"A pot of gold!" repeated his father, with a laugh. "And what would be putting that into your foolish little head?"
"A pot o' gold would buy anything you wanted, Peter says. He told me about it, Peter Fiddle did. Once a boy found a pot o' gold hangin' on to the end of a rainbow. There's always one there, Daddy. Yes, there is, Peter Fiddle says so. An' a boy travelled a long, long way to the end of a rainbow, an' he found it—the pot o' gold. An' he was rich, an' he gave money to all the poor people an' made them happy."
"And so Peter's been telling you more fairy-tales, eh? Well, well, it will be a pretty one. And now, I suppose the first rainbow you see, you'll be off to get that pot of gold."
He nodded excitedly. "Wouldn't I just!" he cried.
Angus McRae was not despondent over the mortgage which his ill health and his extravagant expenditure for oil and wine and inn-fees had compelled him to put on his little farm. He was one of those glad souls, with such a perfect faith in his Father, that he could not but believe that what might seem to be a bane was in reality a blessing. But he was a little puzzled and thoughtful. The solution of the problem was in his Father's hands, of course, but he could not help wondering just how it would be worked out, and if he himself were using his every faculty for the best ends.
The greatest part of his problem was the Lad. His boy had been the very centre of all his thoughts since the day She had left him, with only faith in God and the Lad's baby hands to hold him up from despair. She had always hoped that the Lad would have an education, and Angus had planned that he should. But if the little farm was to go, the Lad would have to work for his father and Aunt Kirsty just as soon as he was big enough. And She had always hoped he should be a minister some day, or even, perhaps, a missionary to a heathen land.
And next to the Lad was his ministry to his neighbours. What was to become of that? Ministry was not the word Angus McRae would have used in speaking of his humble calling,—the mere working of a little market garden farm and the selling of what it produced. And yet he had made it a real and beautiful ministry to both God and his fellow-man. He considered the selling of sweet turnips and sound cabbage and unspotted potatoes to his customers as much a religious rite, as did the most devout Israelite the offering of that which was perfect on the altar of Jehovah. For indeed everything Angus sent off his little farm, whether sold for a legitimate price or given away, as it so often was, to a needy neighbour, was truly an offering to the Most High.
So he was a little puzzled, though not at all saddened, by the thought that his ministry was to be curtailed, perhaps stopped. He had hoped to be always able to give a bag of potatoes to a poor neighbour, or to bring to his home any one who had fallen on the Jericho Road. But then, if the Father wanted him to stop that, He surely had other work for him. So he flapped his old horse with the lines and, leaning forward, hummed the hymn that was his watchword in times of stress:
"My soul, be on thy guard,
Ten thousand foes arise,
The hosts of sin are pressing hard,
To draw thee from the skies!"
The Lad interrupted constantly with eager questions about this flower and that tree, and his old horse demanded much attention, to keep her from turning off the road and regaling herself on the green grass. He flapped her at regular intervals with the lines, saying in a tone of gentle remonstrance, "Tut, tut, Betsy, get up now, get up."