Algonquin proper was a pretty little town, all orchards and gardens and winding hilly streets smothered in trees. And the dreary wretchedness of its back entrance, as it might be called, was all the more painful in contrast. Willow Lane, this miserable little street was named; but Angus McRae had long termed it, in his secret heart, the Jericho Road. For the old tavern at the end of it had proved the downfall of many a traveller on that highway, and many a man had Angus picked up, who had fallen there among thieves.
Every one on the Jericho Road knew him well, and went to him for help in time of trouble and, though they did not realise it, he was indeed their neighbour in precisely the way his Master meant him to be.
The lane turned into the country road, and once more all was fragrance and beauty. It curved around the southern shore of Lake Algonquin; on one side the forest, dark and cool, its dim floor splashed with golden light, its arches ringing with the call of the Canada bird, on the other side the blue and white of the lake, laughing and tumbling beneath the blue and white of the sky.
When the gleam of the water came into view, the little boy clapped his hands and churned up and down in delight. The fresh, damp wind fanned his face, and he shouted to the white-winged gulls dipping and soaring out there in their free ocean of air. He looked up laughingly into his father's face, but quickly became grave. His father's eyes were wistful; he had not spoken for a long time. The child remembered vague hints of trouble that afternoon in Lawyer Ed's office.
"You won't have to work when I get a big man, Daddy," he said comfortingly. "I'll work for you. An' I'll get rich, an' you'll have lots an' lots of money."
His father smiled down at him lovingly. "Och, indeed, it's your father will be the happy man when Roderick grows up. He'll have nothing to do at all at all."
"What was Lawyer Ed doing?" queried the child, after a moment's thought. "Is he goin' to let Jock McPherson take away our house?"
"No, no, child. You must not be troubling your head with such thoughts. It was just some business Roderick is not old enough to understand."
The little fellow sat swinging his short legs and gazing out over the lake, struggling with a vague sense of danger. He had been brought up on the edge of poverty, but had been joyously unconscious of the fact. His father, Aunt Kirsty, Collie, his dog, and the farm had been his world, a world of love and enjoyment and plenty. But now he felt the nearness of some unseen foe, something that had made Lawyer Ed and Doctor Blair look so grave, and was now keeping his father quiet and thoughtful. He had a notion that it all had something to do with money.
"If you only had a pot o' gold," he said at last, still staring out over the lake.