sorrow fell upon them. Their son
James died, and the two old people found themselves left alone to care
for his delicate widow and her fatherless children. Other troubles
followed closely on this. James Fleming had never been a worldly-wise
man, and he died in debt. Some of the claims were just, some of them
were doubtful, none of them could have held against his father. But the
old man gave not a moment's hearing to those who made this suggestion.
The honour of his son's name and memory was at stake, and in his haste
and eagerness to settle all, and because he had so fallen out of
business ways, the best and wisest plans were not taken in the
arrangement of his affairs.

When the time of settlement came, it was found that most of the claims
against James Fleming had passed into the hands of the Holts. It was
Jacob alone who was to be dealt with, for his father was an old man, and
his connection with the business had long been merely nominal. Jacob
Holt had changed since the days when he had been, as Hugh Fleming's
father firmly believed, the ruin of his son. He had changed from an
ill-doing, idle lad, into a man, noted even in that busy community for
his attention to business, a man who took pains to seek a fair
reputation for honesty and generosity among his fellow-townsmen. But
Mr Fleming liked the man as little as he had liked t