if he
sees by my face that retribution is swift and sure, he says in the
most pathetic of tones, "Teacher, I have a pain."

[Illustration: "TEACHER, I HAVE A PAIN"]

I must make you acquainted with our "Yoho." Every well-regulated
fishing village has one, but we have to thank our neighbour, the
Eskimo, for the picturesque name. In our more prosaic parlance it is
plain "ghost." Many years ago when the Mission was in need of a
building in which to accommodate some of its workers, it purchased a
house belonging to a local trader by the name of Isaac Spouseworthy.
This made an admirable Guest House; but it has since fallen into
disuse for its original purpose, and is being employed as a temporary
repository for the clothing sent for the poor, till the fine new
storehouse shall have been built. This old Guest House has been
selected by our local apparition as a place of visitation. It is
affirmed, on the incontrovertible testimony of the Prophet and no
inconsiderable following, that the spirit returns of an evening to the
old house he built forty years ago, to wander through the familiar
rooms. The villagers see lights there nightly; and though all our
investigation has failed to reveal any presence (barring the rats),
bodily or otherwise, the bravest of them would hesitate many a long
minute before he would enter the haunted spot after nightfall. Rumour
has it that the Guest House is built on the site of an old French
cemetery. Our "irrepressible Ike" therefore cannot lack for society,
though how congenial it is cannot be determined. Judging from the
records of the ceaseless rows between the French and English on Le
Petit Nord, there must be some lively nights in ghostland.

The doctor suggested that if a burglar wished to steal the clothing,
this spook would be his most effective accomplice, but such tortuous
psychology has failed to satisfy the fishermen. To them we seem
callous souls, to whom the spirit world is alien. This ghostly
encroachment on our erstwhile quiet domain has had more than one
inconvenient result. The Mission is very short of houses for its
workmen, and was planning to rebuild and put in order a part of this
now haunted domicile for one family. The man for whom it was destined
now refuses to live there, as his children have vetoed the idea. In
this land the word of the rising generation is law, and this refusal
is therefore final.

The children of this North Country are given what they wish and