ed old McKay, who was busy
picking the drum-stick of a wild-goose at the moment. "If it wass not
for the jealousy an' ill-will o' the North-Westers we should hev been at
this goot hour in our comfortable houses amang the green fields of Rud
Ruver."

"Wheesht! faither!" interposed Duncan junior, "Mr Sutherland wass
speakin', an' ye've stoppit him."

"An' what if I hev, Tuncan? Can he not continoo to speak when I hev
done?" retorted the old man, resuming his drum-stick.

"You are right, Mr McKay," said the elder. "But for the unfortunate
jealousies of the two Companies, we might have been in very different
circumstances to-day. If the North-Westers could only see that the
establishment of a colony in Red River would in no way hinder the
fur-trade, we could all get along peaceably enough together. But it
seems to have been ordained that man shall reach every good thing
through much tribulation."

"I do not agree wi' you at all, Muster Sutherland," said old McKay.
"There iss many of rich people in this world, who hev all that hert can
wush, an' are born to it without hevin' any treebulation at all."

"But I did not say `all that heart could wish,' Mr McKay. I said
`_every_ good thing'."

"Well, an' iss not wealth a goot thing, Muster Sutherland?"

"Only if God's blessing goes along with it," returned the elder. "If it
does not, wealth is a curse."

"H'm! I wush I had a little more o' that curse--whatever," answered the
irreverent old man.

"Besides," continued Sutherland, not noticing the remark, "the rich are
by no means exempt from tribulation. They are sometimes afflicted with
bad children; not infrequently with bad health, which doctors, at two or
three guineas a visit, cannot cure, and many of them are much troubled
with poverty!"

"You are talking in ruddles now, Muster Sutherland," said old Duncan,
who, having finished the drum-stick and its duplicate, was preparing his
pipe for action.

"It is not much of a riddle, Mr McKay. I suppose you consider a man
with ten thousand a year rich, and a man with two hundred poor."

"Well, yes; I wull not be denyin' that."

"Well--if the rich man spends ten thousand and fifty pounds a year and
never has anything to spare or to lay by, is he not miserably poor--poor
in spirit as well as in purse? For, at the end of the year his purse is
empty, and he is in debt. On the other hand, if the man with two
hundred a year spends one hundred and fifty, gives aw