bothered wi' ony Fenians, nor Orangemen, nor
sik like there!"

"Times'll be better now the Murphys know their place," said Weaver
Jimmie confidently, pitching one leg over the other. "Callum led a
fine charge. The Fenians may take Canady, but they'll not----"

"Hooch!" Big Malcolm broke in fiercely. Weaver Jimmie did not properly
belong either by age or sentiments to this gathering, and his remark
regarding Callum was very much out of place. "Yon son o' mine will
jist be a breeder o' mischief in this place, James MacDonald!" he
cried, "an' it's little check you will be on him, whatever. It is high
time, indeed, that ye were both settlin' down an' stoppin' such doings!
But och, och," he added with a sudden change of tone, "it is myself
will be the worst of them all."

Weaver Jimmie heaved a sentimental sigh. "It will not be any fault of
mine that I will not be settled down," he muttered gloomily.

Praying Donald's rumbling voice had arisen again. "Yes, oh yes, the
evil will be growing; and the Judge will be coming in His wrath and we
will jist be like Sodom and Gomorrah!"

"Oh, indeed," broke in Store Thompson, "the good Lord is slow to anger
and of great mercy, Donald, ye mind!"

"Mercy!" roared Praying Donald. "Eh, James, do not be deceiving
yourselves! He will be just. We must be reaping what we sow. This
place is sowing the wind and it will be reaping the whirlwind. 'For I
the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers
upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that
hate me.'"

Long Lauchie came suddenly to the surface, this time with a precious
pearl: "And showing mercy unto thousands," he continued softly. "Oh,
yes, indeed and indeed, unto thousands, mercy unto thousands!" He sank
again into the ocean of his imagination, and the tide of conversation
flowed over him unheeded.

"'Visiting the sins of the father upon the children,'" repeated Big
Malcolm bitterly. He dropped his head into his hands and groaned.

There was a long silence. These men were facing a great problem in the
building up of this new nation, one which presented graver difficulties
than they had met even in the toil and stress of breaking the forest.
In the early days the social problem had not arisen; the settler had
been too busy to permit of its troubling him. He needed all his time
and strength to battle with this new land and compel her to give him
his due of bread and s