Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 20. July, 1877.

by Various

THE MARQUIS OF LOSSIE.

BY GEORGE MACDONALD, AUTHOR OF "MALCOLM."

CHAPTER LVII.

THE SHORE.

It was two days after the longest day of the year, when there is no night in those regions, only a long twilight in which many dream and do not know it. There had been a few days of variable weather, with sudden changes of wind to east and north, and round again by south to west, and then there had been a calm for several days. But now the little wind there was blew from the north-east, and the fervor of a hot June was rendered more delicious by the films of flavoring cold that floated through the mass of heat. All Portlossie more or less, the Seaton especially, was in a state of excitement, for its little neighbor Scaurnose was more excited still. There the man most threatened, and with greatest injustice, was the only one calm amongst the men, and amongst the women his wife was the only one that was calmer than he. Blue Peter was resolved to abide the stroke of wrong, and not resist the powers that were, believing them in some true sense—which he found it hard to understand when he thought of the factor as the individual instance—ordained of God. He had a dim perception too that it was better that one, and that one he, should suffer, than that order should be destroyed and law defied. Suffering, he might still in patience possess his soul, and all be well with him; but what would become of the country if every one wronged were to take the law into his own hands? Thousands more would be wronged by the lawless in a week than by unjust powers in a year. But the young men were determined to pursue their plan of resistance, and those of the older and soberer who saw the uselessness of it gave themselves little trouble to change the minds of the rest. Peter, although he knew they were not at rest, neither inquired what their purpose might be, nor allowed any conjecture or suspicion concerning it to influence him in his preparations for departure. Not that he had found a new home. Indeed, he had not heartily set about searching for one—in part because, unconsciously to himself, he was buoyed up by the hope he read so clear in the face of his more trusting wife that Malcolm would come to deliver them. His plan was to leave her and his children with certain friends at Port Gordon: he would not hear of going to the Partans to bring them into trouble. He would himself set out immediately after for the Lewis fishing. Few had gone from Scaurnose or Portlossie. The magnitude of the events that were about to take place, yet more the excitement and interest they occasioned, kept the most of the men at home, and they contented themselves with fishing the waters of the Moray Frith—not without notable success. But what was success with such a tyrant over them as the factor, threatening to harry their nests and turn the sea-birds and their young out of their heritage of rock and sand and shingle? They could not keep house on the waves any more than the gulls. Those who still held their religious assemblies in the cave called the Baillies' Barn met often, read and sang the comminatory psalms more than any others, and prayed much against the wiles and force of their enemies both temporal and spiritual; while Mr. Crathie went every Sunday to church, grew redder in the nose and hotter in the temper.

Miss Horn was growing more and more uncomfortable concerning events, and dissatisfied with Malcolm. She had not for some time heard from him, and here was his most important duty unattended to—she would not yet say neglected—the well-being of his tenantry left in the hands of an unsympathetic, self-important underling, who was fast losing all the good sense he had once possessed! Were the life and history of all these brave fishermen and their wives and children to be postponed to the pampered feelings of one girl, and that because she was what she had no right to be—namely, his half-sister? said Miss Horn to herself, that bosom friend to whom some people, and those not the worst, say oftener what they do not mean than what they do. She had written to him within the last month a very hot letter indeed, which had afforded no end of amusement to Mrs. Catanach as she sat in his old lodging over the curiosity-shop, but, I need hardly say, had not reached Malcolm; and now there was but one night and the best of all the fisher families would have nowhere to lie down. Miss Horn, with Joseph Mair, thought she did well to be angry with Malcolm.

The blind piper had been very restless all day. Questioned again and again by his Mistress Partan as to what was amiss with him, he had given her odd and evasive answers. Every few minutes he got up—even from cleaning her lamp—to go to the shore. He had not far to go to reach it—had but to cross the threshold, and take a few steps through the close, and he was on the road that ran along the sea-front of the village. On the one side were the cottages, scattered and huddled—on the other, the shore and ocean, wide outstretched. He would walk straight across the road until he felt the sand under his feet; there stand for a few moments facing the sea, and, with nostrils distended, breathing deep breaths of the air from the north-east, then turn and walk back to Meg Partan's kitchen and resume his ministration of light. These his sallies were so frequent, and his absences so short, that a more serene temper than hers might have been fretted by them. But there was something about his look and behavior that, while it perplexed, restrained her, and instead of breaking out upon him she eyed him curiously. She had found that it would not do to stare at him. The moment she began to do so he began to fidget, and turned his back to her. It had made her lose her temper for a moment, and declare aloud as her conviction that he was after all an impostor, and saw as well as any of them.

"She has told you so, Mistress Partan, one hundred thousand times," replied Duncan with an odd smile; "and perhaps she will pe see a little petter as any of you, no matter."

Thereupon she murmured to herself, "The cratur' 'ill be seein' something!" and with mingled awe and curiosity sought to lay some restraint upon her unwelcome observation of him.

Thus it went on the whole day, and as the evening approached he grew still more excited. The sun went down and the twilight began, and as the twilight deepened still his excitement grew. Straightway it seemed as if the whole Seaton had come to share in it. Men and women were all out of doors; and, late as it was when the sun set, to judge by the number of bare legs and feet that trotted in and out with a little red flash, with a dull patter-pat on earthen floor and hard road, and a scratching and hustling among the pebbles, there could not have been one older than a baby in bed; while of the babies even not a few were awake in their mothers' arms, and out with them on the sea-front, where the men, with their hands in their trouser-pockets, were lazily smoking pigtail in short clay pipes with tin covers fastened to the stems by little chains, and some of the women, in short blue petticoats and worsted stockings, were doing the same. Some stood in their doors, talking with neighbors standing in their doors, but these were mostly the elder women: the younger ones—all but Lizzy Findlay—were out in the road. One man half leaned, half sat on the window-sill of Duncan's former abode, and round him were two or three more, and some women, talking about Scaurnose, and the factor, and what the lads there would do to-morrow; while the hush of the sea on the pebbles mingled with their talk like an unknown tongue of the Infinite—never articulating, only suggesting—uttering in song and not in speech—dealing not with thoughts, but with feelings and foretastes. No one listened: what to them was the Infinite, with Scaurnose in the near distance? It was now almost as dark as it would be throughout the night if it kept clear.

Once more there was Duncan, standing as if looking out to sea, and shading his brows with his hand as if to protect his eyes from the glare of the sun and enable his sight.

"There's the auld piper again!" said one of the group, a young woman. "He's unco fule-like to be stan'in' that gait (way), makin' as gien he cudna weel see for the sun in 's een."

"Haud ye yer tongue, lass," rejoined an elderly woman beside her. "There's mair things nor ye ken, as the Beuk says. There's een 'at can see an' een 'at canna, an' een 'at can see twise ower, an' een 'at can see steikit what nane can see open."

"Ta poat! ta poat of my chief!" cried the seer. "She is coming like a tream of ta night, put one tat will not tepart with ta morning!" He spoke as one suppressing a wild joy.

"Wha'll that be, lucky-deddy?" inquired in a respectful voice the woman who had last spoken, while all within hearing hushed each other and stood in silence. And all the time the ghost of the day was creeping round from west to east, to put on its resurrection body and rise new born. It gleamed faint like a cold ashy fire in the north.

"And who will it pe than her own son, Mistress Reekie?" answered the piper, calling her by her husband's nickname, as was usual, but, as was his sole wont, prefixing the title of respect where custom would have employed but her Christian name. "Who'll should it pe put her own Malcolm?" he went on. "I see his poat come round ta Tead Head. She flits over the water like a pale ghost over Morven. But it's ta young and ta strong she is pringing home to Tuncan.—O m'anam, beannuich!"

