A nod, without raising his head, or withdrawing his eyes from the fire, was his only answer; and, turning from my unsociable guest, I took up the baby, who just then awoke, sat down on a low stool by the table, and began feeding her.  During this operation, I once or twice caught the stranger’s hawk-eye fixed upon me and the child, but word spoke he none; and presently, after whistling to his dogs, he resumed his gun, and strode out.

When Moodie and Monaghan came in to breakfast, I told them what a strange visitor I had had; and Moodie laughed at my vain attempt to induce him to talk.

“He is a strange being,” I said; “I must find out who and what he is.”

In the afternoon an old soldier, called Layton, who had served during the American war, and got a grant of land about a mile in the rear of our location, came in to trade for a cow.  Now, this Layton was a perfect ruffian; a man whom no one liked, and whom all feared.  He was a deep drinker, a great swearer, in short, a perfect reprobate; who never cultivated his land, but went jobbing about from farm to farm, trading horses and cattle, and cheating in a pettifogging way.  Uncle Joe had employed him to sell Moodie a young heifer, and he had brought her over for him to look at.  When he came in to be paid, I described the stranger of the morning; and as I knew that he was familiar with every one in the neighbourhood, I asked if he knew him.

“No one should know him better than myself,” he said; “’tis old Brian B—–­, the still-hunter, and a near neighbour of your’n.  A sour, morose, queer chap he is, and as mad as a March hare!  He’s from Lancashire, in England, and came to this country some twenty years ago, with his wife, who was a pretty young lass in those days, and slim enough then, though she’s so awful fleshy now.  He had lots of money, too, and he bought four hundred acres of land, just at the corner of the concession line, where it meets the main road.  And excellent land it is; and a better farmer, while he stuck to his business, never went into the bush, for it was all bush here then.  He was a dashing, handsome fellow, too, and did not hoard the money, either; he loved his pipe and his pot too well; and at last he left off farming, and gave himself to them altogether.  Many a jolly booze he and I have had, I can tell you.  Brian was an awful passionate man, and, when the liquor was in, and the wit was out, as savage and as quarrelsome as a bear.  At such times there was no one but Ned Layton dared go near him.  We once had a pitched battle, in which I was conqueror; and ever arter he yielded a sort of sulky obedience to all I said to him.  Arter being on the spree for a week or two, he would take fits of remorse, and return home to his wife; would fall down at her knees, and ask her forgiveness, and cry like a child.  At other times he would hide himself up in the woods, and steal home at night, and get what he wanted out of the pantry, without speaking a word to any one.  He went on with these pranks for some years, till he took a fit of the blue devils.