"And to-day he put a mortgage on his place, to help pay the debts of Peter McDuff and a dozen other old leeches that live on him."
The two friends looked at each other and nodded silently.
"He's a wonderful man, that Angus McRae," said Dr. Blair.
"He's the finest man living!" cried Lawyer Ed, always enthusiastic. "I owe that man more than I can ever pay—not money, something more valuable—nearly everything I have that's worth while."
His friend nodded. There were few men in Algonquin who were not indebted to Angus McRae for something of value.
"Angus is rich in that sort of wealth," said Archie Blair.
"It's no in titles nor in rank;
It's no in wealth like Lon'on bank,
To purchase peace and rest.
It's no in makin' muckle mair;
It's no in books; it's no in lear;
To make us truly blest.'"
"But Angus knows where it is, and he's not like most people who go to church and sing and pray one day in the week and cheat their neighbours the other six!"
The doctor cracked his whip and drove off in high good humour, for he had made a smart slap at the church, as he always loved to do in Lawyer Ed's presence, and had escaped before that glib Irishman could answer. He could catch something roared out behind him, about a man who could stay home from church so that he might be a hypocrite seven days in the week and half the nights too, but he pretended not to hear.
Meanwhile Angus McRae and his little son rattled away down one street and along another and out upon the country road. Just where the town and country met stretched a row of ragged, tumble-down buildings. There was an ill-smelling hotel, with two or three loungers smoking on the sagging veranda, a long fence covered with tattered and glaring circus posters, a half-dozen patched and weather-beaten houses and a row of abandoned sheds and barns.