different down here.  She had heard a good deal about Norman Douglas, and she knew that even the biggest boys in school were afraid of him.  Suppose he called her something nasty—­she had heard he was given to that.  Faith could not endure being called names—­they subdued her far more quickly than a physical blow.  But she would go on—­Faith Meredith always went on.  If she did not her father might have to leave the Glen.

At the end of the long lane Faith came to the house—­a big, old-fashioned one with a row of soldierly Lombardies marching past it.  On the back veranda Norman Douglas himself was sitting, reading a newspaper.  His big dog was beside him.  Behind, in the kitchen, where his housekeeper, Mrs. Wilson, was getting supper, there was a clatter of dishes—­an angry clatter, for Norman Douglas had just had a quarrel with Mrs. Wilson, and both were in a very bad temper over it.  Consequently, when Faith stepped on the veranda and Norman Douglas lowered his newspaper she found herself looking into the choleric eyes of an irritated man.

Norman Douglas was rather a fine-looking personage in his way.  He had a sweep of long red beard over his broad chest and a mane of red hair, ungrizzled by the years, on his massive head.  His high, white forehead was unwrinkled and his blue eyes could flash still with all the fire of his tempestuous youth.  He could be very amiable when he liked, and he could be very terrible.  Poor Faith, so anxiously bent on retrieving the situation in regard to the church, had caught him in one of his terrible moods.

He did not know who she was and he gazed at her with disfavour.  Norman Douglas liked girls of spirit and flame and laughter.  At this moment Faith was very pale.  She was of the type to which colour means everything.  Lacking her crimson cheeks she seemed meek and even insignificant.  She looked apologetic and afraid, and the bully in Norman Douglas’s heart stirred.

“Who the dickens are you?  And what do you want here?” he demanded in his great resounding voice, with a fierce scowl.

For once in her life Faith had nothing to say.  She had never supposed Norman Douglas was like this.  She was paralyzed with terror of him.  He saw it and it made him worse.

“What’s the matter with you?” he boomed.  “You look as if you wanted to say something and was scared to say it.  What’s troubling you?  Confound it, speak up, can’t you?”

No.  Faith could not speak up.  No words would come.  But her lips began to tremble.

“For heaven’s sake, don’t cry,” shouted Norman.  “I can’t stand snivelling.  If you’ve anything to say, say it and have done.  Great Kitty, is the girl possessed of a dumb spirit?  Don’t look at me like that—­I’m human—­I haven’t got a tail!  Who are you—­who are you, I say?”

Norman’s voice could have been heard at the harbour.  Operations in the kitchen were suspended.  Mrs. Wilson was listening open-eared and eyed.  Norman put his huge brown hands on his knees and leaned forward, staring into Faith’s pallid, shrinking face.  He seemed to loom over her like some evil giant out of a fairy tale.  She felt as if he would eat her up next thing, body and bones.