.

While the village thus pondered over John McIntyre's case, there was
one person who was slowly, but surely, piercing his armor of reserve.
Ever since his first visit, the eldest orphan had felt the fascination
of the wicked watchman growing, and gradually he fell into the habit of
paying him a short visit every evening. He had various reasons for
going. First, he really felt a strange affinity for this outcast.
John McIntyre was very bad, he hated good people and law and order, and
Tim was convinced that he also was the enemy of all such. Then, too,
when the boys at school learned that he was McIntyre's intimate it
threw an evil glamor over him. He added to it by dark hints of the
plots he and the watchman were hatching; the breaking of the dam and
the burning of the mill being among the smallest. Then there was that
wonderful engine he was free to examine. And last of all, Tim noticed
a strange and delightful circumstance that often attended his visits to
McIntyre. When he had been spending an evening at the mill, old Hughie
Cameron was often on the bridge as he came down the willow path; and he
never failed to pat him on the head and slip a cent into his hand.

At first, Jake and Hannah were greatly exercised over the growing
intimacy between their boy and the wicked man who had defied the
minister. They even had horrible visions of resorting to Mrs. Winters'
extreme measures once more to keep their eldest away from the mill; but
old Hughie Cameron allayed their fears. John McIntyre would never harm
a child, he declared firmly. So, much relieved, the Sawyers let the
boy have his way.

At first the man merely tolerated the child's presence in silence; but
as he grew accustomed to it he sometimes caught himself glancing down
the willow-bordered path to see if the little, hobbling figure, in the
scant trousers and the big straw hat, were yet in sight. All
conversation remained, for a time, one-sided. It consisted chiefly of
a string of questions on the boy's part, interspersed with reluctant
answers from the man. Sometimes, weary of seeking information
unsuccessfully, Tim would deliver it himself, and would talk all
evening about his past hard life. After some of its sad disclosures he
noticed that his companion was less taciturn, and he seized such
opportunities for wringing from him something of his views on religion.

"Who made this pond?" he asked one night, when the water was a radiance
of golde