“How has it happened that an Italian boy with a Scotch name is living in a place like Lindsay?”

“Well, Master, it was this way.  About twenty-two years ago—­was it twenty-two, Mother or twenty-four?  Yes, it was twenty-two—­ ’twas the same year our Jim was born and he’d have been twenty-two if he’d lived, poor little fellow.  Well, Master, twenty-two years ago a couple of Italian pack peddlers came along and called at the Gordon place.  The country was swarming with them then.  I useter set the dog on one every day on an average.

“Well, these peddlers were man and wife, and the woman took sick up there at the Gordon place, and Janet Gordon took her in and nursed her.  A baby was born the next day, and the woman died.  Then the first thing anybody knew the father skipped clean out, pack and all, and was never seen or heard tell of afterwards.  The Gordons were left with the fine youngster to their hands.  Folks advised them to send him to the Orphan Asylum, and ’twould have been the wisest plan, but the Gordons were never fond of taking advice.  Old James Gordon was living then, Thomas and Janet’s father, and he said he would never turn a child out of his door.  He was a masterful old man and liked to be boss.  Folks used to say he had a grudge against the sun ’cause it rose and set without his say so.  Anyhow, they kept the baby.  They called him Neil and had him baptized same as any Christian child.  He’s always lived there.  They did well enough by him.  He was sent to school and taken to church and treated like one of themselves.  Some folks think they made too much of him.  It doesn’t always do with that kind, for ’what’s bred in bone is mighty apt to come out in flesh,’ if ’taint kept down pretty well.  Neil’s smart and a great worker, they tell me.  But folks hereabouts don’t like him.  They say he ain’t to be trusted further’n you can see him, if as far.  It’s certain he’s awful hot tempered, and one time when he was going to school he near about killed a boy he’d took a spite to—­choked him till he was black in the face and Neil had to be dragged off.”

“Well now, father, you know they teased him terrible,” protested Mrs. Williamson.  “The poor boy had a real hard time when he went to school, Master.  The other children were always casting things up to him and calling him names.”

“Oh, I daresay they tormented him a lot,” admitted her husband.  “He’s a great hand at the fiddle and likes company.  He goes to the harbour a good deal.  But they say he takes sulky spells when he hasn’t a word to throw to a dog.  ’Twouldn’t be any wonder, living with the Gordons.  They’re all as queer as Dick’s hat-band.”

“Father, you shouldn’t talk so about your neighbours,” said his wife rebukingly.