“You’d never be a burden, whatever!” Thomas declared, quite shocked at the suggestion.  “I feels beholden to you, Doctor Joe.  There’s nary a thing I could ever do to make up to you for savin’ Jamie’s eyes.  You made un as good as new.  He’d ha’ been stone blind now if ’tweren’t for you—­and the mercy o’ God.”

“The mercy of God,” Doctor Joe repeated reverently.

And here at the end of six weeks was Doctor Joe back again.  What wonder that Thomas Angus and his family were quite beside themselves with joy, shouting themselves hoarse down there on the jetty.

And presently, when the skiff drew alongside, and Doctor Joe stepped out upon the jetty, he was quite overwhelmed with the welcome he received.

“Well, Thomas,” he said as they walked up to the cabin with Jamie clinging to one of his hands and Andy to the other, “here I am back again, as you see.  I couldn’t stay away from you dear, good people.  I may as well confess, I was homesick for you before I reached New York, and I’m back to stay.  I found my fortune had been made while I was here, and now I can do as I please.”

“Oh, that’s fine now!” exclaimed Margaret. “’Tis fine if you’re to stay!”

“We were missin’ you sore,” said Thomas. “’Tis like the Lord’s blessin’ to have you back at The Jug!”

“And there’s good old Roaring Brook!” Doctor Joe stopped for a moment with half closed eyes, to listen to the rush of water over the rocks, where Roaring Brook tumbled down into The Jug.  “It’s the sweetest music I’ve heard since I left here!  And the smell of the spruce trees!  And such a scene!  Thomas, my friend, it’s a rugged land where we live, but it’s God’s own land, just as He made it, beautiful, and undefiled by man!”

Doctor Joe turned about and stretched his right arm toward the south.  Before them lay the shimmering placid waters of The Jug, reaching away to join the wider, greater waters of Eskimo Bay.  In the distance, beyond the Bay, the snow-capped peaks of the Mealy Mountains stood in silent majesty, now reflecting the last brilliant rays of the setting sun.  As they tarried, watching them, the light faded and shafts of orange and red rose out of the west.  The waters became a throbbing expanse of colour, and the woods on the Point, at the entrance to The Jug, sank into purple.

“’Tis a bit of the light of heaven that the Lord lets out of evenin’s for us to see,” said Jamie, and perhaps Jamie was right.

“You must be rare hungry, now,” observed Thomas, as they entered the cabin.  “Margaret were just puttin’ supper on when Jamie sights you turnin’ the P’int.  ’Twill be ready in a jiffy.”

“What have you got for us, Margaret?” asked Doctor Joe.  “I believe I am hungry for the good things you cook.”

“Fried trout, sir,” said Margaret.

“Fried trout!” Doctor Joe rolled his eyes in mock ecstasy.  “It couldn’t have been better!”

“You always says that, whatever,” laughed Margaret.  “If ’twere just bread and tea I’m thinkin’ you’d like un fine.”