ively, "you and him was still the one kind. He would be bringing you wee books and ballants, and histories of Ireland,-an' he would be leathering me for scheming school." "Indeed, an' many's the time I wondered at you, Johnny, that you would scheme, and me envying you the whole time that could get learning. I doubt, Johnny, wee Robert and Katie will be to quit school now. An' that won't please Robert.-Ach, Johnny, sure the harm's not done yet. If you rue now, there's no one but themselves will know you rued-no one else in the world but me."

"Deed is there," he answered. 66 'Every one that saw me on the road, and the bundle with me. An' if there wasn't itself, Mary, I wouldn't rue. Why would I? Many's the time an' the hundred times I heard Robert saying, and you heard him, that this country was no good. Why would I stay in it, then?"

that to me? now, Mary, there's nothing but the bite of meat that isn't grudged me. Robert gave me all sorts this day when he seen me smoking-wasting good money on that dirty stuff, says he."

I'm telling you

Mary's eyes were sad now, and pleading, as she had a vision of the numberless small things that built the barrier between father and son.

"Ach! never heed the like of that," she said. "Robert's bark is worse nor his bite. He's a good man all out, and he thinks the world of you, Johnny."

"Does he, troth?" said the boy. "That's news, then. I might get fair play from my mother, but I'll get none from him. He's a good man, Mary, and I'm not saying against, but there's many a man not so good that it would fit me better to live with. An' I'm not that bad either," he said eagerly. "I'll send them money the same as I did before,-all I can save, only whatever I put by to buy some wee thing for yourself, Mary."

The girl broke down now and sobbed.

"Johnny dear, sure, I know you're not bad. There's not many as good. Too good you always were to me. But, Johnny dear, don't be buying me things. If the like of that came round to your mother, what would she think?"

"Let her think," said Johnny stoutly, with his arm round the crying girl.

"No, but Johnny, it's bad enough; she hates the picture

That year, as it chanced, came in fine, and Robert Corscadden got his harvest in without loss a girl of fifteen, and a little boy of twelve, not much taller than the sheaves he lifted, were the labourers who helped him. But however hard they laboured, there were still haycocks standing out in the fields when the corn was ripe for cutting. It vexed the soul of Robert to see the work thus through other, and not done in orderly sequence as he liked to have it. But still the work was done. Money came, too, from the boy in Scotland, and letters to his mother. Robert did not complain, felt no right to complain; but he brooded.

So it went on for a year, and a second year. There was no word of Johnny's returning. Robert's strength, spent daily in doing the work of two hired labourers, failed noticeably; the little boy, tasked beyond his years, was stunted in growth. Then a letter came to Robert with a proposal.

A son of the big house, near by Robert's farm, was going out to ranche in Texas. He wanted to take a trustworthy hand with him. Would Robert allow Johnny to go?

he came home for his noon-day dinner; and he handed it to Annie without a word. She also read it; her face was full of doubt, touched with fear restraining a desire.

"Johnny will be mad for going, Robert," she said. "Robert, will you let him go?" There was a halfchecked eagerness in her tone.

"Let him!" he repeated. "How would I stop him? and, God's truth, Annie, he would be mad not to go."

"Ah, but, Robert," she cried nervously, "sure you know the sort of Johnny. If you were against it he might think bad of staying, but not a one of him would go. An', Robert, I never thought he would come back nor you neither, for all we never let on to one another. Still an' all, I know rightly

"Ah, whisht, woman," said Robert, almost roughly. "Do you think I would stand in my own son's road?"

"An' you'll write to him?" the woman cried.

"To be sure I will."

ROBERT

CORSCADDEN was an Ulster farmer who owned the farm that he strove to live by. There were thirty acres of it, cold sour land, and a third part of the whole barren moor. The screen of trees which Robert had raised about the row of buildings-double cottage, byre, barn, and stable grew starved and twisted, yet there was a shelter in the homestead for folk and beasts. The beasts, for they were part of the farm, were well fed there, the folk were underfed. Yet the human beings, hardiest of animals, lived, if they did not thrive; the beasts died sometimes. Then the pinch would come.

A year before this Robert lost two cows, and after that, worse than all, the stout mare that had stood well to him since he reared her. Another horse had to be bought; the instalments of purchase-money due to Government must be paid punctually in hard cash; and, as the least ruinous way to raise it, young Johnny, a boy now man - big, who had wrought beside his father for seven or eight years, was sent to the labour in Scotland. The money was earned, the boy came back, decent, quiet, industrious, but changed. That was how trouble began.

One cold sunless morning in May, Robert and his son stood outside the door, coming out

I.

from their mid-day meal of tea and potatoes, and preparing to go back to weeding in the drills. They were looking at three men who tramped along the road from which a short cart - track led, through waste moor, to the house. Each man carried a bundle and was dressed in dark clothes.

"Yon will be some of the Glendoe fellows," said Johnny, who watched them with a curious eagerness.

66

Ay," his father answered, "they're early off. They're easy spared from the kind of farms they have in the low country."

Johnny did not notice the farmer's contemptuous reference to the patches of ground on which migratory labourers make their dwelling.

"Work should be plenty in Scotland the year, when them ones is going now," he said.

As he spoke, he pulled a pipe from his pocket and began to fill it.

His father spoke roughly. "What matter about Scotland? That's a trick you got there, any way. Why must you be for ever with a pipe in your mouth?"

"I can't be wanting it," the boy answered sullenly.

"You can't be wanting it! An' how do I do, then? I have no patience with you, wasting good money on the dirty stuff."

Johnny took the pipe out of