Old Angus smiled knowingly.
"Och, she has a way with her, and she can get anything she wants. It would be through Alfred Wilbur—the poor lad the boys will be calling such a foolish name."
"Yes, Afternoon Tea Willie. What's he after now?"
"Indeed I think he will be after Miss Murray," said the old man, his eyes twinkling. "He seems to be always following her about. And he managed to get young Fred Hamilton to take Billy up to the camp. Fred is going up to his father's shanties with a gang of men in about a week."
Roderick's heart sank. Here was a lost opportunity indeed. He had failed to help his father, and had missed such a splendid chance to help her.
"If you've got anybody else who needs a job, Dad, I'll try to do better next time," he said humbly.
"Oh, indeed, there will always be some one needing help," his father said radiantly. "Eh, eh, it will be a fine thing for me to know you are helping to care for the poor folk on the Jericho Road. Jist being neighbour to them. It's a great business, the law, for helping a man to be neighbour." The old man sat and gazed happily into the fire.
Roderick fidgeted. He was thinking that some of the work of a lawyer did not consist so much in rescuing the man who had fallen among thieves as falling upon him and stripping him of his raiment.
"Law is a complicated business, Dad," he said, with a sigh.
There were prayers after that, and a tender farewell and benediction from the old people, and Roderick went away, his heart strangely heavy. He was to be absent only a short time, perhaps not over two weeks, but he had a feeling that he was bidding his father a lifelong farewell—that he was taking a road that led away from that path in which the man had so carefully guided his young feet.