settled down to work his little
farm. But he never quite gave up the drink, though Angus McRae's hand
held him back from it many and many a time. But Angus had been ill for
a couple of years, and Peter had gone very far astray when the helping
hand was removed.

He had gone steadily downward until his powers were wasted and his
health ruined. His wife gave up the struggle, when young Peter was but
a child, and closed her tired eyes on the dirt and misery of her ruined
home. Then Angus McRae had regained his health and his grip on Peter,
and since then, with many disappointments and backslidings, he had
managed to bring him struggling back to a semblance of his old manhood.
He was not redeemed yet. But old Angus never gave up hope.

Poor Young Peter had grown up dull of brain and heavy of foot,
handicapped before birth by the drink. But he had clung doggedly to
that one idea which Angus McRae had drilled into him, that he must, as
he valued his life, avoid that dread thing which had ruined his father
and killed his mother.

Lawyer Ed pulled up his horse before the house. Young Peter had not
yet come in with the _Inverness_, but he looked about for Peter Fiddle.
He had been sober for a much longer time than usual in this interval,
and both he and Angus were keeping an anxious, hopeful eye upon him.

"I wonder where Peter is," he said.

For answer Roderick pointed down the road before them. A horse and
wagon stood close to the road-side. They drove up to it, and there,
stretched on the seat of his wagon, his horse cropping the grass by the
way-side, lay poor old Peter, dead drunk.

"Well, well, well!" cried Lawyer Ed in mingled disgust and
disappointment. "He's gone again, and your father had such hopes of
him!" He gave the lines to Roderick and leaped out.

"Hi, Peter!" he shouted, shaking the man violently. "Wake up! It's
time for breakfast, man!"

But Peter Fiddle made no more response than a log. And then a look of
boyish mischief danced into Lawyer Ed's young eyes.

"Come here, Rod!" he cried. "Let's fix him up and see what he'll do
when we get back."

Roderick alighted and helped unhitch the old horse from the wagon.
They led him back to the house, watered him, put him into the old
stable and fed him. When they returned, Peter still lay asleep on the
wagon seat, and they drove off. Lawyer Ed in a fit of boyish mirth.

It was heavy news for old Angus when they sat around the supper table,