his rapacious modes of thought, and
that, after a thousand years of cogitation in some disembodied state, he
was allowed to reassume the flesh, to fight a different fight, to raise
himself by battle with himself, we shall, perhaps, account for some of
the strangely divergent qualities that met in the subject of this story.
At least, let us name the ancient Sea-king as Cause Number Four.... And
conjunction of these four was affected in the '50s at Downey's Hotel,
when Jim Hartigan met Kitty Muckevay.

These were the strains that were mingled in little Jim; and during his
early life from the first glimpse we catch of him upon the back of the
unbroken colt, he was torn by the struggle between the wild, romantic,
erratic, visionary, fighting Celt, with moods of love and hate, and the
calmer, steady, tireless, lowland Scottish Saxon from the North who, far
less gifted, had far more power and in the end had mastery; and having
won control, built of his mingled heritages a rare, strong soul, so
steadfast that he was a tower of strength for all who needed help.

CHAPTER III

How He Lost His Father

The immediate and physical environment of Links was the far backwoods of
Canada, but the spirit and thought of it were Irish. The inhabitants
were nearly all of Irish origin, most of them of Irish birth, and the
fates had ruled it so that they came from all parts of the green isle.
The North was as well represented as the South, and the feuds of the old
land were most unprofitably transferred to the new.

Two days on the calendar had long been set aside by custom for the
celebration of these unhappy feuds; the seventeenth of March, which is
St. Patrick's Day, and the twelfth of July, on which, two hundred years
before, King William had crossed the river to win the famous Battle of
the Boyne. Under the evil spell of these two memorable occasions,
neighbours who were good and helpful friends, felt in honour bound to
lay all their kindness aside twice every year, and hate and harass each
other with a senseless vindictiveness.

At the time with which this chronicle has to do, Orange Day had dawned
on Links. No rising treble issued from the sawmills; the air was almost
free of their dust, and there were hints of holiday on all the town.
Farmers' wagons were arriving early, and ribbons of orange and blue were
fastened in the horses' headgear. From the backyard of Downey's Hotel
the thumping of a big drum was heard, and the g