'We discussed it together last night,' he said. 'My Sheilah is a generous girl, and she takes a great interest in ye, James, lad.'
'Who knows that better than I?' I answered. 'And I will do my best to show her that her trust is not misplaced. But her generous loan is not the chief thing I wish to speak to you about.'
'What is the other, then?' he said, looking a little nervously at me, I thought.
'It concerns Sheilah's own happiness,' I replied. 'Mr McLeod, your daughter has promised to be my wife.'
He was more staggered by this bit of news than I had expected he would be, and for a little while gazed at me in silent amazement. At last he pulled himself together, and said solemnly,—
'This is a very serious matter.'
'I hope it is,' I replied, 'for I love Sheilah and she loves me. We are both deeply serious, and I hope you have nothing to say against it?'
'Of course, if ye both love each other—as I believe ye do,' he answered, 'and ye, laddie, work hard to prove yourself worthy of her, I shall say nothing. But we must look things squarely in the face and have no half measures. Ye must bear with me, lad—if in what I'm going to say I hurt your feelings—but my duty lies before me, and I must do it. Ye see, Jim, ye have been foolish; your reputation in the township is a wild one; ye admitted to me having been a gambler; remember ye rode in that race against your father's and your best friends' wishes; ye were mixed up with a very disreputable set hereabouts, one of whom has been openly accused of felony; remember, I do not believe that ye had anything at all to do with the stealing of that horse—if he was stolen, as folks say; and now ye have also been turned out of house and home by your own father. Ye must yourself admit that these circumstances are not of a kind calculated to favourably impress a father who loves his only daughter as I love mine. But, on the other hand, my lad, I have known ye pretty nearly all your life, and I know that your errors are of the head, not of the heart, so I am inclined to regard them rather differently. Now, your path lies before ye. Ye have an opportunity of retrieving the past and building up the future, let us see what ye can do. If, we'll say, by this day year ye have proved to me that ye are really in earnest, ye shall have my darling, and God's blessing be on ye both. I can't say anything fairer than that, can I?'
'I have no right to expect that you should say anything so fair,' I answered. 'Mr McLeod, I will try; come what may, you shall not be disappointed in me.'
'I believe ye, laddie,' he said, and then we went towards the front gate together. I wished him good-bye, and having done so, left him and went up the hill towards the township.