His was a life which shows that a man cut off from all contact with his
brother-thinkers may still be worked upon by the great over-soul of
thought: his is the story of a weak man who lived a strong life in a
strength greater than his own.




CHAPTER II.


In the days when there were not many people in Fentown Falls, and when
much money was made by the lumber trade, Bartholomew Toyner's father
grew rich. He was a Scotchman, not without some education, and was
ambitious for his son; but he was a hard, ill-tempered man, and
consequently neither his example nor his precepts carried any weight
whatever with the son when he was grown. The mother, who had begun life
cheerfully and sensibly, showed the weakness of her character in that
she became habitually peevish. She had enough to make her so. All her
pleasure in life was centred in her son Bart. Bart came out of school to
lounge upon the streets, to smoke immoderately, and to drink such large
quantities of what went into the country by the name of "Jamaica," that
in a few years it came to pass that he was nearly always drunk.

Poor Bart! the rum habit worked its heavy chains upon him before he was
well aware that his life had begun in earnest; and when he realised that
he was in possession of his full manhood, and that the prime of life was
not far off, he found himself chained hand and foot, toiling heavily in
the most degrading servitude. A few more years and he realised also
that, do what he would, he could not set himself free. No one in the