“Wheesht! faither!” interposed Duncan junior, “Mr Sutherland wass speakin’, an’ ye’ve stoppit him.”
“An’ what if I hev, Tuncan? Can he not continoo to speak when I hev done?” retorted the old man, resuming his drum-stick.
“You are right, Mr McKay,” said the elder. “But for the unfortunate jealousies of the two Companies, we might have been in very different circumstances to-day. If the North-Westers could only see that the establishment of a colony in Red River would in no way hinder the fur-trade, we could all get along peaceably enough together. But it seems to have been ordained that man shall reach every good thing through much tribulation.”
“I do not agree wi’ you at all, Muster Sutherland,” said old McKay. “There iss many of rich people in this world, who hev all that hert can wush, an’ are born to it without hevin’ any treebulation at all.”
“But I did not say ‘all that heart could wish,’ Mr McKay. I said ‘every good thing’.”
“Well, an’ iss not wealth a goot thing, Muster Sutherland?”
“Only if God’s blessing goes along with it,” returned the elder. “If it does not, wealth is a curse.”
“H’m! I wush I had a little more o’ that curse—whatever,” answered the irreverent old man.
“Besides,” continued Sutherland, not noticing the remark, “the rich are by no means exempt from tribulation. They are sometimes afflicted with bad children; not infrequently with bad health, which doctors, at two or three guineas a visit, cannot cure, and many of them are much troubled with poverty!”
“You are talking in ruddles now, Muster Sutherland,” said old Duncan, who, having finished the drum-stick and its duplicate, was preparing his pipe for action.