Involuntarily, all eyes turned toward the point called the Death's Head, which bounded the bay on the east.

"It's ower dark to see onything," said the man on the window-sill. "There's a bit haar (fog) come up."

"Yes," said Duncan, "it'll pe too tark for you who haf cot no eyes only to speak of. Put you'll wait a few, and you'll pe seeing as well as herself.—Och, her poy! her poy! O m'anam! Ta Lort pe praised! and she'll tie in peace, for he'll pe only ta one-half of him a Cam'ell, and he'll pe safed at last, as sure as there's a heafen to co to and a hell to co from. For ta half tat's not a Cam'ell must be ta strong half, and it will trag ta other half into heafen—where it will not pe ta welcome howefer."

As if to get rid of the unpleasant thought that his Malcolm could not enter heaven without taking half a Campbell with him, he turned from the sea and hurried into the house, but only to catch up his pipes and hasten out again, filling the bag as he went. Arrived once more on the verge of the sand, he stood again facing the north-east, and began to blow a pibroch loud and clear.

Meantime, the Partan had joined the same group, and they were talking in a low tone about the piper's claim to the second-sight—for although all were more or less inclined to put faith in Duncan, there was here no such unquestioning belief in the marvel as would have been found on the west coast in every glen from the Mull of Cantyre to Loch Eribol—when suddenly Meg Partan, almost the only one hitherto remaining in the house, appeared rushing from the close. "Hech, sirs!" she cried, addressing the Seaton in general, "gien the auld man be in the richt—"

"She'll pe aal in ta right, Mistress Partan, and tat you'll pe seeing," said Duncan, who, hearing her first cry, had stopped his drone and played softly, listening.

But Meg went on without heeding him any more than was implied in the repetition of her exordium: "Gien the auld man be i' the richt, it 'll be the marchioness hersel', 'at's h'ard o' the ill-duin's o' her factor, an' 's comin' to see efter her fowk. An' it 'll be Ma'colm's duin'; an' that 'll be seen. But the bonny laad winna ken the state o' the herbor, an' he'll be makin' for the moo' o' 't, an' he'll jist rin 's bonny boatie agrun' 'atween the twa piers; an' that 'll no be a richt hame-comin' for the leddy o' the lan'; an' what's mair, Ma'colm 'ill get the wyte (blame) o' 't; an' that 'll be seen. Sae ye maun, some o' ye, to the pier-heid, an' luik oot to gie them warnin'."

Her own husband was the first to start, proud of the foresight of his wife. "Haith, Meg!" he cried, "ye're maist as guid at the lang sicht as the piper himsel'!"

Several followed him, and as they ran Meg cried after them, giving her orders as if she had been vice-admiral of the red, in a voice shrill enough to pierce the worst gale that ever blew on northern shore, "Ye'll jist tell the bonnie laad to haud wast a bit an' rin her ashore, an' we'll a' be there, an' hae her as dry's Noah's ark in a jiffie. Tell her leddyship we'll cairry the boat an' her intil't to the tap o' the Boar's Tail gien she'll gie's her orders.—Winna we, laads?"

"We can but try," said one. "But the Fisky 'ill be waur to get a grip o' nor Nancy here," he added, turning suddenly upon the plumpest girl in the place, who stood next him. But she foiled him of the kiss he had thought to snatch, and turned the laugh from herself upon him, so cleverly avoiding his clutch that he staggered into the road and nearly fell upon his nose.

By the time the Partan and his companions reached the pier-head something was dawning in the vague of sea and sky that might be a sloop, and standing for the harbor. Thereupon the Partan and Jamie Ladle jumped into a small boat and pulled out. Dubs, who had come from Scaurnose on the business of the conjuration, had stepped into the stern, not to steer, but to show a white ensign—somebody's Sunday shirt he had gathered as they ran from a furze-bush, where it hung to dry, between the Seaton and the harbor.

"Hoots! ye'll affront the marchioness," objected the Partan.

"Man, i' the gloamin' she'll no ken't frae buntin'," said Dubs, and at once displayed it, holding it by the two sleeves. The wind had now fallen to the softest breath, and the little vessel came on slowly. The men rowed hard, shouting and waving their flag, and soon heard a hail which none of them could mistake for other than Malcolm's. In a few minutes they were on board, greeting their old friend with jubilation, but talking in a subdued tone, for they knew by Malcolm's that the cutter bore their lady. Briefly the Partan communicated the state of the harbor, and recommended porting his helm and running the Fisky ashore about opposite the brass swivel. "A' the men an' women i' the Seaton," he said, "'ill be there to haul her up."

Malcolm took the helm, gave his orders and steered farther westward.

By this time the people on shore had caught sight of the cutter. They saw her come stealing out of the thin dark like a thought half thought, and go gliding along the shore like a sea-ghost over the dusky water, faint, uncertain, noiseless, glimmering. It could be no other than the Fisky! Both their lady and their friend Malcolm must be on board, they were certain, for how could the one of them come without the other? and doubtless the marchioness—whom they all remembered as a good-humored, handsome girl, ready to speak to any and everybody—would immediately deliver them from the hateful red-nosed ogre, her factor. Out at once they all set along the shore to greet her arrival, each running regardless of the rest, so that from the Seaton to the middle of the Boar's Tail there was a long, straggling, broken string of hurrying fisher-folk, men and women, old and young, followed by all the current children, tapering to one or two toddlers, who felt themselves neglected and wept their way along. The piper, too asthmatic to run, but not too asthmatic to walk and play his bagpipes, delighting the heart of Malcolm, who could not mistake the style, believed he brought up the rear, but was mistaken; for the very last came Mrs. Findlay and Lizzy, carrying between them their little deal kitchen-table for her ladyship to step out of the boat upon, and Lizzy's child fast asleep on the top of it.

The foremost ran and ran until they saw that the Fisky had chosen her lair, and was turning her bows to the shore, when they stopped and stood ready with greased planks and ropes to draw her up. In a few minutes the whole population was gathered, darkening, in the June midnight, the yellow sands between the tide and the dune. The Psyche was well manned now with a crew of six. On she came under full sail till within a few yards of the beach, when in one and the same moment every sheet was let go, and she swept softly up like a summer wave, and lay still on the shore. The butterfly was asleep. But ere she came to rest, the instant indeed that her canvas went fluttering away, thirty strong men had rushed into the water and laid hold of the now wingless Psyche. In a few minutes she was high and dry.

Malcolm leaped on the sand just as the Partaness came bustling up with her kitchen-table between her two hands like a tray. She set it down, and across it shook hands with him violently: then caught it up again, and deposited it firm on its four legs beneath the cutter's waist. "Noo, my leddy," said Meg, looking up at the marchioness, "set ye yer bit fut upo' my table, an' we'll think the mair o' 't efter whan we tak oor denner aff o' 't."

Florimel thanked her, stepped lightly upon it, and sprang to the sand, where she was received with words of welcome from many, and shouts which rendered them inaudible from the rest. The men, their bonnets in their hands, and the women curtseying, made a lane for her to pass through, while the young fellows would gladly have begged leave to carry her could they have extemporized any suitable sort of palanquin or triumphal litter.

Followed by Malcolm, she led the way over the Boar's Tail—nor would accept any help in climbing it—straight for the tunnel: Malcolm had never laid aside the key his father had given him to the private doors while he was yet a servant. They crossed by the embrasure of the brass swivel. That implement had now long been silent, but they had not gone many paces from the bottom of the dune when it went off with a roar. The shouts of the people drowned the startled cry with which Florimel turned to Malcolm, involuntarily mindful of old and for her better times. She had not looked for such a reception, and was both flattered and touched by it. For a brief space the spirit of her girlhood came back. Possibly, had she then understood that hope rather than faith or love was at the heart of their enthusiasm, that her tenants looked upon her as their savior from the factor, and sorely needed the exercise of her sovereignty, she might have better understood her position and her duty toward them.

