s blazing,
and stamped his small foot.

"I'll not be English!" he shouted. "It's jist them louts from the
Tenth is English! An' I'll be Hielan'. An' it's not my name!"

"Eh, eh, mannie!" cried his grandmother gently. She laid her hand on
the boy's arm and drew him toward her. "That will be no way for a big
boy that will be going to school to behave," she whispered. The child
turned to her and saw to his amazement that her eyes were full of
tears. His sturdy little figure stiffened suddenly, and he made a
desperate effort for self-control.

"But it would be a great lie, Granny!" he faltered appealingly.

"Hoots, never you mind!" cried his grandfather, with strange leniency;
and even in the midst of his passion Scotty dimly wondered that he did
not receive a summary chastisement for his fit of temper. There was a
strange, sad look in the man's eyes that alarmed the child more than
anger would have done.

"Granny will be telling you all about it," he said, rising. "Come,
lads, it will be getting late."

The three young men followed their father out to the stable.
Ordinarily they attended to the evening duties there themselves, but
to-night Big Malcolm wished to leave the boy alone with his
grandmother, realising that the situation needed a woman's delicate
handling.

This new proceeding filled Scotty with an added alarm. He clambered up
on his grandmother's knee as soon as they were alone and demanded an
explanation; surely that English name wasn't his. He whispered the
momentous question, for though Old Farquhar was snoring loudly in his
corner, Bruce was there, wide awake and looking up inquiringly, as
though he could understand.

And so, with her arms about him, Granny told him for the first time the
story of his birth. How Granny had had only one little girl, older
than Callum, eh, and such a sweet lassie she was; how just when they
had landed in Canada she had married a young Englishman who had come
over with them on the great ship; how they had left them in Toronto
when they came north to the forests of Oro; how their baby had come,
the most beautiful baby, Granny's little girl wrote, and how she had
written also that they, too, were coming north to live near the old
folks when,--Granny's voice faltered,--when the fever came, and both
Granny's beautiful little girl and her Englishman died, and Grandaddy
and Callum had journeyed miles through the bush to bring Granny her
baby, and how Kirsty Joh