when I was young I could
not learn them, and when I grew older I would not learn them. My
father had called me John Calvin and I detested the name. On my
eighteenth birthday I asked him to have it changed. He was very angry
at my request. I begged him passionately to do so. I said it ruined my
life, that I could do nothing under that name. 'Give me your own name,
Father,' I entreated, 'and I will try and be a good man!'

"He said something to me, I never knew exactly what, but the last word
was more than I could bear and my reply was an oath. Then he lifted
the whip at his side and struck me."

Rahal and Thora were sobbing. Ragnor looked in the youth's face with
shining eyes and asked, almost in a whisper, "What did thou do?"

"I had been struck often enough before to have made me indifferent,
but at this moment some new strength and feeling sprang up in my
heart. I seized his arms and the whip fell to the floor. I lifted it
and said, 'Sir, if you ever again use a whip in place of decent words
to me, I will see you no more until we meet for the judgment of God.
Then I will pity you for the life-long mistake you have made.' My
father looked at me with eyes I shall never forget, no, not in all
eternity! He burst into agonizing prayer and weeping and I went and
told mother to go to him. I left the house there and then. I had not
a halfpenny, and I was hungry and cold and sick with an intolerable
sense of wrong."

"Father!" said Thora, in a voice broken with weeping. "Is not this
enough?" And Ragnor leaned forward and took Thora's hand but he did
not speak. Neither did he answer Rahal's look of entreaty. On the
contrary he asked:

"Then, Ian? Then, what did thou do?"

"I felt so ill I went to see Dr. Finlay, our family physician. He knew
the family trouble, because he had often attended mother when she was
ill in consequence of it. I did not need to make a complaint. He saw
my condition and took me to his wife and told her to feed and comfort
me. I remained in her care four days, and then he offered to take me
into his office and set me to reading medical text books, while I did
the office work."

"What was this work?"

"I was taught how to prepare ordinary medicines, to see callers when
the doctor was out, and make notes of, and on, their cases. I helped
the doctor in operations, I took the prescriptions to patients and
explained their use, etc. In three years I became very useful and
helpful and I was quite hap