Malcolm unlocked the door of the tunnel, and she entered, followed by Rose, who felt as if she were walking in a dream. But as he stepped in after them he was seized from behind and clasped close in an embrace he knew at once. "Daddy, daddy!" he said, and turning threw his arms round the piper.

"My poy! my poy! her nain son Malcolm!" said the old man in a whisper of intense satisfaction and suppression. "You'll must pe forgifing her for coming pack to you. She cannot help lofing you, and you must forget tat you are a Cam'ell."

Malcolm kissed his cheek, and said, also in a whisper, "My ain daddy! I hae a heap to tell ye, but I maun see my leddy hame first."

"Co, co, this moment co!" cried the old man, pushing him away. "To your tuties to my leddyship first, and then come to her old daddy."

"I'll be wi' ye in half an hoor or less."

"Coot poy! coot poy! Come to Mistress Partan's."

"Ay, ay, daddy!" said Malcolm, and hurried through the tunnel.

As Florimel approached the ancient dwelling of her race, now her own to do with as she would, her pleasure grew. Whether it was the twilight or the breach in dulling custom, everything looked strange, the grounds wider, the trees larger, the house grander and more anciently venerable. And all the way the burn sang in the hollow. The spirit of her father seemed to hover about the place, and while the thought that her father's voice would not greet her when she entered the hall cast a solemn funereal state over her simple return, her heart yet swelled with satisfaction and far-derived pride. All this was hers to do with as she would, to confer as she pleased! No thought of her tenants, fishers or farmers, who did their strong part in supporting the ancient dignity of her house, had even an associated share in the bliss of the moment. She had forgotten her reception already, or regarded it only as the natural homage to such a position and power as hers. As to owing anything in return, the idea had indeed been presented to her when with Clementina and Malcolm she talked over St. Ronan's Well, but it had never entered her mind.

The drawing-room and the hall were lighted. Mrs. Courthope was at the door, as if she expected her, and Florimel was careful to take everything as a matter of course.

"When will your ladyship please to want me?" asked Malcolm.

"At the usual hour, Malcolm," she answered.

He turned and ran to the Seaton.

His first business was the accommodation of Travers and Davy, but he found them already housed at the Salmon, with Jamie Ladle teaching Travers to drink toddy. They had left the Psyche snug: she was high above high-water mark, and there were no tramps about: they had furled her sails, locked the companion-door and left her.

Mrs. Findlay rejoiced over Malcolm as if he had been her own son from a far country, but the poor piper, between politeness and gratitude on the one hand and the urging of his heart on the other, was sorely tried by her loquacity: he could hardly get in a word. Malcolm perceived his suffering, and as soon as seemed prudent proposed that he should walk with him to Miss Horn's, where he was going to sleep, he said, that night. Mrs. Partan snuffed, but held her peace. For the third or fourth time that day, wonderful to tell, she restrained herself!

As soon as they were out of the house Malcolm assured Duncan, to the old man's great satisfaction, that, had he not found him there, he would within another month have set out to roam Scotland in search of him.

Miss Horn had heard of their arrival, and was wandering about the house, unable even to sit down until she saw the marquis. To herself she always called him the marquis: to his face he was always Ma'colm. If he had not come she declared she could not have gone to bed; yet she received him with an edge to her welcome: he had to answer for his behavior. They sat down, and Duncan told a long sad story; which finished, with the toddy that had sustained him during the telling, the old man thought it better, for fear of annoying his Mistress Partan, to go home. As it was past one o'clock, they both agreed.

"And if she'll tie to-night, my poy," said Duncan, "she'll pe lie awake in her crave all ta long tarkness to pe waiting to hear ta voice of your worrts in ta morning. And nefer you mind, Malcolm, she'll has learned to forgive you for peing only ta one-half of yourself a cursed Cam'ell."

Miss Horn gave Malcolm a wink, as much as to say, "Let the old man talk: it will hurt no Campbell;" and showed him out with much attention.

And then at last Malcolm poured out his whole story, and his heart with it, to Miss Horn, who heard and received it with understanding, and a sympathy which grew ever as she listened. At length she declared herself perfectly satisfied, for not only had he done his best, but she did not see what else he could have done. She hoped, however, that now he would contrive to get this part over as quickly as possible, for which in the morning she would show him cogent reasons.

"I hae no feelin's mysel', as ye weel ken, Ma'colm," she remarked in conclusion, "an' I doobt, gien I had been i' your place, I wad na hae luikit ta a' sides o' the thing at ance, as ye hae dune. An' it was a man like you 'at sae near lost yer life for the hizzy!" she exclaimed. "I maunna think aboot it, or I winna sleep a wink. But we maun get that deevil Catanach (an' cat eneuch!) hangt.—Weel, my man, ye may haud up yer heid afore the father o' ye, for ye're the first o' the race, I'm thinkin', 'at ever was near han' deein' for anither. But mak ye a speedy en' till 't noo, laad, an' fa' to the lave o' yer wark. There's a terrible heap to be dune. But I maun haud my tongue the nicht, for I wad fain ye had a guid sleep; an' I'm needin' ane sair mysel', for I'm no sae yoong as I ance was; an' I hae been that anxious aboot ye, Ma'colm, 'at though I never hed ony feelin's, yet, noo 'at it's a' gaein' richt, an' ye're a' richt, an' like to be richt for evermair, my heid's jist like to split. Gang yer wa's to yer bed, and soon' may ye sleep! It's the bed yer bonny mither got a soon' sleep in at last, an' muckle was she i' need o' 't! An' jist tak tent the morn what ye say whan Jean's i' the room, or maybe o' the ither side o' the door, for she's no mowse. I dinna ken what gars me keep the jaud. I believe 'at gien the verra deevil himsel' had been wi' me sae lang, I wadna hae the hert to turn him aboot his ill business. That's what comes o' haein' no feelin's. Ither fowk wad hae gotten rid o' her half a score o' years sin' syne."

CHAPTER LVIII.

THE TRENCH.

Malcolm had not yet, after all the health-giving of the voyage, entirely recovered the effects of the ill-compounded potion. Indeed, sometimes the fear crossed his mind that never would he be the same man again—that the slow furnace of the grave alone would destroy the vile deposit left in his house of life. Hence it came that he was weary, and overslept himself the next morning; but it was no great matter: he had yet time enough. He swallowed his breakfast as a working man alone can, and set out for Duff Harbor. At Leith, where they had put in for provisions, he had posted a letter to Mr. Soutar, directing him to have Kelpie brought on to his own town, whence he would fetch her himself. The distance was about ten miles, the hour eight, and he was a good enough walker, although boats and horses had combined to prevent him, he confessed, from getting over-fond of Shank's mare. To men who delight in the motions of a horse under them the legs of a man are a tame, dull means of progression, although they too have their superiorities; and one of the disciplines of this world is to get out of the saddle and walk afoot. He who can do so with perfect serenity must very nearly have learned with Saint Paul in whatsoever state he is, therein to be content. It was the loveliest of mornings, however, to be abroad in upon any terms, and Malcolm hardly needed the resources of one who knew both how to be abased and how to abound—enviable perfection!—for the enjoyment of even a long walk. Heaven and earth were just settling to the work of the day after their morning prayer, and the whole face of things yet wore something of that look of expectation which one who mingles the vision of the poet with the faith of the Christian may well imagine to be their upward look of hope after a night of groaning and travailing—the earnest gaze of the creature waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God; and for himself, though the hardest thing was yet to come, there was a satisfaction in finding himself almost up to his last fence, with the heavy ploughed land through which he had been floundering nearly all behind him; which figure means that he had almost made up his mind what to do.

When he reached the Duff Arms he walked straight into the yard, where the first thing he saw was a stable-boy in the air, hanging on to a twitch on the nose of the rearing Kelpie. In another instant he would have been killed or maimed for life, and Kelpie loose and scouring the streets of Duff Harbor. When she heard Malcolm's voice and the sound of his running feet she dropped as if to listen. He flung the boy aside and caught her halter. Once or twice more she reared in the vain hope of so ridding herself of the pain that clung to her lip and nose, nor did she, through the mist of her anger and suffering, quite recognize her master in his yacht-uniform. But the torture decreasing, she grew able to scent his presence, welcomed him with her usual glad whinny, and allowed him to to do with her as he would.

Having fed her, found Mr. Soutar and arranged several matters with him, he set out for home.

That was a ride! Kelpie was mad with life. Every available field he jumped her into, and she tore its element of space at least to shreds with her spurning hoofs. But the distance was not great enough to quiet her before they got to hard turnpike and young plantations. He would have entered at the grand gate, but found no one at the lodge, for the factor, to save a little, had dismissed the old keeper. He had therefore to go on, and through the town, where, to the awe-stricken eyes of the population peeping from doors and windows, it seemed as if the terrible horse would carry him right over the roofs of the fisher-cottages below and out to sea. "Eh, but he's a terrible cratur, that Ma'colm MacPhail!" said the old wives to each other, and felt there must be something wicked in him to ride like that.

But he turned her aside from the steep hill, and passed along the street that led to the town-gate of the House. Whom should he see, as he turned into it, but Mrs. Catanach, standing on her own doorstep, opposite the descent to the Seaton, shading her eyes with her hand, and looking far out over the water through the green smoke of the village below! It had been her wont to gaze thus since ever he could remember her, though what she could at such times be looking for, except it were the devil in person, he found it hard to conjecture. At the sound of his approach she turned; and such an expression crossed her face in a momentary flash ere she disappeared in the house as added considerably to his knowledge of fallen humanity. Before he reached her door she was out again, tying on a clean white apron as she came, and smiling like a dark pool in sunshine. She dropped a low curtsey, and looked as if she had been occupying her house for months of his absence. But Malcolm would not meet even cunning with its own weapons, and therefore turned away his head and took no notice of her. She ground her teeth with the fury of hate, and swore that she would yet disappoint him of his purpose, whatever it were, in this masquerade of service. Her heart being scarcely of the calibre to comprehend one like Malcolm's, her theories for the interpretation of the mystery were somewhat wild and altogether of a character unfit to see the light.

The keeper of the town-gate greeted Malcolm, as he let him in, with a pleased old face and words of welcome, but added instantly, as if it was no time for the indulgence of friendship, that it was a terrible business going on at the Nose.

"What is it?" asked Malcolm in alarm.

"Ye hae been ower lang awa', I doobt," answered the man, "to ken hoo the factor—But, Lord save ye! haud yer tongue," he interjected, looking fearfully around him. "Gien he kenned 'at I said sic a thing, he wad turn me oot o' hoose an' ha'."

"You've said nothing yet," returned Malcolm.

"I said factor, an' that same's 'maist eneuch, for he's like a roarin' lion an' a ragin' bear amang the people; an' that sin' ever ye gaed. Bow o' Meal said i' the meetin' the ither nicht 'at he bude to be the verra man, the wickit ruler propheseed o' sae lang sin' syne i' the beuk o' the Proverbs. Eh! it's an awfu' thing to be foreordeent to oonrichteousness!"

"But you haven't told me what is the matter at Scaurnose," said Malcolm impatiently.

"Ow, it's jist this—'at this same's Midsimmer Day, an' Blue Peter—honest fallow!—he's been for the last three month un'er nottice frae the factor to quit. An' sae, ye see—"

"To quit!" exclaimed Malcolm. "Sic a thing was never h'ard tell o'."

"Haith! it's h'ard tell o' noo," returned the gate-keeper. "Quittin' 's as plenty as quicken (couch-grass). 'Deed, there's maist naething ither h'ard tell o' bit quittin', for the full half o' Scaurnose is un'er like nottice for Michaelmas, an' the Lord kens what it 'll a' en' in!"

"But what's it for? Blue Peter's no the man to misbehave himsel'."

"Weel, ye ken mair yersel' nor ony ither as to the warst fau't there is to lay till 's chairge; for they say—that is, some say—it's a' yer ain wyte, Ma'colm."

"What mean ye, man? Speyk oot," said Malcolm.

"They say it's a' anent the abduckin' o' the markis's boat, 'at you an' him gaed aff wi' thegither."

"That'll hardly haud, seein' the marchioness hersel' cam' hame in her the last nicht."

"Ay, but ye see the decree's gane oot, and what the factor says is like the laws o' the Medes an' Persians, 'at they say's no to be altert: I kenna mysel'."

"Ow weel, gien that be a', I'll see efter that wi' the marchioness."

"Ay, but ye see there's a lot o' the laads there, as I'm tellt, 'at has vooed 'at factor nor factor's man sall never set fut in Scaurnose frae this day furth. Gang ye doon to the Seaton, an' see hoo mony o' yer auld freen's ye'll fin' there. Man, there a' oot to Scaurnose to see the plisky. The factor he's there, I ken—and some constables wi' 'im—to see 'at his order's cairried oot. An' the laads they hae been fortifeein' the place, as they ca' 't, for the last ook. They've howkit a trenk, they tell me, 'at nane but a hunter on 's horse cud win ower, an' they're postit alang the toon-side o' 't wi' sticks an' stanes an boat-heuks, an' guns an' pistils. An' gien there bena a man or twa killt a'ready—"

Before he finished his sentence Kelpie was leveling herself along the road for the sea-gate.

Johnny Bykes was locking it on the other side, in haste to secure his eye-share of what was going on, when he caught sight of Malcolm tearing up. Mindful of the old grudge, also that there was no marquis now to favor his foe, he finished the arrested act of turning the key, drew it from the lock, and to Malcolm's orders, threats and appeals returned for all answer that he had no time to attend to him, and so left him looking through the bars. Malcolm dashed across the burn, and round the base of the hill on which stood the little wind-god blowing his horn, dismounted, unlocked the door in the wall, got Kelpie through, and was in the saddle again before Johnny was halfway from the gate. When the churl saw him he trembled, turned and ran for its shelter again in terror, nor perceived until he reached it that the insulted groom had gone off like the wind in the opposite direction.

Malcolm soon left the high-road and cut across the fields, over which the wind bore cries and shouts, mingled with laughter and the animal sounds of coarse jeering. When he came nigh the cart-road which led into the village he saw at the entrance of the street a crowd, and rising from it the well-known shape of the factor on his horse. Nearer the sea, where was another entrance through the back yards of some cottages, was a smaller crowd. Both were now pretty silent, for the attention of all was fixed on Malcolm's approach. As he drew up Kelpie foaming and prancing, and the group made way for her, he saw a deep wide ditch across the road, on whose opposite side was ranged irregularly the flower of Scaurnose's younger manhood, calmly, even merrily, prepared to defend their entrenchment. They had been chaffing the factor, and loudly challenging the constables to come on, when they recognized Malcolm in the distance, and expectancy stayed the rush of their bruising wit. For they regarded him as beyond a doubt come from the marchioness with messages of good-will. When he rode up, therefore, they raised a great shout, every one welcoming him by name. But the factor—who, to judge by appearances, had had his forenoon dram ere he left home—burning with wrath, moved his horse in between Malcolm and the ditch. He had self-command enough left, however, to make one attempt at the loftily superior. "Pray what is your business?" he said, as if he had never seen Malcolm in his life before. "I presume you come with a message."

"I come to beg you, sir, not to go farther with this business. Surely the punishment is already enough," said Malcolm respectfully.

"Who sends me the message?" asked the factor, his lips pressed together and his eyes flaming.

"One," answered Malcolm, "who has some influence for justice, and will use it upon whichever side the justice may lie."

"Go to hell!" cried the factor, losing utterly his slender self-command and raising his whip.

Malcolm took no heed of the gesture, for he was at the moment beyond his reach. "Mr. Crathie," he said calmly, "you are banishing the best man in the place."

"No doubt! no doubt! seeing he's a crony of yours," laughed the factor in mighty scorn.—"A canting, prayer-meeting rascal!" he added.

"Is that ony waur nor a drucken elyer o' the kirk?" cried Dubs from the other side of the ditch, raising a roar of laughter.

The very purple left the factor's face and turned to a corpse-like gray in the fire of his fury.

"Come, come, my men! that's going too far," said Malcolm.

"An' wha ir ye for a fudgie (truant) fisher, to gie coonsel ohn speired?" shouted Dubs, altogether disappointed in the part Malcolm seemed only able to take. "Haud to the factor there wi' yer coonsel!"

"Get out of my way!" said Mr. Crathie through his set teeth, and came straight upon Malcolm. "Home with you, or-r-r-r—" And again he raised his whip, this time plainly with intent.

"For God's sake, factor, min' the mere!" cried Malcolm. "Ribs an' legs an' a' 'ill be to crack gien ye anger her wi' yer whuppin'!" As he spoke he drew a little aside, that the factor might pass if he pleased. A noise arose in the smaller crowd, and Malcolm turned to see what it meant: off his guard, he received a stinging cut over the head from the factor's whip. Simultaneously, Kelpie stood up on end, and Malcolm tore the weapon from the treacherous hand. "If I gave you what you deserve, Mr. Crathie, I should knock you and your horse together into that ditch. A touch of the spur would do it. I am not quite sure that I ought not. A nature like yours takes forbearance for fear." While he spoke, his mare was ramping and kicking, making a clean sweep all about her. Mr. Crathie's horse turned restive from sympathy, and it was all his rider could do to keep his seat. As soon as he got Kelpie a little quieter, Malcolm drew near and returned him his whip. He snatched it from his outstretched hand and essayed a second cut at him, which Malcolm rendered powerless by pushing Kelpie close up to him. Then suddenly wheeling, he left him.

On the other side of the trench the fellows were shouting and roaring with laughter.

"Men!" cried Malcolm, "you have no right to stop up this road. I want to go and see Blue Peter."

"Come on, than!" cried one of the young men, emulous of Dubs's humor, and spread out his arms as if to receive Kelpie to his bosom.

"Stand out of the way: I'm coming," said Malcolm. As he spoke he took Kelpie a little round, keeping out of the way of the factor, who sat trembling with rage on his still excited animal, and sent her at the trench. The Deevil's Jock, as they called him, kept jumping, with his arms outspread, from one place to another, as if to receive Kelpie's charge; but when he saw her actually coming, in short, quick bounds, straight to the trench, he was seized with terror, and, half paralyzed, slipped as he turned to flee and rolled into the ditch, just in time to see Kelpie fly over his head. His comrades scampered right and left, and Malcolm, rather disgusted, took no notice of them.

A cart, loaded with their little all, the horse in the shafts, was standing at Peter's door, but nobody was near it. Hardly had Malcolm entered the close, however, when out rushed Annie, and heedless of Kelpie's demonstrative repellence, reached up her hands like a child, caught him by the arm while yet he was busied with his troublesome charge, drew him down toward her and held him till, in spite of Kelpie, she had kissed him again and again. "Eh, Ma'colm! eh, my lord!" she said, "ye hae saved my faith. I kenned ye wad come."

"Haud yer tongue, Annie: I maunna be kenned," said Malcolm.

"There's nae danger. They'll tak it for sweirin'," said Annie, laughing and crying both at once.

But next came Blue Peter, his youngest child in his arms.

"Eh, Peter, man! I'm bleythe to see ye," cried Malcolm. "Gie 's a grup o' yer honest han'."

More than even the sight of his face, beaming with pleasure, more than that grasp of the hand that would have squeezed the life out of a polecat, was the sound of the mother-tongue from his lips. The cloud of Peter's long distrust broke and vanished, and the sky of his soul was straightway a celestial blue. He snatched his hand from Malcolm's, walked back into the empty house, ran into the little closet off the kitchen, bolted the door, fell on his knees in the void little sanctuary that had of late been the scene of so many foiled attempts to lift up his heart, and poured out speechless thanksgiving to the God of all grace and consolation, who had given him back his friend, and that in the time of his sore need. So true was his heart in its love that, giving thanks for his friend, he forgot he was the marquis of Lossie, before whom his enemy was but as a snail in the sun. When he rose from his knees and went out again, his face shining and his eyes misty, his wife was on the top of the cart, tying a rope across the cradle.

"Peter," said Malcolm, "ye was quite richt to gang, but I'm glaid they didna lat ye."

"I wad hae been halfw'y to Port Gordon or noo," said Peter.

"But noo ye'll no gang to Port Gordon," said Malcolm. "Ye'll jist gang to the Salmon for a feow days till we see hoo things'll gang."

"I'll du onything ye like, Ma'colm," said Peter, and went into the house to fetch his bonnet.

In the street arose the cry of a woman, and into the close rushed one of the fisher-wives, followed by the factor. He had found a place on the eastern side of the village, whither he had slipped unobserved, where, jumping a low earth-wall, he got into a little back yard. He was trampling over its few stocks of kail and its one dusty miller and double daisy when the woman to whose cottage it belonged caught sight of him through her window, and running out fell to abusing him, doubtless in no measured language. He rode at her in his rage, and she fled shrieking into Peter's close and behind the cart, never ceasing her vituperation, but calling him every choice name in her vocabulary. Beside himself with the rage of murdered dignity, he struck at her over the corner of the cart. Thereupon from the top of it Annie Mair ventured to expostulate: "Hoot, sir! It's no mainners to lat at a wuman like that."

He turned upon her, and gave her a cut on the arm and hand so stinging that she cried out, and nearly fell from the cart. Out rushed Peter and flew at the factor, who from his seat of vantage began to ply his whip about his head. But Malcolm, who, when the factor appeared, had moved aside to keep Kelpie out of mischief, and saw only the second of the two assaults, came forward with a scramble and a bound. "Haud awa', Peter!" he cried: "this belangs to me. I gae 'im back 's whup, an' sae I'm accoontable.—Mr. Crathie"—and as he spoke he edged his mare up to the panting factor—"the man who strikes a woman must be taught that he is a scoundrel, and that office I take. I would do the same if you were the lord of Lossie instead of his factor."

Mr. Crathie, knowing himself now in the wrong, was a little frightened at the set speech, and began to bluster and stammer, but the swift descent of Malcolm's heavy riding-whip on his shoulders and back made him voluble in curses. Then began a battle that could not last long with such odds on the side of justice. It was gazed at from the mouth of the close by many spectators, but none dared enter because of the capering and plunging and kicking of the horses. In less than a minute the factor turned to flee, and spurring out of the court galloped up the street at full stretch.

