Her mother, after a final appeal, left her

house with the warning that if the child were so named she would never speak to her again. And though the old lady lived thirty-odd years longer she kept her word. The minister agreed to christen the child any name but Samuel, and every other minister on Island McGill refused to christen it by the name she had chosen. There was talk on the part of Margaret Henan of going to

law at the time, but in the end she carried the child to Belfast and there had it christened Samuel.

And then nothing happened. The whole island was confuted. The boy grew and prospered. The schoolmaster never ceased averring that it was the brightest lad he had ever seen. Samuel had a Page 25

splendid constitution, a tremendous grip on life. To everybody’s amazement he escaped the usual

run of childish afflictions. Measles, whooping-cough and mumps knew him not. He was armourclad

against germs, immune to all disease. Headaches and earaches were things unknown.

“Never so much oz a boil or a pumple,” as one of the old bodies told me, ever marred his healthy

skin. He broke school records in scholarship and athletics, and whipped every boy of his size or years on Island McGill.

It was a triumph for Margaret Henan. This paragon was hers, and it bore the cherished name.

With the one exception of her mother, friends and relatives drifted back and acknowledged that they had been mistaken; though there were old crones who still abided by their opinion and who

shook their heads ominously over their cups of tea. The boy was too wonderful to last. There was

no escaping the curse of the name his mother had wickedly laid upon him. The young generation

joined Margaret Henan in laughing at them, but the old crones continued to shake their heads.

Other children followed. Margaret Henan’s fifth was a boy, whom she called Jamie, and in rapid succession followed three girls, Alice, Sara, and Nora, the boy Timothy, and two more girls, SAMUEL

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Florence and Katie. Katie was the last and eleventh, and Margaret Henan, at thirty-five, ceased from her exertions. She had done well by Island McGill and the Queen. Nine healthy children were hers. All prospered. It seemed her ill-luck had shot its bolt with the deaths of her first two.

Nine lived, and one of them was named Samuel.

Jamie elected to follow the sea, though it was not so much a matter of election as compulsion, for

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the eldest sons on Island McGill remained on the land, while all other sons went to the saltploughing.