weather board walls. The yard behind the house
was shut in by as many outbuildings as clustered about the small
homesteads which Fergus had already beheld on the banks of the
Murrumbidgee. The man in charge of the yard was palpably in liquor, a
chronic condition from his general appearance, and Mr. Macbean
discharged him on the spot with a decision which left no loophole for
appeal. The woman in charge of the house adorned another plane of
civilization; she was very deaf, and very outspoken on her introduction
to the young gentleman, whose face she was pleased to approve, with the
implied reservation that all faces were liars; but she served up the
mutton of the country hot and tender; and Fergus Carrick, leaning back
after an excellent repast, marvelled for the twentieth time that he was
not to pay for it.

"A teetotaler, are ye?" said Macbean, mixing a third glass of whiskey,
with the skull-cap on the back of his head. "And so was I at your age;
but you're my very man. There are some it sets talking. Wait till the
old lady turns in, and then you shall see what you shall see."

Fergus waited in increasing excitement. The day's events were worthier
of a dream. To have set foot in Glenranald without knowing a soul in the
place, and to find one's self comfortably housed at a good salary before
night! There were moments when he questioned the complete sanity of his
eccentric benefactor, who drank whiskey like water, both as to quantity
and effect, and who chuckled continuously in his huge gray beard. But
such doubts only added to the excitement of the evening, which reached a
climax when a lighted candle was thrust in at the door and the pair
advised not to make a night of it by the candid crone on her way to bed.

"We will give her twenty minutes," said the manager, winking across his
glass. "I've never let her hear me, and she mustn't hear you either. She
must know nothing at all about it; nobody must, except you and me."

The mystification of Fergus was now complete. Unimaginative as he was by
practice and profession, he had an explanation a minute until the time
was up, when the truth beat them all for wild improbability. Macbean had
risen, lifting the lamp; holding it on high he led the way through baize
doors into the banking premises. Here was another door, which Macbean
not only unlocked, but locked again behind them both. A small inner
office led them into a shuttered chamber of fair size, with a broad
polished