"Haud oot o' the gait!" cried Malcolm, and rode after him. But more careful of the people, he did not get a good start, and the factor was over the trench and into the fields before he caught him up. Then again the stinging switch buckled about the shoulders of the oppressor with all the force of Malcolm's brawny arm. The factor yelled and cursed and swore, and still Malcolm plied the whip, and still the horses flew over fields and fences and ditches. At length in the last field, from which they must turn into the high-road, the factor groaned out, "For God's sake, Ma'colm, hae mercy!"

The youth's uplifted arm fell by his side. He turned his mare's head, and when the factor ventured to turn his, he saw the avenger already halfway back to Scaurnose, and the constables in full flight meeting him.

While Malcolm was thus occupied his sister was writing to Lady Bellair. She told her that, having gone out for a sail in her yacht, which she had sent for from Scotland, the desire to see her home had overpowered her to such a degree that of the intended sail she had made a voyage, and here she was, longing just as much now to see Lady Bellair; and if she thought proper to bring a gentleman with her to take care of her, he also should be welcome for her sake. It was a long way for her to come, she said, and Lady Bellair knew what sort of a place it was, but there was nobody in London now, and if she had nothing more enticing on her tablets, etc., etc. She ended with begging her, if she was inclined to make her happy with her presence, to bring to her Caley and her hound Demon. She had hardly finished when Malcolm presented himself. She received him very coldly, and declined to listen to anything about the fishers. She insisted that, being one of their party, he was prejudiced in their favor, and that of course a man of Mr. Crathie's experience must know better than he what ought to be done with such people in view of protecting her rights and keeping them in order. She declared that she was not going to disturb the old way of things to please him, and said that he had now done her all the mischief he could, except indeed he were to head the fishers and sack Lossie House. Malcolm found that instead of gaining any advantage by making himself known to her as her brother, he had but given her confidence in speaking her mind to him, and set her free from considerations of personal dignity when she desired to humiliate him. But he was a good deal surprised at the ability with which she set forth and defended her own view of her affairs, for she did not tell him that the Rev. Mr. Cairns had been with her all the morning, flattering her vanity, worshiping her power and generally instructing her in her own greatness—also putting in a word or two anent his friend Mr. Crathie, and his troubles with her ladyship's fisher-tenants. She was still, however, so far afraid of her brother—which state of feeling was perhaps the main cause of her insulting behavior to him—that she sat in some dread lest he might chance to see the address of the letter she had been writing.

I may mention here that Lady Bellair accepted the invitation with pleasure for herself and Liftore, promised to bring Caley, but utterly declined to take charge of Demon or allow him to be of the party. Thereupon, Florimel, who was fond of the animal, and feared much, as he was no favorite, that something would happen to him, wrote to Clementina, praying her to visit her in her lovely loneliness—good as The Gloom in its way, though not quite so dark—and to add a hair to the weight of her obligation if she complied by allowing her deerhound to accompany her. Clementina was the only one, she said, of her friends for whom the animal had ever shown a preference.

Malcolm retired from his sister's presence much depressed, saw Mrs. Courthope, who was kind as ever, and betook himself to his old room, next to that in which his strange history began. There he sat down and wrote urgently to Lenorme, stating that he had an important communication to make, and begging him to start for the North the moment he received the letter. A messenger from Duff Harbor well mounted would ensure Malcolm's presence within a couple of hours.

He found the behavior of his old acquaintances and friends in the Seaton much what he had expected: the few were as cordial as ever, while the many still resented, with a mingling of the jealousy of affection, his forsaking of the old life for one they regarded as unworthy of a bred at least, if not born, fisherman. A few there were still who always had been, for reasons known only to themselves, less than friendly. The women were all cordial.

"Sic a mad-like thing," said old Futtocks, who was now the leader of the assembly at the Barn, "to gang scoorin' the cuintry on that mad brute o' a mere! What guid, think ye, can come o' sic-like?"

"H'ard ye 'im ever tell the story aboot Colonsay Castel yon'er?"

"Ay, hev I."

"Weel, isna his mere 'at they ca' Kelpie jest the pictur' o' the deil's ain horse 'at lay at the door an' watched whan he flaw oot, an' tuik the wa' wi' 'im?"

"I cudna say till I saw whether the deil himsel' cud gar her lie still."

CHAPTER LIX.

THE PEACEMAKER.

The heroes of Scaurnose expected a renewal of the attack, and in greater force, the next day, and made their preparations accordingly, strengthening every weak point around the village. They were put in great heart by Malcolm's espousal of their cause, as they considered his punishment of the factor; but most of them set it down in their wisdom as resulting from the popular condemnation of his previous supineness. It did not therefore add greatly to his influence with them. When he would have prevailed upon them to allow Blue Peter to depart, arguing that they had less right to prevent than the factor had to compel him, they once more turned upon him: what right had he to dictate to them? he did not belong to Scaurnose. He reasoned with them that the factor, although he had not justice, had law on his side, and could turn out whom he pleased. They said, "Let him try it!" He told them that they had given great provocation, for he knew that the men they had assaulted came surveying for a harbor, and that they ought at least to make some apology for having maltreated them. It was all useless: that was the women's doing, they said; besides, they did not believe him; and if what he said was true, what was the thing to them, seeing they were all under notice to leave? Malcolm said that perhaps an apology would be accepted. They told him if he did not take himself off they would serve him as he had served the factor. Finding expostulation a failure, therefore, he begged Joseph and Annie to settle themselves again as comfortably as they could, and left them.

Contrary to the expectation of all, however, and considerably to the disappointment of the party of Dubs, Fite Folp and the rest, the next day was as peaceful as if Scaurnose had been a halcyon nest floating on the summer waves; and it was soon reported that in consequence of the punishment he had received from Malcolm the factor was far too ill to be troublesome to any but his wife. This was true, but, severe as his chastisement was, it was not severe enough to have had any such consequences but for his late growing habit of drinking whisky. As it was, fever had followed upon the combination of bodily and mental suffering. But already it had wrought this good in him, that he was far more keenly aware of the brutality of the offence of which he had been guilty than he would otherwise have been all his life through. To his wife, who first learned the reason of Malcolm's treatment of him from his delirious talk in the night, it did not, circumstances considered, appear an enormity, and her indignation with the avenger of it, whom she had all but hated before, was furious. Malcolm, on his part, was greatly concerned to hear the result of his severity. He refrained, however, from calling to inquire, knowing it would be interpreted as an insult, not accepted as a sign of sympathy. He went to the doctor instead, who, to his consternation, looked very serious at first. But when he learned all about the affair, he changed his view considerably, and condescended to give good hopes of his coming through, even adding that it would lengthen his life by twenty years if it broke him of his habits of whisky-drinking and rage.

And now Malcolm had a little time of leisure, which he put to the best possible use in strengthening his relations with the fishers. For he had nothing to do about the House except look after Kelpie; and Florimel, as if determined to make him feel that he was less to her than before, much as she used to enjoy seeing him sit his mare, never took him out with her—always Stoat. He resolved therefore, seeing he must yet delay action a while in the hope of the appearance of Lenorme, to go out as in the old days after the herring, both for the sake of splicing, if possible, what strands had been broken between him and the fishers, and of renewing for himself the delights of elemental conflict. With these views he hired himself to the Partan, whose boat's crew was short-handed. And now, night after night, he reveled in the old pleasure, enhanced by so many months of deprivation. Joy itself seemed embodied in the wind blowing on him out of the misty infinite while his boat rocked and swung on the waters, hanging between two worlds—that in which the wind blew, and that other dark-swaying mystery whereinto the nets to which it was tied went away down and down, gathering the harvest of the ocean. It was as if Nature called up all her motherhood to greet and embrace her long-absent son. When it came on to blow hard, as it did once and again during those summer nights, instead of making him feel small and weak in the midst of the storming forces, it gave him a glorious sense of power and unconquerable life. And when his watch was out, and the boat lay quiet, like a horse tethered and asleep in his clover-field, he too would fall asleep with a sense of simultaneously deepening and vanishing delight such as he had not at all in other conditions experienced. Ever since the poison had got into his system, and crept where it yet lay lurking in hidden corners and crannies, a noise at night would on shore startle him awake, and set his heart beating hard; but no loudest sea-noise ever woke him: the stronger the wind flapped its wings around him, the deeper he slept. When a comrade called him by name he was up at once and wide awake.

It answered also all his hopes in regard to his companions and the fisher-folk generally. Those who had really known him found the same old Malcolm, and those who had doubted him soon began to see that at least he had lost nothing in courage or skill or good-will: ere long he was even a greater favorite than before. On his part, he learned to understand far better the nature of his people, as well as the individual characters of them, for his long (but not too long) absence and return enabled him to regard them with unaccustomed, and therefore in some respects more discriminating, eyes.

Duncan's former dwelling happening to be then occupied by a lonely woman, Malcolm made arrangements with her to take them both in; so that in relation to his grandfather too something very much like the old life returned for a time—with this difference, that Duncan soon began to check himself as often as the name of his hate with its accompanying curse rose to his lips.

The factor continued very ill. He had sunk into a low state, in which his former indulgence was greatly against him. Every night the fever returned, and at length his wife was worn out with watching and waiting upon him.

And every morning Lizzy Findlay without fail called to inquire how Mr. Crathie had spent the night. To the last, while quarreling with every one of her neighbors with whom he had anything to do, he had continued kind to her, and she was more grateful than one in other trouble than hers could have understood. But she did not know that an element in the origination of his kindness was the belief that it was by Malcolm she had been wronged and forsaken.

Again and again she had offered, in the humblest manner, to ease his wife's burden by sitting with him at night; and at last, finding she could hold up no longer, Mrs. Crathie consented. But even after a week she found herself still unable to resume the watching, and so, night after night, resting at home during a part of the day, Lizzy sat by the sleeping factor, and when he woke ministered to him like a daughter. Nor did even her mother object, for sickness is a wondrous reconciler. Little did the factor suspect, however, that it was partly for Malcolm's sake she nursed him, anxious to shield the youth from any possible consequences of his righteous vengeance.

While their persecutor lay thus, gradually everything at Scaurnose, and consequently at the Seaton, lapsed into its old way, and the summer of such content as before they had possessed returned to the fishers. I fear it would have proved hard for some of them, had they made effort in that direction, to join in the prayer—if prayer it may be called—put up in church for him every Sunday. What a fearful canopy the prayers that do not get beyond the atmosphere would make if they turned brown with age! Having so lately seen the factor going about like a maniac, raving at this piece of damage and that heap of dirt, the few fishers present could never help smiling when Mr. Cairns prayed for him as "the servant of God and his Church now lying grievously afflicted—persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed." Having found the fitting phrases, he seldom varied them.

Through her sorrow Lizzy had grown tender, as through her shame she had grown wise. That the factor had been much in the wrong only rendered her anxious sympathy the more eager to serve him. Knowing so well what it was to have done wrong, she was pitiful over him, and her ministrations were none the less devoted that she knew exactly how Malcolm thought and felt about him; for the affair, having taken place in open village and wide field and in the light of mid-day, and having been reported by eye-witnesses many, was everywhere perfectly known, and Malcolm therefore talked of it freely to his friends—among them both to Lizzy and her mother.

Sickness sometimes works marvelous changes, and the most marvelous on persons who to the ordinary observer seem the least liable to change. Much apparent steadfastness of nature, however, is but sluggishness, and comes from incapacity to generate change or contribute toward personal growth; and it follows that those whose nature is such can as little prevent or retard any change that has its initiative beyond them. The men who impress the world as the mightiest are those often who can the least—never those who can the most in their natural kingdom; generally those whose frontiers lie openest to the inroads of temptation, whose atmosphere is most subject to moody changes and passionate convulsions, who, while perhaps they can whisper laws to a hemisphere, can utter no decree of smallest potency as to how things shall be within themselves. Place Alexander ille Magnus beside Malcolm's friend Epictetus, ille servorum servus—take his crutch from the slave and set the hero upon his Bucephalus, but set them alone and in a desert—which will prove the great man? which the unchangeable? The question being what the man himself shall or shall not be, shall or shall not feel, shall or shall not recognize as of himself and troubling the motions of his being, Alexander will prove a mere earth-bubble, Epictetus a cavern in which pulses the tide of the eternal and infinite Sea.

But then first, when the false strength of the self-imagined great man is gone, when the want or the sickness has weakened the self-assertion which is so often mistaken for strength of individuality, when the occupations in which he formerly found a comfortable consciousness of being have lost their interest, his ambitions their glow and his consolations their color, when suffering has wasted away those upper strata of his factitious consciousness, and laid bare the lower, simpler, truer deeps, of which he has never known or has forgotten the existence, then there is a hope of his commencing a new and real life. Powers then, even powers within himself, of which he knew nothing, begin to assert themselves, and the man commonly reported to possess a strong will is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. This factor, this man of business, this despiser of humbug, to whom the scruples of a sensitive conscience were a contempt, would now lie awake in the night and weep. "Ah!" I hear it answered, "but that was the weakness caused by his illness." True; but what then had become of his strength? And was it all weakness? What if this weakness was itself a sign of returning life, not of advancing death—of the dawn of a new and genuine strength? For he wept because in the visions of his troubled brain he saw once more the cottage of his father the shepherd, with all its store of lovely nothings round which the nimbus of sanctity had gathered while he thought not of them; wept over the memory of that moment of delight when his mother kissed him for parting with his willow whistle to the sister who cried for it: he cried now in his turn, after five-and-fifty years, for not yet had the little fact done with him, not yet had the kiss of his mother lost its power on the man; wept over the sale of the pet lamb, though he had himself sold thousands of lambs since; wept over even that bush of dusty miller by the door, like the one he trampled under his horse's feet in the little yard at Scaurnose that horrible day. And oh that nest of wild bees with its combs of honey unspeakable! He used to laugh and sing then: he laughed still sometimes—he could hear how he laughed, and it sounded frightful—but he never sang. Were the tears that honored such childish memories all of weakness? Was it cause of regret that he had not been wicked enough to have become impregnable to such foolish trifles? Unable to mount a horse, unable to give an order, not caring even for his toddy, he was left at the mercy of his fundamentals: his childhood came up and claimed him, and he found the childish things he had put away better than the manly things he had adopted. It is one thing for Saint Paul and another for Mr. Worldly Wiseman to put away childish things. The ways they do it, and the things they substitute, are both so different! And now first to me, whose weakness it is to love life more than manners, and men more than their portraits, the man begins to grow interesting. Picture the dawn of innocence on a dull, whisky-drinking, commonplace soul, stained by self-indulgence and distorted by injustice! Unspeakably more interesting and lovely is to me such a dawn than the honeymoon of the most passionate of lovers, except indeed I know them such lovers that their love will out-last all the moons.

"I'm a poor creature, Lizzy," he said, turning his heavy face one midnight toward the girl as she sat half dozing, ready to start awake.

"God comfort ye, sir!" said the girl.

"He'll take good care of that," returned the factor. "What did I ever do to deserve it? There's that MacPhail, now—to think of him! Didn't I do what man could for him? Didn't I keep him about the place when all the rest were dismissed? Didn't I give him the key of the library, that he might read and improve his mind? And look what comes of it!"

"Ye mean, sir," said Lizzy, quite innocently, "'at that's the w'y ye ha'e dune wi' God, an' sae he winna heed ye?"

The factor had meant nothing in the least like it. He had merely been talking as the imps of suggestion tossed up. His logic was as sick and helpless as himself. So at that he held his peace, stung in his pride at least—perhaps in his conscience too, only he was not prepared to be rebuked by a girl like her, who had—Well, he must let it pass: how much better was he himself?

But Lizzy was loyal: she could not hear him speak so of Malcolm and hold her peace as if she agreed in his condemnation. "Ye'll ken Ma'colm better some day, sir," she said.

"Well, Lizzy," returned the sick man, in a tone that but for feebleness would have been indignant, "I have heard a good deal of the way women will stand up for men that have treated them cruelly, but you to stand up for him passes!"

"He's been the best friend I ever had," said Lizzy.

"Girl! how can you sit there, and tell me so to my face?" cried the factor, his voice strengthened by the righteousness of the reproof it bore. "If it were not the dead of the night—"

"I tell ye naething but the trowth, sir," said Lizzy as the contingent threat died away. "But ye maun lie still or I maun gang for the mistress. Gien ye be the waur the morn, it'll be a' my wyte, 'cause I cudna bide to hear sic things said o' Ma'colm."

"Do ye mean to tell me," persisted her charge, heedless of her expostulation, "that the fellow who brought you to disgrace, and left you with a child you could ill provide for—and I well know never sent you a penny all the time he was away, whatever he may have done now—is the best friend you ever had?"

"Noo God forgie ye, Maister Crathie, for threipin' sic a thing!" cried Lizzy, rising as if she would leave him. "Ma'colm MacPhail's as clear o' ony sin like mine as my wee bairnie itsel'."

"Do ye daur tell me he's no the father o' that same, lass?"

"No; nor never will be the father o' ony bairn whase mither's no his wife!" said Lizzy, with burning cheeks but resolute voice.

The factor, who had risen on his elbow to look her in the face, fell back in silence, and neither of them spoke for what seemed to the watcher a long time. When she ventured to look at him, he was asleep.

He lay in one of those troubled slumbers into which weakness and exhaustion will sometimes pass very suddenly; and in that slumber he had a dream which he never forgot. He thought he had risen from his grave with an awful sound in his ears, and knew he was wanted at the judgment-seat. But he did not want to go, therefore crept into the porch of the church and hoped to be forgotten. But suddenly an angel appeared with a flaming sword, and drove him out of the churchyard away to Scaurnose, where the Judge was sitting. And as he fled in terror before the angel he fell, and the angel came and stood over him, and his sword flashed torture into his bones, but he could not and dared not rise. At last, summoning all his strength, he looked up at him and cried out, "Sir, hae mercy, for God's sake!" Instantly all the flames drew back into the sword, and the blade dropped, burning like a brand from the hilt, which the angel threw away. And lo! it was Malcolm MacPhail, and he was stooping to raise him. With that he awoke, and there was Lizzy looking down on him anxiously. "What are you looking like that for?" he asked crossly.

She did not like to tell him that she had been alarmed by his dropping asleep, and in her confusion she fell back on the last subject. "There maun be some mistak, Mr. Crathie," she said. "I wuss ye wad tell me what gars ye hate Ma'colm MacPhail as ye du."

The factor, although he seemed to himself to know well enough, was yet a little puzzled how to commence his reply; and therewith a process began that presently turned into something with which never in his life before had his inward parts been acquainted—a sort of self-examination, to wit. He said to himself, partly in the desire to justify his present dislike—he would not call it hate, as Lizzy did—that he used to get on with the lad well enough, and had never taken offence at his freedoms, making no doubt his manner came of his blood, and he could not help it, being a chip of the old block; but when he ran away with the marquis's boat, and went to the marchioness and told her lies against him, then what could he do but—dislike him?

Arrived at this point, he opened his mouth and gave the substance of what preceded it for answer to Lizzy's question. But she replied at once: "Nobody 'ill gar me believe, sir, 'at Ma'colm MacPhail ever tellt a lee again' you or onybody. I dinna believe he ever tellt a lee in 's life. Jist ye exem' him weel anent it, sir. An' for the boat, nae doobt it was makin' free to tak it; but ye ken, sir, 'at hoo he was maister o' the same. It was in his chairge, an' ye ken little aboot boats yersel' or the sailin' o' them, sir."

"But it was me that engaged him again after all the servants at the House had been dismissed: he was my servant."

"That maks the thing luik waur, nae doobt," allowed Lizzy, with something of cunning. "Hoo was't at he cam to du 't ava' (of all at all), sir? Can ye min'?" she pursued.

"I discharged him."

"An' what for, gien I may mak bold to speir, sir?" she went on.

"For insolence."

"Wad ye tell me hoo he answert ye? Dinna think me meddlin', sir: I'm clear certain there's been some mistak. Ye cudna be sae guid to me an' be ill to him, ohn some mistak."

It was consoling to the conscience of the factor, in regard of his behavior to the two women, to hear his own praise for kindness from a woman's lips. He took no offence, therefore, at her persistent questioning, but told her as well and as truly as he could remember, with no more than the all-but unavoidable exaggeration with which feeling will color fact, the whole passage between Malcolm and himself concerning the sale of Kelpie, and closed with an appeal to the judgment of his listener, in which he confidently anticipated her verdict: "A most ridic'lous thing! ye can see yersel' as weel 's onybody, Lizzy. An' sic a thing to ca' an honest man like mysel' a hypocreet for! ha! ha! ha! There's no a bairn atween John o' Groat's an' the Lan's En' disna ken 'at the seller o' a horse is b'un' to reese (extol) him, an' the buyer to tak care o' himsel'. I'll no say it's jist allooable to tell a doonricht lee, but ye may come full nearer till't in horse-dealin', ohn sinned, nor in ony ither kin' o' merchandeze. It's like luve an' war, in baith which, it's weel kenned, a' thing's fair. The saw sud rin—Luve an' war an' horse-dealin'.—Divna ye see, Lizzy?"

But Lizzy did not answer, and the factor, hearing a stifled sob, started to his elbow.

"Lie still, sir!" said Lizzy. "It's naething. I was only jist thinkin' 'at that wad be the w'y 'at the father o' my bairn rizzoned wi' himsel' whan he lee'd to me."

"Hey!" said the astonished factor, and in his turn held his peace, trying to think.

Now, Lizzy for the last few months had been going to school—the same school with Malcolm, open to all comers—the only school where one is sure to be led in the direction of wisdom—and there she had been learning to some purpose, as plainly appeared before she had done with the factor.

"Whase Kirk are ye elder o', Maister Crathie?" she asked presently.

"Ow, the Kirk o' Scotlan', of coorse," answered the patient, in some surprise at her ignorance.

"Ay, ay," returned Lizzy; "but whase aucht (owning, property) is 't?"

"Ow, whase but the Redeemer's?"

"An' div ye think, Mr. Crathie, 'at gien Jesus Christ had had a horse to sell, he wad hae hidden frae him 'at wad buy ae hair o' a fau't 'at the beast hed? Wad he no hae dune till's neiper as he wad hae his neiper du to him?"

"Lassie! lassie! tak care hoo ye even Him to sic-like as hiz (us). What wad He hae to du wi' horseflesh?"

Lizzy held her peace. