't a-goin' to raise my hand to no motherless child; no, not
if they burn down the mill; and may the Lord help me so to do!"

CHAPTER VIII

A STRANGE COMRADESHIP

O wind of death, that darkly blows
Each separate ship of human woes
Far out on a mysterious sea,
I turn, I turn my face to thee.
--ETHELWYN WETHERALD.

In spite of the excitement attendant upon the orphans' waywardness and
the doctor's growing practice, Elmbrook did not lose sight of the new
watchman in the mill.

Since the minister's rebuff, the village generally had ceased all
advances; but they watched John McIntyre from a distance, with deep
interest, not unmixed with fear. There was something in his whole
conduct to arouse apprehension. Every evening at dusk he came stealing
up the valley from the Drowned Lands, and every morning, in the gray
dawn, he stole away again. Silent and morose, avoiding all contact
with his fellow-men, he came and went with the darkness, until he
seemed a creature of night and shadows. One or two of the more kindly
souls of the village still made vain attempts to be friendly. Old
Hughie Cameron visited the mill several evenings, and Silas Long
carried his telescope down to the engine-room door, and strove to
introduce the strange man to the joys of star-gazing. Even the
minister, grieved at his former harshness, paid him a second visit.
But all alike were repulsed. John McIntyre would accept kindness from
no man, and one by one they were forced to leave him to himself. Some
of the women, too, tried to pierce his reserve, with as little effect.
The Longs lived near the mill-pond, and Mrs. Long had been in the habit
of sending Jerry Coombs, the former watchman, a nightly lunch. So one
evening she borrowed Davy Munn, and sent him down to the mill with a
strawberry pie and a plate of cookies that would have tempted any
living man. They were returned with dignified thanks, and Silas and
his wife sat and exclaimed over the strange man's obstinacy, while Davy
Munn and the eldest orphan despatched the despised viands. Mrs. Long
told her story the next afternoon at Miss McQuarry's, where the village
mothers had met to make a quilt for the Sawyer twins' bed. Every one
agreed that John McIntyre certainly was a caution, and the hostess
declared, with a sigh, that she was jist terrible feared he would bring
retribution upon Sandy for his treatment of the minister.

Ella Anne Long remarked, betwee