't have to work when I get a big man, Daddy," he said
comfortingly. "I'll work for you. An' I'll get rich, an' you'll have
lots an' lots of money."

His father smiled down at him lovingly. "Och, indeed, it's your father
will be the happy man when Roderick grows up. He'll have nothing to do
at all at all."

"What was Lawyer Ed doing?" queried the child, after a moment's
thought. "Is he goin' to let Jock McPherson take away our house?"

"No, no, child. You must not be troubling your head with such
thoughts. It was just some business Roderick is not old enough to
understand."

The little fellow sat swinging his short legs and gazing out over the
lake, struggling with a vague sense of danger. He had been brought up
on the edge of poverty, but had been joyously unconscious of the fact.
His father, Aunt Kirsty, Collie, his dog, and the farm had been his
world, a world of love and enjoyment and plenty. But now he felt the
nearness of some unseen foe, something that had made Lawyer Ed and
Doctor Blair look so grave, and was now keeping his father quiet and
thoughtful. He had a notion that it all had something to do with money.

"If you only had a pot o' gold," he said at last, still staring out
over the lake.

"A pot of gold!" repeated his father, with a laugh. "And what would be
putting that into your foolish little head?"

"A pot o' gold would buy anything you wanted, Peter says. He told me
about it, Peter Fiddle did. Once a boy found a pot o' gold hangin' on
to the end of a rainbow. There's always one there, Daddy. Yes, there
is, Peter Fiddle says so. An' a boy travelled a long, long way to the
end of a rainbow, an' he found it--the pot o' gold. An' he was rich,
an' he gave money to all the poor people an' made them happy."

"And so Peter's been telling you more fairy-tales, eh? Well, well, it
will be a pretty one. And now, I suppose the first rainbow you see,
you'll be off to get that pot of gold."

He nodded excitedly. "Wouldn't I just!" he cried.

Angus McRae was not despondent over the mortgage which his ill health
and his extravagant expenditure for oil and wine and inn-fees had
compelled him to put on his little farm. He was one of those glad
souls, with such a perfect faith in his Father, that he could not but
believe that what might seem to be a bane was in reality a blessing.
But he was a little puzzled and thoughtful. The solution of the
problem was in his Father's hands, of course