ndlord, dropping a
pinch of soda into the glass and stirring it in with a spoon. The
schoolmaster tried to drink the mixture, but in vain; it did not quench
the thirst, but produced a sickening effect. He felt like a man in a
strange land, like a wanderer in the desert, a shipwrecked mariner. Oh,
to be on the _Susan Thomas_, with miles of pure water all round! Or even
at home, where the turning of a tap brought all Lake Ontario to one's
necessities.

"Is there no other water than this about?" he asked in despair.

"Wy, yees," answered Matt; "thay's the crick a ways down the track, but
it's that black and masshy I guess you wouldn't like it no better."

"Well, get us some from there, like a good man, to wash with if we
cannot drink it, and have it taken up to our room," for it had appeared
that the two pedestrians were to inhabit a double-bedded apartment.

"'Ere, you Timotheus, look spry and go down to the crick and fetch a
pail of water for No. 6."

A shambling man, almost a hobbledehoy, of about twenty five, ran out to
obey the command, and, when he returned from No. 6, informed Wilkinson
civilly that the water was in his room. Something in his homely but
pleasant face, in his shock head and in his voice, seemed familiar to
the dominie, yet he could not place his man; when Coristine came along
and said, "You've got a brother on the _Susan Thomas_, haven't you, and
his name is Sylvanus?" The young man shuffled with his feet, opened a
mouth the very counterpart of "The Crew's," and answered: "Yes, mister,
he's my oldest brother, is Sylvanus; do you happen to know Sylvanus?"

"Know him?" said the unblushing lawyer, "like a brother; sailed all over
Lake Simcoe with him."

The lad was proud, and went to his menial tasks with a new sense of the
dignity of his family. He was called for on all sides, and appeared to
be the only member of the household in perpetual request; but, though
many liberties were taken with him personally, none were taken with his
name, which was always given in full, "Ti-mo-the-us!" Wilkinson was too
tired, thirsty and generally disgusted to do anything but sit, as he
never would have sat elsewhere, on a chair tilted against the wall.
Coristine would fain have had a talk with "The Crew's" brother, but that
worthy was ever flitting about from bar-room to kitchen, and from well
to stable; always busy and always cheerful.

The Grinstun man came swaggering up after treating all hands at the bar