years he was a foreman. Within five years he was a partner. In ten years
he was a rich man. At the end of five-and-twenty years he was a
millionaire, controlling trusts and corporations and carrying out great
combines.

I once heard him say that the money tumbled into his chest like crushed
oats out of a crown shaft, but what happened at last was never fully
explained to me. Something I heard of a collision with the law and of a
forced assignment of his interests. All that is material to my story is
that at forty-five years of age he returned to Ellan. He was then a
changed man, with a hard tongue, a stern mouth, and a masterful lift of
the eyebrows. His passion for wealth had left its mark upon him, but the
whole island went down before his face like a flood, and the people who
had made game of his father came crawling to his feet like cockroaches.

The first thing he did on coming home was to buy up his mother's croft,
re-thatch the old house, and put in a poor person to take care of it.

"Guess it may come handy some day," he said.

His next act was worthy of the son of "Neale the Lord." Finding that
Captain O'Neill had fallen deeply into debt, he bought up the braggart's
mortgages, turned him out of the Big House, and took up his own abode in
it.

Twelve months later he made amends, after his own manner, by marrying
one of the Captain's daughters. There were two of them. Isabel, the
elder, was a gentle and beautiful girl, very delicate, very timid, and
most sweet when most submissive, like the woodland herbs which give out
their sweetest fragrance when they are trodden on and crushed. Bridget,