The Lindsays

by John K. Leys

JOHN K. LEYS

IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I.
London
CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1888
[The right of translation is reserved]

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

CHAPTER		PAGE
I.	THE FIRST LETTER	[1]
II.	THE SECOND LETTER	[15]
III.	THE THIRD LETTER	[37]
IV.	THE FOURTH LETTER	[57]
V.	THE SHIP SETS SAIL	[80]
VI.	A NEW EXPERIENCE	[106]
VII.	A SUNDAY IN GLASGOW	[126]
VIII.	THE ROARING GAME	[146]
IX.	THE END OF THE SESSION	[173]
X.	ARROCHAR	[193]
XI.	A RIVAL	[215]
XII.	‘YOU MUST GIVE ME AN ANSWER’	[232]

THE LINDSAYS.

PROLOGUE.—FOUR LETTERS.

CHAPTER I.

THE FIRST LETTER.

Hubert Blake to Sophy Meredith.

The Castle Farm, Muirburn,
Kyleshire, N.B., Sept. 12, 187-.

My dear Sophy,

I only arrived here last night, so you see I am losing no time in redeeming my promise. I can hardly tell you what I think of my new cousins; they are not to be known in a day, I can see that much. As for the country and its inhabitants generally—well, they are as different from an English county and English country-folks as if they were in different continents, and that is all I can say at present.

I left the railway at a tiny station called Kilmartin, and found ‘the coach’ waiting in the station yard. It was not a coach, but a queer dumpy omnibus, about two-thirds of the size of a London ’bus, with three big, raw-boned horses harnessed to it. I was lucky enough to get a seat in front beside the driver. It was just a little before sunset; and I wish I could put before you in words the freshness of the scene. We were ascending a rising ground in a very leisurely fashion. On either side of the road was a steep bank thickly clothed with crowsfoot and wild thyme. Above us on either side stretched a belt of Scotch firs. The sunset rays shone red on the trunks of the pines, and here and there one could catch through them a sight of the ruddy west, showing like a great painted window in a cathedral. The air was soft, and laden with the sweet smell of the firs, and yet it was cool and exhilarating.

As soon as we got to the top of the ridge we began to rattle down the other side at a great rate. It was really very pleasant, and thinking to conciliate the weather-beaten coachman at my side, I confided to him my opinion that of all species of travelling coaching was the most delightful.

‘Specially on a winter’s nicht, wi’ yer feet twa lumps o’ ice, an’ a wee burn o’ snaw-watter runnin’ doon the nape o’ yer neck!’ responded the Scotch Jehu.

I laughed, and glanced at the man sitting on my right, a big, brown-faced, gray-haired farmer, in a suit of heavy tweeds, who sat leaning his two hands on the top of an enormous stick. He was smiling grimly to himself, as if he enjoyed the stranger being set down.

‘Fine country,’ I remarked, by way of conciliating him.

‘Ay,’ said he, with a glance at the horizon out of the sides of his eyes, but without moving a muscle of his face.

‘And a very fine evening,’ I persisted.

‘Ay—micht be waur.’

Upon this I gave it up, lighted a cigar, and set myself to study the landscape. We had got to a considerable elevation above the sea-level; and in spite of the glorious evening and the autumn colours just beginning to appear in the hedges, the country had a dreary look. Imagine one great stretch of pasture barely reclaimed from moorland, with the heather and stony ground cropping up every here and there, divided into fields, not by generous spreading hedgerows, but by low walls of blue stone, built without mortar. The only wood to be seen was narrow belts of firs, planted here and there behind a farmhouse, or between two fields, and somehow their long bare stems and heavy mournful foliage did not add to the brightness of the scene, though they gave it a character of its own. But the country is not all moor and pasture. It is broken every now and then by long, deep, winding ravines, clothed with the larch and the mountain ash, each one the home of a bright brawling stream.

We had travelled for half an hour in silence, when the farmer suddenly spoke.

‘Ye’ll be frae the sooth, I’m thinkin’.’

He was not looking at me, but contemplating the road in front of us from under a pair of the bushiest eyebrows I ever saw. For a moment I thought of repaying his bad manners by giving him no answer, but thinking better of it I said ‘Ay,’ after the manner of the country.

‘Ye’ll no hae mony beasts like they in England, I fancy,’ said he.

We were passing some Ayrshire cows at the time, small, but splendid animals of their kind; and I soothed the old man’s feelings by admitting the fact.

‘Are ye traivellin’ faur?’ he asked.

‘Not much farther, I believe.’

‘Ye’re no an agent, are ye?’

‘No,’ I answered.

‘Nor a factor?’

‘No.’

(He was evidently puzzled to make out what an Englishman was about in his country, and I determined not to gratify his curiosity.)

‘Ye’ll maybe be the doctor?’

‘No.’

‘Sharely ye’re no the new minister?’ he exclaimed with an expression of unfeigned alarm.

I calmed his fears, and again we proceeded on our way in silence.

When we had gone perhaps some seven or eight miles from the railway station, I noticed a stout dog-cart standing at the corner of a by-road, under a tall, straggling thorn hedge. The youth who was seated in it made a sign to the coachman to stop, and I was made aware that the dog-cart had been sent for me. I got down, and as I bade good-night to the cross-questioning farmer, I observed a grim smile of triumph on his firmly compressed lips. He evidently knew the dog-cart, and would now be able to trace the mysterious stranger.

I and my portmanteau were finally left on the side of the road, and the young man in the dog-cart civilly turned the vehicle round (with some difficulty on account of the narrow road), and drew up beside me, to save my carrying my luggage a dozen yards. At first I was a little uncertain whether I had one of my third (or fourth, which is it?) cousins before me, or simply a young man from Mr. Lindsay’s farm. He was dressed in very coarse tweeds, and his hands were rough, and spoke of manual labour, and he breathed the incense of the farm-yard; but I thought his finely-cut features and sensitive lips bespoke him to be of gentle blood, and, luckily, I made a hit in the right direction.

‘You are one of Mr. Lindsay’s sons, I think—that is to say, one of my cousins,’ I said, as I shook hands with him.

The youth’s face lighted up with a blush and a pleasant smile as he answered that he was, and held open the apron of the dog-cart for me to get in. In another moment we were off, the sturdy old mare between the shafts carrying us along at a very fair pace.

There are some people, Sophy, who wear their characters written on their faces, and Alec Lindsay is one of them. I could see, even as we drove together along that solitary lane in the autumn twilight, that his was a frank, ingenuous nature, shy, sensitive, and reserved. I mean that his shyness made him reserved, but his thoughts and feelings showed themselves in his face without his knowing it, so little idea had he of purposely concealing himself. Such a face is always interesting; and besides, there was an under-expression of dissatisfaction, of unrest, I hardly know what to call it, in his eyes, which was scarcely natural in so young a lad. He could not be more than eighteen or nineteen.

After half an hour’s drive we approached the little town, or village—it is rather too large for a village, and much too small to be called a town—of Muirburn. It consists of one long double row of two-storied houses built of stone and whitewashed, with one or two short cross streets at intervals. The houses had not a scrap of garden in front of them, nothing but a broad footpath, the playground of troops of children. The lower part of these dwellings had a bare, deserted appearance, but I found that they were used in almost every case as workrooms, being fitted up with looms. In one or two of the windows a light twinkled, and we could hear the noise of the shuttle as we passed.

In the middle of the village stood a large square building, whitewashed all over, and provided with two rows of small square windows, placed at regular intervals, one above and one below.

‘What is that building?’ I asked.

‘The Free Church,’ answered my companion, with a touch of pride.

A church! Why, it was hardly fit to be a school-house. A mean iron railing, which had been painted at some remote epoch, alone protected it from the street. It was the very embodiment of ugliness; its sole ornament being a stove-pipe which protruded from one corner of the roof. Never, in all my life, whether among Hindoos, Mahometans, or Irish peasants, had I seen so supremely ugly an edifice dedicated to the service of the Almighty.

‘That’s the United Presbyterian one,’ said Alec, pointing with his whip to a building on the other side of the street, similar to the one we had just passed, but of less hideous aspect. It was smaller, and it could boast a front of hewn stone, and neat latticed windows, while a narrow belt of greensward fenced it off from the road.

Just then we passed a knot of men, perhaps ten or a dozen, standing at the corner of one of the side streets. All had their hands in their pockets, all were in their shirt-sleeves, and all wore long white aprons. They were doing nothing whatever—not talking, nor laughing, nor quarrelling, but simply looking down the street. At present our humble equipage was evidently an object of supreme interest to them.

‘What are these men doing there?’ I asked.

‘They’re weavers,’ answered Alec, as if the fact contained a reason in itself for their conduct. ‘They always stand there when they are not working, in all weathers, wet and dry; it’s their chief diversion.’

‘Diversion!’ I repeated; but at that moment the sweet tinkle of a church-bell fell upon my ears. I almost expected to see the people cross themselves, it sounded so much like the Angelus. It is the custom, I find, to ring the bell of the parish church at six in the morning and eight in the evening, though there is no service, and no apparent need for the ceremony. I wonder if it can be really a survival of the Vesper-bell?

The bell was still ringing as we passed the church that possessed it. This was ‘the Established Church,’ my companion informed me—a building larger than either of its competitors, and boasting a belfry.

‘What does a small town like this want with so many chapels?’ I asked my cousin.

I could see that I had displeased him, whether by speaking of Muirburn as a small town, or by inadvertently calling the ‘churches’ chapels, I was not sure. As he hesitated for an answer I hastened to add:

‘You are all of the same religion—substantially, I mean?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Then why don’t you club together and have one handsome place of worship instead of three very—well, plain buildings?’

‘What?’ exclaimed Alec, and then he burst into a roar of laughter. ‘That’s a good joke,’ said he, as if I had said something superlatively witty; ‘but I say,’ he continued, with a serious look in his bonny blue eyes, ‘you’d better not say anything of that kind to my father.’

‘Why not?’ I asked, but Alec did not answer me.

His attention was attracted by a child which was playing in the road, right in front of us. He called out, but the little one did not seem to hear him, and he slackened the mare’s pace almost to a walk. We were just approaching the last of the side streets, and at that moment a gig, drawn by a powerful bay horse, appeared coming rapidly round the corner. It was evident that there must be a collision, though, owing to Alec’s having slackened his pace so much, it could not be a serious one.

But the child? Before I could cry out, before I could think, Alec was out of the trap and snatching the little boy from under the horse’s very nose. I never saw a narrower escape; how he was not struck down himself, I cannot imagine.

The next moment the gig, which had brushed against our vehicle without doing it much damage, had disappeared down the road; and a woman, clad in a short linsey petticoat and a wide sleeveless bodice of printed cotton, had rushed out of the opposite house and was roundly abusing Alec for having nearly killed her child. Without paying much attention to her, Alec walked round to the other side of the dog-cart to see what damage had been done, and muttering to himself, ‘I’m thankful it’s no worse,’ he climbed back into his place, and we resumed our journey, while the young Caledonian was acknowledging sundry tender marks of his mother’s affection with screams like those of a locomotive.

Another half-hour’s drive brought us to a five-barred gate which admitted us to a narrow and particularly rough lane. We jolted on for a few minutes, and then the loud barking of several dogs announced that we had arrived at the farm. But I must keep my description of its inhabitants for my next epistle. I am too sleepy to write more. Good-night.

Your affectionate cousin,

Hubert Blake.

CHAPTER II.

THE SECOND LETTER.

Hubert Blake to Sophy Meredith.

The Castle Farm, Muirburn, N.B.
September 15.

Dear Sophy,

I think I shall like this place, and shall probably stay till the beginning of winter. I have begun a large picture of a really beautiful spot which I found close by two days ago, and I should like to see my painting well on to completion before I return, lest I should be tempted to leave it unfinished, like so many others, when I get back to town.

I had a very hospitable welcome from Mr. Lindsay on the night I arrived. He met me at the door—a tall, broad-shouldered, upright man, perhaps sixty years of age, with the regular Scotch type of features, large nose, and high cheek-bones. I could see, even at first, that he is the sort of man it would not be pleasant to quarrel with.

He led me into a wide passage, and thence into a large low-roofed kitchen with a stone floor. Here there were seated two or three men and as many women, whom I took to be farm-servants. There was no light in the place, except that which came from a bit of ‘cannel’ coal, stuck in the peat fire. The women were knitting; the men were doing nothing. No one took the trouble of rising as we passed, except one of the young men who went to look after the mare.

After crossing the kitchen we passed through a narrow passage, and entered a pleasant and good-sized room in which a large coal fire and a moderator lamp were burning.

Did you ever see a perfectly beautiful woman, Sophy? I doubt it. I never did till I saw Margaret Lindsay. I was so astonished to see a lady at the Castle Farm that I positively stared at the girl for a moment, but she came forward and shook hands with the utmost self-possession.

‘I’m afraid you have had a cold drive, Mr. Blake,’ she said; and though she spoke in a very decidedly Scotch accent, the words did not sound so harshly from her lips as they had done when spoken by her father. For the first time I thought that the Doric might have an agreeable sound.

I will try to tell you what Margaret is like. She must be nearly twenty years of age, for she is evidently older than her brother, but her complexion is that of a girl of sixteen, by far the finest and softest I ever saw. She is tall, but not too tall for elegance. Her eyes are brown, like her father’s, and her hair is a dark chestnut. Her features are simply perfect—low forehead, beautifully moulded eyebrows, short upper lip—you can imagine the rest. You will say that my description would fit a marble bust nearly as well as a girl of nineteen, and your criticism would be just. Margaret’s face is rather wanting in expression. It is calm, reserved, not to say hard. But her deliberate almost proud manner suits her admirably.

I can see you smiling to yourself, and saying that you understand now my anxiety to get my picture finished before I leave the farm. All I can say is, you never were more mistaken in your life. I am not falling in love with this newly-discovered beauty, and I certainly don’t intend to do anything so foolish. But I could look at her face by the hour together. I wonder whether there are any capabilities of passion under the cold exterior.

I took an opportunity when Alec was out of the room to narrate our little adventure by the way, and just as I finished my recital the hero of the story came in.

‘So you managed to get run into on the way home, Alec,’ said his father, with a look of displeasure. ‘I should think you might have learned to drive by this time.’

The lad’s face flushed, but he made no answer.

‘Is the mare hurt?’ asked the old man.

‘No, she wasn’t touched,’ answered his son. ‘One of the wheels will want a new spoke; that’s all.’

‘And is that nothing, sir?’

‘No one could possibly have avoided the collision, such as it was,’ said I; ‘and I’ve seldom seen a pluckier thing than Alec did.’

The old man looked at me, and immediately changed the subject.

When tea (a remarkably substantial meal, by the way) was over, the farm-servants and the old woman who acts as housemaid were called into the large parlour in which we were sitting for prayers, or, as they call it here, ‘worship.’ I can’t say I was edified, Sophy. I dare say I am not a particularly good judge of these matters, but really there seemed to me a very slight infusion of worship about the ceremony. First of all Bibles were handed round, and Mr. Lindsay proceeded to read a few lines from a metrical version of the Psalms, beginning in the middle of a Psalm for the excellent reason that they had left off at that point on the preceding evening. Then they began to sing the same verses to a strange, pathetic melody. Margaret led the tune, and it was a pleasure to listen to her sweet unaffected notes, but the rough grumble of the old men and Betty’s discordant squeak produced a really ridiculous effect. Then a chapter was read from the Bible, and then we rose up, turned round, and knelt down. Mr. Lindsay began an extempore prayer, which was partly an exposition of the chapter we had just heard read, and partly an address to the Almighty, which I won’t shock you by describing. At the end of the prayer were some practical petitions, amongst them one on behalf of ‘the stranger within our gates,’ by which phrase your humble servant was indicated. The instant the word ‘Amen’ escaped from the lips of my host, there was a sudden shuffling of feet, and the little congregation had risen to their feet and were in full retreat before I had realized that the service was at an end. I fully expected that this conduct would have called down a reproof from Mr. Lindsay, but it seemed to be accepted on all hands as the ordinary custom. Half an hour afterwards I was in bed, and sound asleep.

I awoke next morning to a glorious day. The harvest is late in these parts, you know, and the ‘happy autumn fields,’ some half cut, some filled with ‘stooks’ of corn, were stretching before my window down to a hollow, which I judged to be the bed of a river.

After breakfast I had an interview with my host, and managed to get my future arrangements put upon a proper footing. Of course I could not stay here for an indefinite time at Mr. Lindsay’s expense; and though at first he scouted the proposal, I got him to consent that I should set up an establishment of my own in two half-empty rooms—the house is twice as large as the family requires—and be practically independent. I could see that the old man had a struggle between his pride and his love of hospitality on the one hand, and the prospect of letting part of his house to a good tenant on the other; but I smoothed matters a little by asking to be allowed to remain as his guest until Monday. Poor man, I am sorry for him. He used to be a well-to-do if not a wealthy ‘laird,’ and owned not only the Castle Farm, but one or two others. Now, in consequence of his having become surety for a friend who left him to pay the piper, and as a result of several bad seasons, he has been forced to sell one farm and mortgage the others so heavily that he is practically worse off than if he were a tenant of the mortgagees. This ‘come down’ in the world has soured his temper, and developed a stinginess which I think is foreign to his real nature. I fancy, too, he had a great loss when his wife died. She was a woman, I am told, of education and refinement. It must have been from her that Margaret got her beauty, and Alec his fine eyes.

But I have not told you what the neighbourhood is like. Well, the farmhouse is built on the side of a knoll, and at the top is a very respectable ruin. The castle, from which the farm takes its name, must have been a strong place at one time. The keep is still standing, and its walls are quite five feet thick. Besides the keep, time has spared part of the front, some of the buttresses, and some half-ruined doorways and windows. But the whole place is overgrown with weeds and nettles. No one takes the slightest interest in this relic of another age: nobody could tell me who built it, or give me even a shred of a legend about its history.

As I was wandering about the walls of the ruin, trying to select a point from which to sketch it, I was joined by Alec Lindsay. He had one or two books under his arm; and he stopped short on seeing me, as if he had not expected to find anyone there.

‘Don’t let me interrupt you,’ I said, beginning to move away. ‘You make this place your study, I see.’

‘Sometimes I bring my books up here,’ he replied. ‘There is a corner under the wall of the tower which is quite sheltered from the wind. Even the rain can hardly reach it, and I have a glorious view of the sunset when I sit there on fine evenings.’

‘I should like to see the place,’ said I, anxious to put the lad at his ease; and he led me to a corner among the ruins, from which, as he said, a wide view was obtained.

Near at hand were pastures and harvest-fields. Beyond them was the bed of the river, fringed with wood, and the horizon was bounded by low moorland hills.

‘From the top of that one,’ said Alec, pointing to one of the hills, ‘you can catch a glint of the sea. It shines like a looking-glass. I would like to see it near at hand.’

‘Have you never been to the seaside?’ I asked.

I must have betrayed my surprise by my voice, for the boy blushed as he answered:

‘No; I have been to Glasgow once or twice, but I have never been to the salt water.’ (The seaside is always spoken of as ‘the coast’ or ‘the salt water’ in this part of the country.) ‘I have never been beyond Muirburn, except once or twice, in my life,’ he added, as the look of discontent which I fancied I had detected in his face grew stronger.

‘May I look at your books?’ I asked, by way of changing the subject.

‘Oh yes; they’re not much to look at,’ he said with a blush.

I took them up—a Greek grammar, and a school-book containing simple passages of Greek for translation, with a vocabulary at the end of the volume.

‘Is this how you spend your leisure time?’ I asked.

‘Not always—not very often,’ answered Alec. ‘Often I am lazy and go in for Euclid and algebra—I like them far better than Greek. And sometimes,’ he added with hesitation, as if he were confessing a fault—‘sometimes I waste my time with a novel.’

‘I would not call it wasting time if you read good novels,’ said I. ‘What do you read?’

‘Only Sir Walter and old volumes of Blackwood; they are all I have got.’

‘You could not do better, in my opinion,’ said I emphatically. ‘Such books are just as necessary for your education as a Greek delectus.’

‘Do you think so?’ said the lad, with wondering eyes. ‘These are not my father’s notions.’

‘Shall I leave you to your work now?’ I asked, rising from the heather on which we were lying.

‘I like to have you to talk to,’ said Alec, half shyly, half frankly. ‘I seldom do get anyone to talk to.’

‘You have your sister,’ I said involuntarily.

‘Margaret is not like me. She has her own thoughts and her own ways; besides, she is a girl. Will you come and see the “Lover’s Leap?” It’s a bonny place.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Only half a mile up the Logan.’

‘You mean the stream that runs through the valley down there?’

‘No; that’s the Nethan. The Logan falls into it about a mile farther up.’

We were descending the knoll as we talked; and on our way we saw a field where the reapers were at work. As we approached, we saw a tall form leave the field and come towards us. It was Alec’s father.

‘I think, Alec,’ said the old man, ‘you would be better employed helping to stack the corn, if you’re too proud to take a hand at the shearing, rather than walking about doing nothing.’

The lad blushed furiously, and made no answer.

‘Alec meant to have been at work over his books,’ said I; ‘but he was kind enough to show me something of the neighbourhood. It doesn’t matter in the least, Alec; I can easily find my way alone.’

‘Oh, if you have any need for the boy, that’s another matter,’ said Mr. Lindsay.

I protested again that I could find my way perfectly well, and moved off, while Alec turned into the field with a set look about his mouth that was not pleasant to see.

The cause of the discontent I had seen in the lad’s face was plain enough now. He is treated like a child, as if he had no mind or will of his own. I wonder how the boy will turn out. It seems to me a toss-up; or rather, the chances are that he will break away altogether, and ruin himself.

I went on my way to the bank of the river, by the side of a double row of Scotch firs. It was one of those perfect September days when the air is still warm, when a thin haze is hanging over all the land, when there is no sound to be heard but now and then the chirp of a bird, or the far-off lowing of cattle—a day in which it is enough, and more than enough, to sit still and drink in the silent influences of earth and heaven, when anything like occupation seems an insult to the sweetness and beauty of nature. Across the little river was a large plantation of firs, growing almost to the water’s edge; and I could feel the balmy scent of them in the air.

As I reached the river I overtook Margaret Lindsay, who was walking a little way in advance of me. She had a book under her arm, an old volume covered in brown leather. We greeted each other, and I soon found that she was bound, like myself, for the ‘Lover’s Leap.’

‘I will show you the place,’ she said; ‘we must cross the river here.’

As she spoke she stepped on a large flat stone that lay at the water’s edge; and I saw that a succession of such stones, placed at intervals of about a yard, made a path by which the river could be crossed. The current was pretty strong, and as the water was rushing fast between the stones (which barely showed their heads above the stream), I hastened to offer Margaret my hand. But the girl only glanced at me with a look of surprise, and with the nearest approach to a smile which I had seen in her face, she shook her head and began to walk over the stepping-stones with as much composure as if she had been moving across a floor. Now and then she had to make a slight spring to gain the next stone, and she did so with the ease and grace of a fawn. I followed a little way behind, and when we had gained the opposite side we walked in single file along the riverbank, till we came to the spot where the Logan came tumbling and dancing down the side of a rather steep hill to meet the larger stream. The hill was covered with brushwood and bracken, and a few scattered trees; but a path seemed to have been made through the bushes, and up this path we began to scramble. Once or twice I ventured to offer Margaret my hand, but she declined my help, saying that she could get on better alone.

After a few minutes of this climbing, Margaret suddenly moved to one side, and sprang down to a tiny morsel of gravelly beach, at the side of the burn. I followed her, and was fairly entranced by what I saw. A little way above us the gorge widened, allowing us to see the trees, which, growing on either side of the brook, interlaced their branches above it. From beneath the trees the stream made a clear downward leap, of perhaps thirty or forty feet, into a pool—the pool at our feet—which was so deep that it seemed nearly as black as ink. The music of the waterfall filled the air so that we could hardly catch the sound of each other’s words; and if we moved to the farther end of the little margin of beach, we heard, instead of the noise of the waterfall, the sweet babbling of the burn over its stony bed.

‘Do you often come here?’ I asked, as we stood at the edge of the stream, some little distance from the fall.

‘Yes, pretty often when I wish to be alone, or to have an hour’s quiet reading.’

‘As you do to-day,’ said I; ‘that’s as much as to say that you want to have an hour’s quiet reading now.’

‘So I do,’ said the girl calmly.

‘Or, in other words, that it is time for me to take myself off.’

‘I did not mean that,’ said Margaret, with perfect placidity. ‘Would you like to go up to the top of the linn?’

‘Very much,’ said I, and we scrambled up the bank to the upper level of the stream, and gazed down upon the black rushing water and the dark pool beneath, with its fringe of cream-coloured foam.

‘So this is the “Lover’s Leap,”’ I remarked.

‘Yes,’ said Margaret. ‘They say that once a young man was carrying off his sweetheart, when her father and brothers pursued them. The girl was riding on a pillion behind her lover. As the only way of escape, he put his horse at the gap over our heads—it must have been narrower in those days than it is now—missed it, and both himself and the lady were killed in the fall.’

‘Dreadful!’ I exclaimed.

‘Of course it isn’t true,’ pursued Margaret tranquilly.

‘Why not?’ I asked.

‘Oh, such stories never are; they are all romantic nonsense.’

‘How different your streams are from those in the south,’ said I, after a pause; ‘Tennyson’s description of a brook would hardly suit this one.’

‘What is that?’ she inquired.

‘Don’t you know it?’ I asked, letting my surprise get the better of my good manners.

‘No, I never heard it,’ she said, without the least tinge of embarrassment; so I repeated the well-known lines, to which Margaret listened with her eyes still fixed on the rushing water.

‘They are very pretty,’ said the girl, when I had finished; ‘but I should not care for a brook like that. I should think it would be very much like a canal, wouldn’t it?—only smaller. I like my own brook better; and I like Burns’s description of one better than Tennyson’s.’

‘Has Burns described a brook? I wish you would quote it to me,’ said I.

‘Surely you know the lines,’ said Margaret; ‘they are in “Hallowe’en.”’

I assured her I did not, and in a low clear voice she repeated:

‘Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays,

As through the glen it wimples;

Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays;

Whyles in a wiel it dimples.

Whyles glitterin’ to the noontide rays,

Wi’ bickerin’, dancin’ dazzle,

Whyles cookin’ underneath the braes,

Below the spreading hazel.’

‘I think they are beautiful lines, so far as I understand them,’ was my verdict. ‘What is “cookin’,” for example? I know it does not mean frying, or anything of that kind, but——’

I stopped, for the girl looked half offended at my poor little attempt to be funny at the expense of a Scotch word.

‘There is no word for it in English, that I know of,’ she said. ‘It means crouching down, contentedly, in a comfortable place. If you saw a hen on a windy day under a stook of corn, you might say it was “cooking” there.’

‘Thank you,’ I replied; ‘I won’t forget. And now I must be off, for I know you came here to read.’

If in my vanity I had hoped for permission to remain, I was disappointed. Nothing of the kind was forthcoming.

‘I hope you have got an interesting book,’ said I, wondering what the old brown-leather volume could be.

‘You might not think it very interesting,’ answered Margaret, raising her lovely eyes to mine, as tranquilly as if she had been speaking of a newspaper. ‘It is only a volume of old sermons. Good-bye till dinner-time, Mr. Blake;’ and so saying she turned to seek her favourite nook, at the side of the waterfall.

‘Old sermons!’ I exclaimed to myself as I left her. ‘What a singular girl she is. Fancy——’

But my reflections were cut short, for I ‘lifted up mine eyes’ and saw a mountain ash—they call them ‘rowan trees’ here—full of berries.

Sophy, such a tree is the most beautiful object in nature; there is no way of describing it, no way of putting its beauty into words. If you doubt what I say, look well at the next one you see, and then tell me if I am wrong. Good-night.

Ever yours affectionately,

Hubert Blake.

P.S.—I mean to get M. to sit for her portrait to-morrow; but I see that in order to gain this end I shall have to use all my skill in diplomacy, both with the young lady and with her respected father.

H. B.

CHAPTER III.

THE THIRD LETTER.

Hubert Blake to Sophy Meredith.

The Castle Farm, Muirburn, N.B.,
September 17.

My dear Sophy,

It did not occur to me, when I agreed to consider myself Mr. Lindsay’s guest until to-day, that the arrangement would entail my spending the greater part of a glorious autumn day within the walls of the Muirburn Free Kirk—but you shall hear. I suspected, from something which fell from my host at breakfast, that the excuses which I intended to offer for my not accompanying the family to church would not be considered sufficient; but when I ventured to hint at something of the kind my remark was received by such a horrified stare (not to speak of the look of consternation on Margaret’s beautiful face), that I saw that to have made any further struggle for freedom would have been a positive breach of good manners. I submitted, therefore, with as good a grace as I could; and I was afterwards given to understand that to have absented myself from ‘ordinances’ that Sunday would have been little short of a scandal, seeing that it happened to be ‘Sacrament Sunday.’

If you ask a Scotchman how many sacraments there are, he will answer, if he remembers the Shorter Catechism, two. If, however, he is taken unawares, he will answer, one. Baptism is popularly considered to be a mere ceremony, of no practical importance to the infant recipient of it. It is regarded chiefly as an outward sign and token of the respectability of the parents, since it is only administered to the children of well-behaved people. ‘The Sacrament’ means the Lord’s Supper, which is administered in Presbyterian churches generally four times, but in country places often only twice a year. This, as it happened, was one of the ‘quarterly’ Communions, and as such popularly considered as of less dignity than those which occur at the old-fashioned seasons of July and January.

We set off about a quarter-past ten in the heavy, two-wheeled dog-cart which brought me here. I manifested an intention of walking to the village, and asked Alec to accompany me, but Mr. Lindsay intervened and protested strongly against my proposal. He said it would not be ‘seemly,’ by which I suppose he meant that it would be inconsistent with the dignity of the family, if a guest of his house were to be seen going to church on foot; but I could not help suspecting that he envied Alec and myself the sinful pleasure which a four-mile walk on so lovely a morning would have afforded us.

I can see that my elderly cousin (three times removed) is one of those people who are thoroughly unhappy unless they get their own way in everything, and never enjoy themselves more than when they have succeeded in spoiling somebody’s pleasure. I mentally resolved to have as little to do with the old gentleman as I possibly could, and mounted to the front seat of the dog-cart, which, as the place of honour, had been reserved for me.

As the old mare trotted soberly along, I could not help noticing the silence that seemed to brood over the fields. I have remarked the same thing in England, but somehow a Scotch Sunday seems even more still and quiet than an English one. Is it merely a matter of association and sentiment? Or is it that we miss on Sundays hundreds of trifling noises which on week-days fall unconsciously upon our ears?

Presently we began to pass little knots of people trudging along churchwards. The old women carried their Bibles wrapped up in their pocket-handkerchiefs to preserve them from the dust, along with the usual sprig of southern-wood. The men, without exception, wore suits of black, shiny broadcloth. They seemed to be all farmers. Very few of the weavers or labourers have any religion whatever (so far as outward rites go), any more than your unworthy cousin; and I can’t help thinking that the necessity for shiny black clothes has something to do with it. The women are different; as usual in all countries, and in all creeds, they are more devout than the men.

On the way we passed a group of young women just inside a field not far from the town, who were sitting about and stooping in various attitudes. I could not conceive what they were about, and turned to my host for an explanation.

He gravely informed me that they were putting on their shoes. Being accustomed throughout the week to dispense with these inventions of modern effeminacy, they find it extremely irksome to walk for miles over dusty roads in shoes and stockings. They therefore carry them in their hands till they reach some convenient field near the town which is the object of their journey, and then, sitting down on the grass, they array themselves in that part of their raiment before going into church.

We were now close to the town, and the sweet-toned little bell which I had heard on the evening of my arrival, along with a larger one of peculiarly strident tone in the belfry of the United Presbyterian Kirk, were ‘doing their best.’ There were whole processions of gigs or dog-carts such as that in which we were seated. No other style of vehicle was to be seen.

I was rather amused to see that the corner at which on week-days the weavers stand in their shirt-sleeves was not left unoccupied. The place was crowded with farmers, most of them highly respectable-looking men, clad in long black coats and tall hats. As to the hats, by the way, they were of all shapes which have been in fashion for the last twenty years, some of them taller than I should have supposed it possible for a hat to be.

We alighted at the door of an inn, and I noticed that the inn yard was crowded with ‘machines,’ i.e., dog-carts and gigs, which I thought pretty fair evidence of the prosperity of the country. Then we proceeded to our place of worship. In the little vestibule was a tall three-legged stool covered with a white napkin, and upon this rested a large pewter plate to receive the contributions of the faithful. Two tall farmers, dressed in swallow-tail coats, tall hats, and white neckties of the old-fashioned, all-round description, were standing over the treasury, and in one of them I recognised my acquaintance of the coach. I was prepared to nod him a greeting, but he preserved the most complete immobility of countenance, and kept his gaze fixed on the horizon outside the church door, as if no nearer object were worthy of his attention.

I found the church filled with dreadfully narrow pews of unpainted wood, and facing them an immensely tall pulpit, with a subsidiary pulpit in front of the other at a lower elevation. There were carpets on the staircase which led up to the pulpits, and the desks of both were covered with red cloth, with elaborate tassels. From either side of the upper pulpit there projected slender, curving brass rods about two feet long, terminating in broad pieces of brass, fixed at right angles to the rods. What the use of this apparatus was I could not imagine. A steep gallery ran round three sides of the little building; and in front of the pulpit was a table covered with a white cloth.

I was not so uncharitable as to suppose that those who came here to worship were guilty of any intentional irreverence, but certainly they carried out the theory that no reverence ought to be paid to sacred places very completely. No male person removed his hat till he was well within the doors; and in many cases men did not uncover themselves till they were comfortably seated. No one so much as thought of engaging in any private devotions. I was surprised to see that the congregation (which was, for the size of the building, a large one) was composed almost entirely of women and children; but as soon as the bells stopped ringing, a great clatter of heavy boots was heard in the vestibule, and the heads of families, whom I had seen standing at the corner, poured into the place. Like wise men, they had been taking the benefit of the fresh air till the last available moment.

Hardly had the farmers taken their seats when a man appeared, dressed entirely in black, carrying an enormous Bible, with two smaller books placed on the top of it. Ascending the pulpit stairs, he placed one of the smaller books on the desk of the lower pulpit; and then, going a few steps higher, he deposited the other two volumes on the desk of the higher one. He then retired, and immediately the minister, a tall, dark man, with very long black hair, wearing an immense gown of black silk, black gloves, and white bands such as barristers wear, entered the church and ascended to the pulpit. He was followed by an older man dressed in a stuff gown, who went into the lower pulpit. Last of all came the door-keeper, who also went up the pulpit stairs and carefully closed the pulpit door after the minister. The man in the stuff gown was left to shut his own door, and he did so with a bang, as if in protest at the want of respect shown to him, and his inferior position generally.

The ritual part, as I may call it, of the service being over, the minister rose and gave out a psalm, just as old Mr. Lindsay does at prayers; and as he did so, the man in the stuff gown got up, and pulling out two thin black boards from under his desk, he skilfully fixed one of them on the end of the brass rod which projected from the right-hand side of the pulpit; and then, turning half round, he fixed the other upon the similar rod on the left-hand side. On each of these boards I read, in large gilt letters, the word ‘Martyrdom.’ I could not imagine, even then, the meaning of this ceremony; but Alec informed me afterwards that it was meant to convey to the congregation the name of the tune to which the psalm was to be sung, so that they might turn it up in their tune-books, if they felt so inclined.

When the minister had read the verses which he wished to have sung, he gave out the number of the psalm again in a loud voice, and read the first line a second time, so that there might be no mistake. He then sat down, and the little man beneath him, rising up, began to sing. I very nearly got into trouble at this point by rising to my feet, forgetting for the moment that the orthodox Scotch fashion is to sit while singing and to stand at prayer. (I am told that in the towns a good many churches have adopted the habit of standing up to sing and keeping their seats during the prayer; but older Presbyterians look upon this custom, as, if not exactly heretical, yet objectionable, as tending in the direction of ritualism, prelacy, and other abominations.) For a line or two the precentor was left to sing by himself, then one or two joined in, and presently the whole body of the congregation took up the singing. I was surprised to find what a good effect resulted—it was at least infinitely better than that of an ordinary choir of mixed voices led by a vile harmonium or American organ. Many of the voices were rough, no doubt; and the precentor seemed to make it a point of honour to keep half a note ahead of everybody else; but, in spite of this, the general effect of so many sonorous voices singing in unison was decidedly impressive.

As soon as the four prescribed verses had been sung, the minister rose up to pray, and everybody got up at the same time. You know I am not easily shocked, Sophy; and hitherto, though I had seen much that was ludicrous and strange, I had not seen anything that I considered specially objectionable; but I must say that the behaviour of these good folks at the prayer which followed did shock me. They simply stood up and stared at each other; perhaps I noticed it more particularly because I, being a stranger, came in for a good share of attention. Many of the men kept their hands in their pockets; some were occupied taking observations of the weather, through the little windows of plain glass, half the time. The minister, I noticed, kept his hands clasped and his eyes tightly closed; and some of his flock, among whom were my host and his daughter, followed his example; but the majority, as I have said, simply stared around them. They may have been giving, meanwhile, a mental assent to the truths which the minister was enunciating; I dare say some of them were; but as far as one could judge from outward appearances they were no more engaged in praying than they were engaged in ploughing. The prayer lasted a very long time; when it was over we heard a chapter read, and after another part of a psalm was sung the sermon began. This was evidently the event of the day, to which everything said or done hitherto had been only an accessory; and everybody settled himself down in his seat as comfortably as he could.

From what I had heard of Scotch sermons I was prepared for a well-planned logical discourse, and the sermon to which I now listened fulfilled that description. But then it was, to my mind at least, entirely superfluous. Granting the premisses (as to which no one in the building, excepting perhaps my unworthy self, entertained the slightest doubt), the conclusion followed as a matter of course, and hardly needed a demonstration lasting fifty minutes by my watch. I was so tired with the confinement in a cramped position and a close atmosphere that I very nearly threw propriety to the winds and left the building. Fortunately, however, just before exhausted nature succumbed, the preacher began what he called the ‘practical application of the foregoing,’ and I knew that the time of deliverance was at hand. And I must say that, judging from the fervour with which the concluding verses of a psalm were sung, I was not alone in my feeling of relief. As soon as the psalm was ended everybody rose, and the preacher, stretching out his arms over his flock, pronounced a solemn benediction. The ‘Amen’ was hardly out of the good man’s mouth when a most refreshing clatter arose. No one resumed his seat. Everybody hurried into the narrow passages, which were in an instant so crammed that moving in them was hardly possible. Here, again, I am convinced that there was no intentional irreverence; it was merely a custom arising from the extremely natural desire of breathing the fresh air after the confinement we had undergone. As we passed out I overheard several casual remarks about the sermon, which was discussed with the utmost freedom.

‘Maister McLeod was a wee thocht dry the day,’ said one farmer.

‘But varra guid—varra soon’,’ responded his neighbour.

‘I thocht he micht ha’ made raither mair o’ that last pint,’ said the first speaker.

‘Weel—maybe,’ was the cautious reply.

We went over to the inn for a little refreshment, and in three-quarters of an hour the bells began to jangle once more. This was more than I had bargained for; but there was no help for it. I could not offend my host by retreating; and besides, I was desirous of seeing for myself what a Scottish Communion Service was like.

After the usual singing of a few verses of a psalm, and prayer, the minister descended from the pulpit, and took his place beside the table beneath, on which there had now been placed two loaves of bread, and four large pewter cups. From this position he delivered an address, and after it a prayer. He then took a slice from one of the loaves of bread which were ready cut before him, broke off a morsel for himself, and handed the piece of bread to one of several elderly men, called ‘elders,’ who were seated near him. This man broke off a morsel in the same way, and handed the remainder of the bread to another, and so on till all the elders had partaken. Four of the elders then rose, and two went down one side of the church, and two down the other side, one of each pair bearing a plate covered with a napkin, and holding a loaf of bread cut in slices, which they distributed among those of the congregation who were sitting in the centre of the church, and who alone were about to take part in the rite. The ceremony is, in fact, very much, or altogether, the same as the ‘love-feasts’ among the Methodists; except that the Methodists use water while the Presbyterians use wine. There is nothing of the sacramental character left in the ordinance; it is avowedly a commemorative and symbolic rite, and nothing more.

In the meantime perfect silence reigned in the little building. There was literally not a sound to be heard but the chirping of one or two sparrows outside the partly-opened windows. Have you ever noticed how impressive an interval of silence is at any meeting of men, especially when they are met together for a religious purpose? Silence is never vulgar; and it almost seems as if any form of worship in which intervals of silence form a part were redeemed thereby from vulgarity. Whatever may have been the reason, this service impressed me, I must confess, in a totally different way from that in which the long sermon in the morning had done.

Suddenly a gentle falsetto voice fell upon my ear; and looking up, I saw that the elders, having finished their task, had returned to the table, and that a little white-haired man had risen to address the people. He wore no gown, but he had on a pair of bands, like his friend Mr. McLeod, which gave him a comical sort of air. This, however, as well as the curious falsetto or whining tone in which his voice was pitched, was forgotten when one began to listen. The old man had chosen for his text one of the most sacred of all possible subjects to a Christian; and no one who heard him could doubt that he was speaking from his heart. A deeper solemnity seemed to fall upon the silent gathering. I glanced round, but whatever emotions were excited by the touching address, none of them were suffered to appear on the faces of the people. On Alec Lindsay’s face, alone, I noticed a look of rapt attention; his sister’s beautiful features seemed as if they had been carved in marble.

Before the old minister sat down he raised one of the large cups (which had been previously filled with wine from a flagon), and handed it to one of the elders, who, after drinking from it, passed it to his neighbour. After the ministers and elders had tasted the wine, two of the latter rose, and each proceeded down one of the passages, bearing a large pewter cup, while he was followed by one of his fellows carrying a flagon. The cups were handed to the people still sitting in the pews, exactly as the bread had been, and circulated from one to another till all the communicants had partaken of the wine. Then followed another address, from the black-haired gentleman this time; and with a prayer and a little more singing the ceremony came to an end.

As we emerged into the afternoon sunshine, and waited for ‘the beast to be put in,’ as the innkeeper called it, I could not be sorry that I had sacrificed my inclinations and had seen something of the practice of religion in this country.

But I dare say you have had enough of my experiences for the present—so, good-night.

Your affectionate cousin,

Hubert Blake.

CHAPTER IV.

THE FOURTH LETTER.

Hubert Blake to Sophy Meredith.

The Castle Farm, Muirburn, N.B.
Oct. 5, 187-.

My dear Sophy,

Yesterday there was a ‘feeing fair’ at Muirburn, and under Alec’s guidance I paid a visit to the scene of dissipation.

But, first of all, I wish to tell you of a curious Scotch custom that fell under my notice the evening before. Alec and I were returning from a short ramble in the ‘gloaming,’ i.e., the twilight, when we happened to meet a young couple walking side by side. As soon as they caught sight of us they separated, and walked on opposite sides of the road till we had passed. This, it seems, was according to local ideas of what is proper under such circumstances. As we went by I glanced at the girl, and saw that she was one of Mr. Lindsay’s farm-servants.

‘So Jessie has got a sweetheart,’ I remarked.

‘Very likely,’ said Alec, with a laugh; ‘but I don’t think Tom Archibald is her lad. He is only the “black-fuit.”’

‘The what?’

‘The “black-fuit.” Dae ye no ken—I mean, don’t ye know what that is?’

On confessing my ignorance, I learned that the etiquette of courtship, as understood among the peasantry of south-west Scotland, demands that no young ploughman shall present himself at the farm on which the young woman who has taken his fancy may happen to be employed; if he did so, it would expose the girl to a good deal of bantering. He invariably secures the services of a friend, on whom he relies not only for moral support, but for actual assistance in his enterprise.

At the end of the working-day, when the dairymaids, as we should call them in England, have ‘cleaned themselves,’ and are chatting together in a little group at the door of the byre, John, the friend, makes his appearance, and presently contrives to engage the attention of Jeanie, who is the object of his friend’s devotion. The other girls good-naturedly leave them alone, and John suggests that ‘they micht tak’ a bit daun’er as far as the yett’ (i.e., the gate). Jeanie blushes, and picking up the corner of her apron as she goes, accompanies the ambassador to the gate and into the lane beyond. There, by pure accident, they meet Archie, and he and John greet each other in the same way as if they had not met each other for a week. The three saunter on together, under the hawthorn, till suddenly John remembers that he will be ‘expeckit hame,’ and takes his departure, leaving Archie to plead his cause as best he may.

I declared my conviction that the custom sprang from unworthy fears of an action for breach of promise; but Alec was almost offended by this imputation on the good faith of his countrymen, and assured me most seriously that that kind of litigation was unheard of in Kyleshire.

Next day we went to the fair. The object of this gathering is to enable farmers to meet and engage their farm-servants, male and female; it takes place twice a year, the hiring being always for six months.

The village, or ‘the toon,’ as they always call it here, was in a state of great excitement. There was quite a crowd in the middle of the street, chiefly composed of young women in garments of many colours, in the most enviable condition of physical health; and young giants of ploughmen in their best clothes, with carefully oiled hair. On the outskirts of the crowd (which was as dense as four hundred people could possibly make it), were a few queys, i.e., young cows, and a few rough farm-horses. The public-houses were simply crammed as full as they would hold. There was a swing, and a merry-go-round, and a cheap-Jack. There was also a sort of lottery, conducted on the most primitive principles. You paid sixpence, plunged your hand into a little wooden barrel revolving on a spindle, and pulled out a morsel of peculiarly dirty paper bearing a number. This entitled you to a comb, or an accordion with three notes, or a penny doll, as the case might be.

What chiefly impressed me was the sober, not to say dismal, character of the whole thing. I saw no horse-play, no dancing, no kiss-in-the-ring, or games of any kind. One might have thought it was an ordinary market-day, but for the crowd and the cracking of the caps on the miniature rifles with which the lads were shooting for nuts. This, in fact, was the only popular amusement; and, as all the boys and young men took part in it, and all held the muzzle of their weapon within twelve or fourteen inches of the mark, I perceived that every proprietor of a nut-barrow would have been ruined if he had not secured himself against bankruptcy by prudently twisting the barrels of his firearms.

There was, by the way, one other amusement besides the shooting for nuts: every young man presented every girl of his acquaintance with a handful of nuts or sweetmeats, the degree of his regard being indicated by the quantity offered. I convinced myself that some of the prettier and more popular girls must have carried home several pounds’ weight of saccharine matter.

We did not leave the village till it was getting dark and the naphtha lamps were blazing at the stalls. Probably the fun was only beginning, but we did not stay to witness it. Happily, the drinking seemed to be confined to great, large-limbed farmers, on whom half a bottle of whisky seemed to make not the slightest impression, beyond loosening their tongues. As the night advanced, however, a change must have occurred, for I was told afterwards that Hamilton of Burnfoot (my friend of the coach and of the offertory) had been seen sitting upright in his gig, thrashing with all his might, and in perfect silence, a saddler’s hobby-horse, which some wag had put between the shafts in place of his steady old ‘roadster.’

On the way home Alec and I had some confidential conversation as to his future.

‘Mr. Blake,’ he began, ‘what do you think I ought to be?’

‘How can I tell, Alec?’ I answered; ‘what would you like to be?’

‘That’s just what I don’t know,’ said the lad gloomily. ‘I don’t know what I am fit for, or whether I am fit for anything. How can I tell, before I have seen anything of the world, what part I should try to play in it?’

‘You have no strong taste in any direction?’

‘No; I can’t say that I have. I like the country, but I am sick of the loneliness of my life here. I long to be out in the world, to be up and doing something, I hardly know what. You see, I know so little. What I should like is to go to college for the next three or four years—to Glasgow, or Edinburgh—and by that time I would have an idea what I could do, and what I should not attempt.’

‘But do you think,’ I said, with some hesitation, ‘that you are ready to go to college?’

‘Why not? Don’t you think I am old enough? I am almost nineteen. I dare say you think I am too ignorant; but there are junior classes for beginners. I can do Virgil and Cicero, and I think I could manage Xenophon and Homer.’

‘What is the difficulty then?’

‘My father thinks it would be wasting money to send me to college, unless I were to be a minister or a doctor, and I don’t want to be either the one or the other.’

‘But you must be something, you know.’

‘Yes, but I won’t be a minister. Do you know that I was once very nearly in the way of making my fortune through paraffin oil. and lost my chance through an ugly bull-pup?’

‘Really? How was that?’

‘Mr. Lindsay of Drumleck——’

‘Is he a relation of yours?’ I interposed.

(It was a surprise to me to hear that I was, ever so distantly, related to a millionnaire.)

‘He is my father’s uncle,’ said Alec. ‘Well, last year he sent for me to pay him a visit, and he had hinted to my father that if I pleased him he would “make a man of me.” I didn’t please him. The very day I went to his house, I happened to be standing near a table in the drawing-room on which there was a precious vase of some sort or other. There was a puppy under the table that I didn’t see; I trod on its tail, and the brute started up with a yowl and flew at my leg. I stooped down to drive it off, and managed to knock over the table, vase and all. You should have seen the old man’s face! He very nearly ordered me out of the house. I don’t believe he particularly cared for the thing, but then you see he had given five-and-twenty pounds for it. It ended my chances so far as he is concerned at any rate; and, to tell the truth, I wasn’t particularly sorry. I shouldn’t care to spend my life in making oil.’

‘But, my dear fellow, it seems to me you are too particular. Take my advice, and if you have an opportunity of getting into your grand-uncle’s good books again, don’t lose it.’

‘Oh! he has taken another in my place, a fellow Semple—I don’t think much of him. He is a grand-nephew, too. I shouldn’t wonder if he makes him his heir; and I don’t care. I don’t want to be a Glasgow merchant, any more than I want to be a Kyleshire farmer.’

‘Ah! Alec, are you smitten too?’ I said. ‘You want to climb, and you will not think that you may fall. I didn’t know you were ambitious.’

‘I want to go into a wider world than this one;’ said the lad, and his eyes flashed, and his voice trembled with excitement. ‘I want to learn, first of all; then I want to find what I can do best, and try to make a name for myself. I want to rise to the level of—oh! what am I talking about?’

He broke off abruptly, as if ashamed of his own enthusiasm.

For my own part I felt sorry for him. I always do, somehow, when I see a brave young spirit eager to meet and conquer fortune—a ship setting sail from port, colours all flying, guns firing, crowds cheering. How many reach the harbour? How many founder at sea? One is wrecked in this way, another in that. One gallant bark meets with headwinds nearly all the way; another is run down by a rival and is heard of no more; a third, after baffling many a wintry gale, goes down in smooth water, within sight of land. How many unsuccessful men are there in the world for every one who succeeds? And of those who gain their heart’s desire, how many can say, ‘I am satisfied’?

October 29.

I was fairly amazed to find this unfinished letter, begun three weeks ago, between the leaves of my blotter this morning. Another example of my incurable laziness!

My stay here is almost at an end. My large picture is nearly completed. My portrait of Margaret is finished; and though it is not what I would like it to be, I think it is the best thing I have done yet. I leave to-morrow morning, and hope to be with you in a day or two. Alec goes with me as far as Glasgow, for he has persuaded his father to send him to college—or rather, the old man has yielded to the lad’s discontent, backed by my expressions of the high opinion I hold of his abilities. I fancy Mr. Lindsay thinks his son will yet be an ornament to the Free Kirk, but, if I am not very much mistaken, Alec will never change his mind on this point.

We had a regular family council, at which the matter was settled. The old man sat on his chair, bolt upright, his hands folded before him. Alec sat near by while his future was being decided, carelessly playing with a paper-knife on the table. Margaret was, as usual, at her sewing; but I could tell by little signs in her face, that for once her composure was more than half assumed.

‘You had your chance a year ago,’ said the old man in a harsh unyielding tone, ‘and you threw it away. Why should I stint myself, and go back from my task of buying back the land, to give you another one?’

‘I don’t wish you to stint yourself,’ said the boy half sullenly.

‘I don’t want to injure your sister,’ said his father, in the same tone.

‘Do you think I wish Margaret injured? If you cannot spare five-and-twenty pounds without inconvenience, there’s an end of it.’

‘It’s not the first winter only,’ began Mr. Lindsay.

‘But I can support myself after that,’ interrupted Alec; ‘I can get a bursary; I can get teaching——’

‘You’ll have to give up idling away your time over Blackwood then,’ said the old man, with a grim smile.

Alec’s face flushed, and he made no reply.

Then, having proved that Alec’s wish was wholly unreasonable and impracticable, Mr. Lindsay gave his consent to the proposal, and, to cut short further discussion, told Margaret to bid the servants come to ‘worship.’

I was rather surprised that Margaret had said nothing on her brother’s behalf, and a little disappointed that she had not declared that her own interests ought not to stand in the way of her brother’s education; but I found that I had misjudged her.

‘Well, I owe this to Margaret,’ said Alec to me, as soon as we found ourselves alone together.

‘To your sister?’ I said, with some surprise.

‘Yes; my father thinks more of her opinion than he does of anybody else’s, and I know she has been urging him to let me go. As for that about injuring her, it is all stuff. Do you think I would take the money, if I didn’t know my father could afford it perfectly well?’

I hardly knew what reply to make to this, and Alec went on:

‘There will be a row between them one of these days. My father will want her to marry Semple. I know he is in love with her; and Margaret won’t have him.’

‘I should think not, indeed!’ I exclaimed.

I had seen this young fellow, and I confess I took a violent dislike to him. He came over to the farm one afternoon, and I thought I had never seen a more vulgar creature. He was dressed in the latest fashion—on a visit to a farmhouse, too! He had a coarse, commonplace face, a ready, officious manner, and the most awful accent I ever heard on the tongue of any human being. I cannot say I admire the Scotch accent; it is generally harsh and disagreeable; but when it is joined to an affectation of correctness, when every syllable is carefully articulated, and every r is given its full force and effect, the result is overpowering. The young man was good enough to give me a considerable share of his attention, and I could hardly conceal my dislike of him. He patronized old Mr. Lindsay, was loftily condescending to Alec, and treated Margaret as if she ought to have been highly flattered by the admiration of so fine a gentleman.

‘Your respected cousin seemed to me as if he were greatly in need of a kicking,’ I said to Alec.

‘If he gets even a share of Uncle James’s property he will be a rich man,’ said Alec thoughtfully. ‘My father would think it a sin for Maggie to refuse a man with a hundred thousand pounds.’

‘So would a good many fathers, I suppose,’ said I.

I am sorry to see Alec’s attitude to his father; yet I fear he judges the old man only too accurately.

For the last few days we have had nothing but rain. Rain, rain, rain, till the leaves were fairly washed off the trees, and the very earth seemed as if it must be sodden to the rocks beneath. Yesterday afternoon I felt tired of being shut up in the large bare room which I have been using as a studio, so I put on a thick suit, and went out for a stretch in the midst of a perfect deluge. I crossed the river by a stone bridge, about a mile lower down, as the stepping-stones were covered, and soon I got to a wide expanse of country, composed of large sodden green fields, barely reclaimed from the moor, and even now, in spite of drains, partly overgrown with rushes. There were no fences; and the hardy cattle wandered at will over the land.

It was inexpressibly dreary. There was little or no wind—no clouds in the sky—only a lead-coloured heaven from which the rain fell incessantly. There was not a house, not a tree, not a hedgerow in sight; and the rain-laden atmosphere hid the horizon.

Suddenly I heard the noise of singing, the singing of a child. I was fairly startled, and looked round, wondering where the sound could come from. I was on the border between the moor and the reclaimed land; and there was literally nothing in sight but the earth, the sky, and the rain, except what looked like a small heap of turf left by the peat-cutters. Could some stray child be hidden behind it? If so, I thought, its life must be in danger.

I hurried up to the mound of peats, and as I did so, the sound of the song became stronger. Then it ceased, and the little singer began a fresh melody:

‘Behind yon hills where Lugar flows,

‘Mang muirs an’ mosses mony, O,

The wintry sun the day has closed——’

He stopped suddenly as he caught sight of me, and a fine collie which had been lying beside him made a dash at me.

‘Doon, Swallow! Lie doon, sir!’ cried the child, and the dog obeyed at once.

It was not a heap of peats, as I had supposed, but a tiny hut, just large enough to hold a boy sitting upright, ingeniously built of dry peats. It was open to the east, the lee side, and was quite impervious to the weather. The little fellow seemed to be about twelve years of age, a stout, rosy-cheeked laddie, clad in an immense Scotch bonnet and a tattered gray plaid; and his little red bare feet peeped out beneath his corduroys.

‘What on earth are you doing here, child?’ I exclaimed.

‘Eh?’ asked the boy, looking up in my face with surprise.

‘Why are you here? Why are you not at home?’

‘Man, I’m herdin’.’

‘Herding what?’

‘The kye.’

At that moment some of the young cattle took it into their heads to cross the ditch which separated their territory from the moor, and the boy with a ‘Here, Swallow!’ sent the dog bounding after the ‘stirks.’

‘And do you stay here all alone?’

‘Ay.’

‘All day long?’

‘Ou, ay.’

‘Poor little fellow!’ was on my lips, but I did not utter the words. The child was healthy and strong, and not, apparently, unhappy. He held a ‘gully’ in one hand, and a bit of wood, which he had been whittling while he sang, in the other. Why should I, by expressing my pity for his solitary condition, make him discontented with his lot?

Fortunately I had in my pocket a few coppers, which I presented to him. You should have seen the joy that lighted up the child’s face! He looked at the treasure shyly, as if afraid to touch it, so I had to force it into his hand. I don’t think I ever saw before such an expression of pure unalloyed delight on a human countenance. He was so happy that he forgot to thank me.

‘What will you do with them?’ I asked.

He opened his hand and pointed to the pennies one after another.

‘I’ll buy sweeties wi’ that ane, an’—an’ bools wi’ that ane, an’—an’—an’ a peerie wi’ that ane; an’ I’ll gi’e ane to Annie, and I’ll lay by twa!’

‘Prudent young Scotchman,’ said I; ‘and pray, what are “bools”? Marbles, I suppose. And what is a “peerie”?’

The boy thought I was laughing at him.

‘Div ye no ken that?’ he asked, with some suspiciousness and a dash of contempt.

I assured him I did not.

‘Ye tie’t up wi’ a string, an’ birl’t on the road, an’ it gangs soon’ soon’ asleep.’

‘Oh, a top you mean.’

‘A peerie,’ persisted he.

‘Ah, well; it’s the same thing. Good-day, my boy,’ said I.

The little fellow got up, draped as he was in his ragged plaid, and putting one hand with the precious pennies into his pocket, solemnly extended to me the other.

‘I dare say,’ said I to myself, as I looked back and saw the child counting over his treasure once more with eager eyes, ‘I dare say there isn’t a happier creature this day between Land’s End and John O’Groats, than this herd-boy, in his lonely hut on the sodden, dreary moorland!’

And so it is, all the world over. I should think myself very hardly used by fortune, if I had to live alone in a grimy city for six months on five-and-thirty pounds, and had to get up every day before dawn to grind away at Latin and Greek; yet here is young Lindsay with his blue eyes ready to leap out of his head with excitement and delight at the bare prospect of it! It is a curious world. But I must look after my packing; for in order to reach Glasgow to-morrow, we must be stirring long before daylight. Till we meet, then,

Your affectionate cousin,

Hubert.

CHAPTER V.

THE SHIP SETS SAIL.

A sudden change in the weather had whitened the fields of the Castle Farm, and covered the puddles in the narrow lane with thin clear sheets of ice. Little or nothing was said at the breakfast-table; but as Alec Lindsay went into the empty kitchen to fasten a card on his little cow-hide trunk, his sister followed him, and stood over him in silence till one of the men came in, lifted the box, and carried it away.

‘You will write home every week, won’t you, Alec?’ she said.

‘Every week, Maggie! what in the world shall I get to say?’

‘Tell us what your life is like, whether your lodgings are comfortable, what sort of people you take up with.’

‘Well; all right.’

‘And, Alec, you had better write to father and me time about; and when you write to me you can send a little scrap for myself as well.’

‘That you needn’t show to anybody? I thought that was against your principles, Meg. Don’t mind me, I was only making fun of you,’ he added, suddenly throwing his arms round his sister’s neck; ‘of course I will send you a little private note now and then. Don’t cry, Maggie.’

‘I’m not crying.’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘It will be very lonely without you, Alec, all the long winter.’

‘I almost wish I weren’t going, for your sake; but I know you have helped me to get away, Maggie, and it was awfully kind of you.’

Here Mr. Lindsay’s voice was heard calling out that the travellers would miss the coach if they did not set off at once.

‘Nonsense! We shall only have to wait at the roadside for twenty minutes,’ said Alec under his breath. But he gave his sister a last hug, shook hands with his father, and mounted the back-seat of the dog-cart, where his trunk and Blake’s portmanteau were already deposited.

In another minute they were off; and Alec, looking back, saw the light of the lantern shine on the tall figures of his gray-haired father and his sister, framed in the old stone doorway as in a picture.

The stable was passed, the long byre where the cows were already stirring, the stack-yard, the great hay-rick, the black peat-stack flanking the outmost gable; and as each familiar building and well-remembered corner faded in turn from view, Alec in his heart bade them good-bye. He felt as if he would never see the old place again—never, at least, would it be to him what it had been. When he came again it would be merely for a visit, like any other stranger. The subtle, invisible chains that bind us to this or that corner of mother earth, once broken, can hardly be reforged; and Alec felt that no future leave-taking of the Farm would be like this one; henceforth it would belong not to the present, but to the past.

As the travellers had foreseen when they set out, they had a good twenty minutes to wait at the corner of the lane till the coach came up; then came the long, monotonous drive, the horses’ hoofs keeping time to ‘Auld Lang Syne’ in Alec’s head all the way; then the railway journey. Blake had, as a matter of course, taken a first-class ticket. Alec had, equally as a matter of course, taken a third-class one. When this was discovered, Blake took his seat beside his friend, laughing at the uneasiness depicted on Alec’s face, and declined without a second thought the lad’s proposal that he too should travel first-class and pay the difference of fare. But the incident caused Alec acute mental discomfort, which lasted till they reached Glasgow.

When the train steamed into the terminus, it seemed as if it were entering a huge gloomy cavern, where the air was composed of smoke, mist, and particles of soot. The frost still held the fields in Kyleshire; but here the rain was dripping from every house-top, and the streets were covered with a thick layer of slimy mud.

Blake shuddered.

‘I’ve got nothing particular to do, Alec,’ said he; ‘let me help you to look for lodgings.’

But Alec had no mind to let his friend see the sort of accommodation with which he would have to content himself; and the artist saw that the lad wanted to decline his offer, without very well knowing how.

‘Or perhaps you’d rather hunt about by yourself?’ continued Blake. ‘Well, in that case, I think I’ll be off to Edinburgh at once, and go to London that way. Anything to be out of this.’

He stopped suddenly, and hoped that his companion had not heard his last words. They took a cab to Queen Street; and after seeing his friend off to Edinburgh, Alec set out on his quest of a shelter. A few steps brought him to the district north of George Street, where, in those days, the poorer class of students had their habitations. The streets were not particularly broad, and the houses were of tremendous height, looking like great barracks placed one at the end of another, though their hewn-stone fronts saved them from the mean appearance of brick or stucco exteriors. After a good deal of running up and down steep staircases (for these houses are built in flats), Alec at last pitched upon a narrow but lofty sitting-room, with a still narrower bedroom opening from it. For this accommodation the charge was only eight shillings a week.

After a peculiarly uncomfortable meal, Alec Lindsay set out for ‘The College.’

The University of Glasgow, founded by a Bull of one of the mediæval Popes, had in those days its seat in the High Street, once the main thoroughfare of the city, but long since fallen from its old estate. The air seemed thicker, more full of smoke and soot, of acid vapours and abominable smells, in this quarter, than in any other part of the town.

An ancient pile of buildings faced the street; and a quaint gateway gave access to the outer quadrangle or ‘first court,’ as Alec soon learned to call it. Here a solid stone staircase, guarded by a stone lion on one side and a unicorn on the other, led to the senate-room above; and an archway led to a quadrangle beyond.

But Alec had scarcely time to observe as much as this. Hardly had he set foot within the gateway, when a gigantic man wearing a huge black beard stalked up to him, and without more ado caught him by the arm, while a small crowd of half a dozen lads of his own age, wearing gowns of red flannel, swarmed round him on the other side.

‘I say!’ exclaimed the big man; ‘you’re going to matriculate, aren’t you?’

‘Of course; that’s what I came here for.’

‘And where were you born?’

‘Where was I born?’ asked Alec, in bewilderment.

‘Yes; be quick, man. Do you come from Highlands or Lowlands, or from beyond the Border?’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘He comes from the county of Clackmannan; I know by the cut of his hair!’ yelled a red-haired, freckled youth of some seventeen summers.

‘Get out, you unmannerly young cub!’ cried the big man, making a dash at the offender, without releasing his hold of Alec’s arm.

‘Are you Transforthana?’ cried another. ‘Oh, say if you’re Transforthana, like a good fellow, and don’t keep us in suspense.’

‘He’s Rothseiana! I know it!’ bawled out a fourth.

At this point a little man in spectacles darted from a low doorway on the left with a sheaf of papers printed in red ink, which he began to distribute as fast as he could. Instantly the men who had fastened upon Alec left him, and rushed off to secure one of the papers, and Alec followed their example.

After some little trouble he got one, and then elbowing his way out of the crowd, began to read it. He found it was a not very comical parody of ‘Come into the garden, Maud,’ the allusions being half of a political, half of an academical character.

Looking up with a puzzled air, Alec encountered the gaze of a man ten or twelve years his senior, who was regarding him with a look of mingled interest and amusement. He was considerably over six feet high, and broad in proportion. He wore a suit of tweeds, a blue Scotch bonnet, and a reddish-brown beard. He had the high cheek-bones and large limbs of the true Highlander, and one of his eyes had a slight cast. When he smiled, he had a cynical but not unkindly expression.

‘I wish you would tell me what all this nonsense is about,’ said Alec.

‘What nonsense would ye like to pe informed apoot?’ inquired the other in a strong Highland accent—‘the nonsense in that bit paper? Or the nonsense o’ these daft callants? Or the nonsense o’ this haill thing?’ and he waved his thick stick round the quadrangle.

‘What is all this stir about? Why were a’ these fellows so anxious to know where I was born?’

‘One quastion at a time, my lad,’ answered the big Highlander. ‘They are electin’ a Lord Rector; the ploy will gang on for a week or ten days yet. And they vote in “nations,” according to the part o’ the country they belong to. I was born in the Duke’s country, and consequently my vote is worth conseederably more than that o’ yon wee spectacled callant who was kittled in the Gorbals, for example.’

‘I was born in Kyleshire,’ said Alec.

‘Then you’re Rothseiana,’ said the stranger, ‘and your vote’s worth more than mine. I’d advise ye to choose at once, and put down your name at one club or the other, or they’ll tease your life out.’

‘But who are the candidates?’

‘Mr. Sharpe, and Lord Dummieden, of course.’

Alec knew Mr. Sharpe’s name as that of an ex-Cabinet Minister on the Liberal side, who had the reputation of being a scholar, but who had never written anything beyond two or three pungent articles in The Debater.

‘And who is Lord Dummieden?’

‘What!’ answered the Highlander; ‘is it possible that you have never heard of the “History of the British Isles before the Roman Invasion,” in sixteen volumes, by the Right Honourable James Beattie, Viscount Dummieden, of Crumlachie?’

Alec gave an incredulous look, and the other laughed outright.

‘Don’t be offended,’ said the Highlander.

‘Have you matriculated yet? No? Come awa’ then, and I’ll show you the way.’ He passed his arm through Alec’s as he spoke, and led him to a tiny office in a corner of the quadrangle which was half filled with students.

‘What is your name?’ asked Alec’s new friend, as they stood waiting their turn to enter their names in the volume kept for the purpose. Alec told him. ‘Mine’s Cameron—Duncan Cameron. I’m a medical. This is my third year. Have you got lodgings?’

‘Yes; at No. 210, Hanover Street.

‘Does your landlady look a decent body? I’ll come round and see if she has a room to spare for me,’ he added, without waiting for an answer.

Presently Alec obtained, in exchange for one of his father’s one-pound notes, a ticket bearing his name, and the words ‘Civis Universitatis Glasguenis’ printed in large letters underneath.

‘That’s all right,’ said Cameron; ‘now come along, and I’ll show you the Professors’ Court. You have to call on the Latin and Greek professors, and get your class-tickets. The fee is three guineas each.’ He led Alec through an archway into a second and larger quadrangle, then across it and through another archway into a third. ‘That’s the museum,’ said Cameron, pointing to a building with handsome stone columns; ‘and that’s the library,’ he added, pointing to a narrow structure, built apparently of black stone, on the right.

The two young men turned to the left, passed through an iron gateway, and found themselves in a gloomy and silent court, formed by the houses of the various professors, which, like the library, were black with smoke and soot-flakes.

After the professors of ‘Humanity’ (as Latin is called in the north) and of Greek had been duly interviewed, Alec and his friend returned to the High Street without going back to the quadrangles; and in a few minutes they pulled Mrs. Macpherson’s brightly-polished bell-handle.

‘I’ve brought a friend, a fellow-student, who wants to know if you have any more rooms to let,’ said Alec.

‘Is he a medical?’ asked the good woman, knitting her brows.

‘I am proud to say that I am,’ said Cameron.

‘Then this is no the place for you ava.’

‘An’ what for no?’

‘I’ve had eneuch, an’ mair than eneuch, o’ thae misguidet callants, wi’ their banes, an’ their gases, an’ their gruesome talk, an’ their singin’ sangs, an’ playing cairds, an’ drinkin’, till twa, or maybe haulf-past on a Sabbath mornin’. Na, na; I’ll hae nae mair o’ the tribe, at no price.’

But this opposition made Cameron determined that under that roof and no other would he take up his abode for the winter. He bound himself by a solemn promise to introduce neither bones, human or animal, nor chemicals of any kind, upon the premises, and to behave himself discreetly in other respects. He then remembered that his aunt’s husband’s cousin was a Macpherson; and when it came out that the landlady’s ‘forbears’ came from Auchintosh, which was within a day’s sail of the island where the Camerons had their home, all objections were withdrawn.

A large dingy sitting-room, with a ‘concealed bed’ constructed in a recess, so that the room could also be used as a bedroom, was pronounced by Cameron to be too grand; and on Mrs. Macpherson saying that all her other rooms were let except an attic, he asked if he might see that apartment. They climbed up a steep and narrow staircase, and presently stood in a long narrow room, right under the slates, so low in the ceiling that Cameron could only walk along one side of it. It was furnished with a narrow bedstead, a small deal table, and two or three stout chairs.

‘First-rate!’ exclaimed Cameron. ‘The very thing;’ and going to the skylight, he pushed it open and thrust out his head and shoulders. ‘Plenty of air here—not fresh, but better than nothing. What is the rent?’

The rent was five shillings and sixpence a week, and after a vain effort to get rid of the sixpence, and an elaborate agreement on the subject of coals, the bargain was concluded.

‘That’s settled,’ said Cameron; ‘and now I’m off to the Broomielaw to get my impedimenta oot o’ the Dunolly Castle. Will ye come?’

Having nothing better to do, Alec readily acquiesced; and the two young men walked down Buchanan Street with its broad wet pavements, and through the more crowded Argyle Street and Jamaica Street, till they reached the wharf.

Here all was damp and dismal. Coal-dust covered the ground; water, thick with coaldust and mud, dripped from the eaves of the huge open sheds; a smell of tar filled all the air. To Alec, however, nothing was dismal, nothing was depressing. All was new, strange, and interesting. A few vessels of light burden lay moored at the opposite side of the narrow river; a river steamer, her day’s work ended, was blowing off steam at the Broomielaw.

‘You will hardly believe it, Cameron,’ said Alec, gazing with all his eyes at these commonplace sights, ‘but I never saw a ship or a steamer before.’

‘Hoots, man,’ replied his companion; ‘I’ve been on the salt water ever since I can remember; but then, till I came here three years sin’, I had never seen a railway train—I used to spend hours at one of the stations watching them—and, what is more, I had never seen a tree.’

‘Never seen a tree!’

‘No; they won’t grow in some of the islands, you know, at least not above five or six feet high. But there’s the Dunolly Castle.’

There lay the good vessel which had so lately ploughed the waters of the Outer Hebrides, a captive now, bound fast by stem and stern.

Cameron jumped on board, and soon reappeared dragging a full sack behind him, while a seaman followed with a heavy wooden box on his shoulder, and a big earthenware jar in his left hand. Several porters with big two-wheeled barrows now proffered their services. Cameron selected one, and having loaded the barrow with a sack of oatmeal, a small barrel of salt herrings, two great jars which Alec rightly conjectured to contain whisky, and the wooden box, he proceeded to pilot the porter to Hanover Street.

‘Tak’ care o’ the jaurs!’ he cried out in some alarm, as the porter knocked his barrow against a corner. ‘They’re just the maist precious bit o’ the haill cargo; and if ye preak ane o’ them, she’ll preak your heid, as I’m a leefin’ man!’

‘Why do you bring your provisions instead of buying them here? Is it any cheaper?’ asked Alec.

‘Cheaper! Fat the teil do I care for the cheapness? I prefer my own whisky, and my own oatmeal, I tell you; it is better than any you can buy here,’ answered the proud and irate Highlandman.

But when Alec and he were better acquainted, he acknowledged that the oatmeal and whisky were presented to him by relatives, as aids to the difficult task of living for six months on twenty pounds.

Next morning Alec woke to a blinding, acrid, yellow fog, which the gaslight faintly illumined. It was still dark when he emerged into the street and took his way to the College, with a copy of one of Cicero’s orations and a note-book under his arm. As he reached his destination the clock struck eight, and immediately a bell began to tinkle in quick, sharp, imperative tones.

The junior Latin class, he found, met in the centre of a long narrow hall, lit by a few gas-jets flaring here and there. On both sides of the hall were tall windows, outside of which was the yellow cloud of fog. There was no stove or heating apparatus whatever. A raised bench ran along one side of the long room, and there were black empty galleries at either end. In the centre stood a pulpit, raised about two feet above the floor, and in this the Professor was already standing.

About two hundred men and boys were seated in the benches nearest the pulpit, some wearing the regulation red gown, and some without it, while beyond them the black empty benches stretched away to the farther end of the hall, which lay in complete darkness.

All was stillness, but for the tinkling of the bell. Suddenly it stopped, and that instant a janitor banged the door, shutting out late comers inexorably.

Everybody stood up, while the Professor repeated a collect and the Lord’s Prayer in English. Then he began to call the roll in Latin, and as each student answered ‘Adsum!’ he was assigned a place on one of the benches, which was to be his for the rest of the session. Alec’s place was between a stout little fellow of sixteen, son of a wealthy Glasgow merchant, and a pale overworked teacher, who had set his heart on being able to write ‘M.A.’ after his name.

The work of the class then began. The Professor gave a short explanation of the circumstances under which the oration which he had selected was made. He read and translated a few lines, explaining the various allusions, the nature of a Roman trial, and the meaning of the word ‘judices.’ He then, by way of illustrating the method of teaching, called on one of the students to construe a few lines, and proceeded to ask all sorts of questions, historical and philological, passing the questions from man to man and from bench to bench. He then prescribed a piece of English to be turned into Latin prose. Before he had ceased speaking the clock struck; the bell began to ring; the Professor finished his sentence and shut his book. The lecture was at an end.

The next hour Alec spent chiefly in wandering round the College Green, a kind of neglected park thinly populated with soot-encrusted trees, which lay at the rear of the College buildings. At ten o’clock the junior Greek class met; and Alec entered a small room crammed with students, who were sitting on narrow, crescent-shaped benches raised one behind the other, and fronting a semicircular platform at the lower end of the room. The book-boards, Alec noticed, were extremely narrow, and neatly bound with iron. The procedure here was much the same as it had been in the Latin class, except that there were no prayers, the devotions being confined to the classes which happened to meet earliest in the day.

At eleven there was another hour of Latin, Virgil being the text-book this time; and then lectures were over for the day, so far as Alec was concerned.

All day long the committee-rooms of the rival Conservative and Liberal Associations were filled with men, consulting, smoking, enrolling pledges, and inditing ‘squibs’ and manifestoes; and as a Liberal meeting in support of Mr. Sharpe was to be held that evening in the Greek class-room, Alec determined to be present, hoping to hear some arguments which might help him to decide how he ought to vote on this momentous occasion.

In this expectation, however, he was disappointed. Before he came in sight of the lighted-up windows of the class-room he heard a roar of singing—the factions were uniting their powers to render a stanza of ‘The Good Rhine Wine’ with proper emphasis. The place was packed as full as it would hold, the Professor’s platform being held by the committee-men of the Liberal Association. As soon as the song was ended, a small man in spectacles was voted into the chair. He opened the proceedings by calling upon a Mr. Macfarlane to move the first resolution, and (like a wise man) immediately sat down.

Mr. Macfarlane, a young man of great size with a throat of brass, was not popular. Cries of ‘Sit down, sir!’ ‘Go home, sir!’ ‘Speak up, sir!’ were mingled with volleys of peas, Kentish fire, cheers for Lord Dummieden, and the usual noises of a noisy meeting.

The little man in spectacles got up, and, speaking in a purposely low voice, obtained a hearing. He reminded his Conservative friends that the Liberals had not spoiled the Conservative meeting on the previous evening, and said it was only fair that they should have their turn. This was greeted with loud shouts of ‘Hear! hear!’ and Mr. Macfarlane began a second time. But soon he managed to set his audience in an uproar once more. His face was fairly battered with peas. Men got up and stood on the benches, then on the book-boards. One fellow had brought a policeman’s rattle, with which he created a din so intolerable that three or four others tried to deprive him of it. One or two stout Conservatives came to the rescue, and finally the whole group slid off their narrow foot-hold on the book-boards, and fell in a confused heap on the floor, amid loud cheers from both parties.

After this episode order was restored, and a fresh orator held the attention of the audience for a few minutes. Unfortunately he stopped for a moment, and the pause was immediately filled by a student at the farther end of the room blowing a shrill, pitiful blast on a child’s penny trumpet. The effect was comical enough; and everybody laughed. At that moment a loud knock was heard at the door, which had been locked, the room being already as full as it could possibly hold. The knock was repeated.

‘I believe the perambulator has come for the gentleman with the penny trumpet,’ said the chairman in gentle accents.

This sally was greeted with a loud roar of laughter; and when it died away, comparative silence reigned for five minutes.

Then came more cheers, songs, and volleys of peas; and when everybody was hoarse the meeting came to an end, the leading spirits on both sides adjourning to their committee-rooms, and afterwards to the hotels which they usually patronized.

These meetings were continued for about ten days, and then the vote was taken. The four ‘nations’ had each one vote. Two voted for Mr. Sharpe, and two for Lord Dummieden. And then the Chancellor, in accordance with old established practice, gave his casting vote in favour of the Conservative candidate.

It was over. The manifestoes and satirical ballads were swept away; and the twelve hundred men and boys settled down to six months’ labour.

CHAPTER VI.

A NEW EXPERIENCE.

For the next six weeks Alec Lindsay’s life was one unvarying round of lectures, and preparation for lectures. For recreation he had football on the College Green, long walks on Saturday afternoons, and long debates with his friend Cameron. The debates, however, were not very frequent, for the Highlander was working twelve hours a day.

‘I mean to get a first-class in surgery,’ he said to Alec one Saturday night, as the two sat over their pipes in Alec’s sitting-room; ‘and then perhaps the Professor will ask me to be an assistant. If he does, my fortune is made, for I know my work.’

‘Ay, that’s the great thing,’ said Alec absently. ‘Don’t you ever go to church, Cameron?’ he added abruptly.

‘As seldom as I can,’ said the other, with a side look at his companion; ‘but don’t take me for a guide.’

‘I can’t help it,’ replied the lad, still gazing into the fire; ‘we all take our neighbours for guides, whether we acknowledge it or not.’

‘More or less, no doubt.’

‘Don’t you think one ought to go to church?’

‘How can I tell? Every man for himself, my lad.’

‘That won’t do,’ answered Alec, rousing himself and facing his friend; ‘right’s right, and wrong’s wrong; what is right for one man must be right for every man—under the same circumstances, I mean.’

‘Will you just tell me,’ said Cameron, half defiantly, ‘what good going to church can do me? I know the psalms almost by heart, and I know the chapters the minister reads almost as well. As for the prayers, half of them aren’t prayers at all, and the other half I could say as weel at hame, if I had a mind. And the sermons!—man, Alec, ye canna say ye think they can do good to any living creature.’

‘Some of them, perhaps.’

‘When I find a minister that doesna tell us the same thing over, and over, and over again, and use fifty words to say what might be said in five, to spin out the time, I’ll reconsider the p’int,’ said Cameron.

‘But you believe there’s a God,’ said Alec.

‘That’s a lang stap furret,’ said the other.

‘But do you?’

‘Well, I do, and I dinna. I don’t believe in the Free Kirk God. It’s hard to think this warl could mak’ itsel’: but I hae my doots.’

‘Then you’re an Agnostic?’

‘What if I am? Are ye scunnered?’[1]

‘No—and yet——’

‘Or what if I should tell you I have chosen some other religion? Why should I be a Presbyterian? Because I was born in Scotland. That’s the only reason I’ve been able to think of, and it doesn’t seem to me to be up to much.’

Alec was secretly shocked, though he thought it more manly not to show it.

‘I believe in the Bible,’ he said at last.

‘That doesna help you much,’ said Cameron, with some contempt. ‘Baptists, Independents, Episcopalians, the very Papists themsel’s, and thae half-heathen Russians, wad tell ye that they believe in the Bible. Ye micht as weel tell a judge, when he ca’ed on you for an argument, that ye believe in an Act o’ Parliament.’

‘Hae ye an aitlas?’ he continued after a pause. ‘Here’s one.’

He turned to a ‘Mercator’s projection’ at the beginning of the volume, and scratched the spot which represented Scotland with his pencil. He then slightly shaded England, the United States, and Holland, and put in a few dots in Germany and Switzerland.

‘There!’ he said, as he pushed the map across the table; ‘that’s your Presbyterian notion o’ Christendom. There’s a glimmerin’ in England and the States, but only in bonny Scotland does the true licht shine full and fair. As for Germany, Holland, an’ Switzerland, they’re unco dry, no tae say deid branches. The rest o’ mankind—total darkness!’

‘But you might have said the same thing of Christianity itself at one time, and of every religion in the world, for that matter,’ protested Alec.

‘Nae doot,’ retorted Cameron, ‘but that was at the beginning. This is Christianity, according to the gospel o’ John Knox and Company after nineteen centuries! A poor show for nineteen hunder’ years—a mighty poor show!’

He got up as he spoke, and knocking the ashes out of his pipe, prepared to move to his own quarters.

‘Let’s change the subject,’ said Alec. ‘Here’s a letter I got this morning, and I don’t know how to answer it.’

‘What’s this?’ said the older man, taking the thick sheet of paper between the tips of his fingers. ‘“Mr. James Lindsay presents his compliments to Mr. Alexander Lindsay, and requests the pleasure of his company at dinner on Tuesday the 27th inst., at half-past six. Blythswood Square, December, 187-.” Is this old James Lindsay o’ Drumleck?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you a connection of his?’

‘Grand-nephew.’

‘And why can’t you answer the note?’

‘I don’t want to go. I haven’t been brought up to this sort of thing, and I don’t care to go out of my way to make myself ridiculous in a rich man’s house. Besides, I don’t want to go to the expense of a suit of dress clothes. And then, my uncle and I were not particularly smitten with each other when I saw him last.’

‘Don’t be a fool, Alec,’ said Cameron quietly. ‘You can’t afford to throw away the friendship of a man worth twenty thousand a year.’

‘That phrase always reminds me,’ remarked Alec, ‘of what one of the Erskines—I don’t remember which of them it was—once said, when some one said in his company that so-and-so had died worth three hundred thousand pounds—“Did he indeed, sir? And a very pretty sum, too, to begin the next world with.”’

Cameron smiled grimly.

‘You’ll have to go, Alec,’ he repeated; ‘and you needn’t be afraid of appearing ridiculous. Do as you see others do, and keep a lown sail; better seem blate than impident.’

‘My father would be in a fine way if he heard that my uncle had invited me, and that I had refused the invitation,’ said Lindsay.

‘And quite right too,’ rejoined Cameron. ‘Besides, Alec, the old man is your father’s uncle, and you ought to show him some respect.’

‘That wasn’t the reason you put in the forefront,’ said Alec slyly.

For reply Cameron, who had reached the door, picked up a Greek grammar, flung it at his friend’s head as he muttered something in Gaelic, and banging the door behind him, ascended to his own domicile.

Exactly at the appointed hour Alec presented himself at his grand-uncle’s house in Blythswood Square. The square had once been fashionable, and was still something more than respectable, because the houses were too large to be inhabited by people of moderate means; but the situation was dull and gloomy to the last degree. Within, however, there was a very different scene. Entrance-hall, staircase, drawing-room, were all as brilliant as gas-jets could make them. The walls, even of the passages, were lined with pictures, good, bad, and indifferent. Every landing, every corner, held a statue, or at least a statuette, or a bust upon a pedestal.

When Alec was ushered into the drawing-room, he could hardly see for the blaze of light; he could hardly move for little tables laden with china, ormolu, and bronzes. Fortunately, Sir Peter and Lady Colquhoun were entering the reception-room just as Alec reached it, so that he made his entrance in their wake, and, as it were, under their lee.

The room was already pretty well filled, and more guests were continually arriving. On the hearth-rug stood a little old man, with a mean, inexpressive face, scanty hair which was still gray, thin gray whiskers, small eyes, and a fussy consequential air. When he spoke, it was in a high-pitched, rasping voice; and he invariably gave one the impression that he was insisting upon being noticed and attended to.

This was Mr. Lindsay of Drumleck. He stared at Alec for an instant, then gave him his hand in silence, and, without addressing a word to him, continued his conversation with the Lord Provost’s wife. Alec’s face flushed. His first impulse was to walk out of the room, and out of the house; but on second thoughts he saw that that course would not even be dignified. He retreated to a corner, and set himself to watch the company.

For the most part they sat nearly silent—fat baillies and their well-nourished wives—hard-featured damsels of thirty or forty summers, in high-necked dresses and Brussels lace collars—one or two stout ministers—such was the assembly. Alec was astonished. He had expected, somehow, that he should meet people of a different type.

‘Take one or two dozen people from behind the shop-counters in Argyle Street,’ he said to himself (with boyish contempt for the disappointing), ‘or even a few Muirburn ploughmen and weavers, give them plenty of money, and in three weeks they would be quite as fine ladies and gentlemen as any I see here.’

As the thought passed through the boy’s mind, the door was thrown open, and the names of ‘Professor Taylor and Miss Mowbray’ were announced. A tall, lean man, with long hair and crumpled old-fashioned garments, entered, and beside him walked a young lady with her eyes on the ground.

She was dressed in a cream-coloured costume, with just a fleck of colour here and there. She was indeed remarkably pretty, and possessed a soft, childlike grace which was more captivating than beauty alone would have been. She had a small, well-rounded figure—a little more and it would have been plump—abundant dark-brown hair, and a soft, peach-like complexion. Her eyelashes were unusually long; and when, reaching her host, she half-timidly raised her eyes to his, Alec (who was sitting in the background) felt a little thrill of pleasure at the mere sight of their dark loveliness.

She was the first lady, the first young lady, at least, whom he had seen, and he looked at her as if she were a being to be worshipped. But Laura Mowbray was indeed pretty enough to have turned the head of a more experienced person than the laird’s son.

Professor Taylor and his niece moved to one side; her dress almost brushed against Alec. She glanced at him for an instant; without intending it he dropped his eyes, and the girl looked in another direction with a little inward smile.

In three or four minutes dinner was announced, and Laura fell to the care of James Semple (the cousin who had taken Alec’s place at the oil-works), who had just come in. There were more men than women in the party, and Alec and one or two of the less wealthy guests were left to find their way into the dining-room by themselves at the end of the procession. Fortune, however, favoured Alec. When he took his seat, he found that he was sitting between a pale, inoffensive-looking youth and—Laura Mowbray.

He literally did not dare to look at her, much less to address her; he was not sure, indeed, whether the rules of society allowed him to do so in the absence of an introduction. In a little time, however, his shyness wore off; he watched his opportunity; but before he found one, his neighbour remarked in her soft English accent, and in the sweetest of tones:

‘What dreadful fogs you have in Glasgow!’

Alec made some reply, and the ice once broken, he made rapid progress.

‘Everybody I meet seems to be related to somebody else, or connected with some one I have met before,’ said Miss Mowbray. ‘You have all so many relations in this part of the country, and you seem never to forget any of them. In London it is different. People seldom know their next-door neighbours; and it is just a chance whether they keep up cousinships, and so on, or not.’

‘Really? I think that is very unnatural.’

‘Oh! so unnatural! Life in London is so dreadfully conventional and superficial. Don’t you think so?’

‘I dare say; but I have never been in London.’

‘Have you, Mr. Semple?’ she asked of the gentleman on her left.

‘No, I haven’t,’ he answered shortly.

He did not approve of Miss Mowbray paying any attention to Alec, regarding her as for the time being his property. On this Laura left off talking to Alec, and devoted herself to the amusement of Mr. Semple.

Soon, however, she took advantage of his attention being claimed by the lady on his left, to turn again with a smile to Alec.

‘Mr. Semple tells me you are at College. My uncle is a professor there, but he has hardly any students, because history is not a compulsory subject in the examinations. How do you like being at College?’

Alec was grateful for her interest in him, and gave her his impressions of College life. Then she turned once more to her legitimate entertainer, who was by that time at liberty.

Alec had already had far more intercourse with his lovely neighbour than he had dared to hope for; but the dinner was a long one; and as Mr. Semple’s left-hand neighbour happened to be a maiden aunt with money, she was able to compel his attention once more before the close of the meal.

‘You live in a beautiful part of the country, I believe,’ Miss Mowbray remarked to Alec.

‘I don’t know; I like it, of course; but I don’t know that it is finer than any country with wood and a river.’

‘Oh, you have a river? I am so passionately fond of river scenery.’

‘Yes, and we have a castle,’ replied Alec; and before the ladies rose he had described not only the castle, but the moorland and the romantic dell which was his sister’s favourite retreat, to his much-interested neighbour.

When at length the ladies followed Miss Lindsay—a distant relation who superintended Mr. Lindsay’s establishment—out of the room, Alec felt as if the evening had suddenly come to an end.

Semple, who had vouchsafed him rather a cool nod in the evening, tried in vain to make him talk.

‘How do you like College?’

‘Pretty well.’

‘Dreadful underbred set. Why don’t you go to Oxford?’

Alec made no reply.

‘Or Edinburgh—they are a much better class of men at Edinburgh, I’m told.’

And Mr. Semple turned away to join a conversation about ‘warrants,’ and ‘premiums,’ and ‘vendor’s shares,’ ‘corners,’ ‘contangos,’ and ‘quotations,’ which to Alec was simply unintelligible.

At the other end of the table a conversation of another character was in progress—one hardly less interesting to those who took part in it, and hardly more interesting to an outsider. It seemed that a wealthy congregation of United Presbyterians had built themselves an organ at considerable expense, without obtaining the sanction of their co-religionists; and an edict had gone forth that the organ must be silent on Sundays, but might be used for the delectation of those who attended the prayer-meeting on Wednesday evenings.

‘I look upon it as the thin end of the wedge,’ said the Reverend Hector MacTavish, D.D., striking his fist on his knee. ‘You begin with hymns, many of them wish-washy trash, some of them positively unscriptural. Then you must have a choir for the tunes, as if the old-fashioned long metre and common metre were not good enough; then comes an organ; then the Lord’s Prayer is used as a part of the ritual—mark you, as a part of the ritual—I have no objection to the Lord’s Prayer when it is not used on formal, stated occasions. After that, you have a liturgy.’

‘No, no, Doctor; you are going too fast,’ murmured one of the audience.

‘And I maintain that with a liturgy there is an end to the distinctively Presbyterian form of worship.’

‘But where would you draw the line?’ inquired a mild, sallow-faced young man who had imbibed his theological opinions at Heidelberg, and was in consequence suspected of latitudinarianism, if not of actual heresy.

‘Where our fathers drew it, at the Psalms of Tavid!’ thundered Mr. MacTavish, striking his unoffending knee once more.

‘Then I fear you render Union impossible,’ said the young minister.

‘And what if I do, sir?’ said Dr. MacTavish loftily; ‘in my opinion we Free Churchmen are ferry well as we are, and need no new lights to illuminate us.’

The young man received the covert sneer at his German training and his liberal ideas with a smile; and Alec listened no longer, but relapsed into dreamland. The dispute, however, continued long after most of the men had returned to the drawing-room, and Alec rose from his chair while an animated discussion was in progress on the point whether the use of an organ was favourable to spiritual worship or tended to sensuousness, and whether the fact that the New Testament was silent on the subject, condemned the organ and its followers by anticipation.

When Alec entered the drawing-room, Miss Mowbray was singing. He retreated to a corner and stood as one spell-bound. He watched for an opportunity of speaking to her again, but there was none; however, on passing him on her way to the door on her uncle’s arm, she gave him a little bow and smile, which he regarded as another proof of her sweetness of disposition.

The theologians had not finished their disputations, and were continuing them in a corner of the drawing-room, when Alec took his departure.

He walked back to his poor and empty room with his head among the stars. She had talked with him, smiled upon him, treated him as an equal. He would find out where she lived, and contrive to meet her again. How lovely she was, how sweet, how pure, how good! The wide earth, Alec Lindsay was firmly convinced, contained no mortal fit for one moment to be compared with the girl whose soft brown eyes and gentle, almost appealing, looks still made his heart beat as he remembered them.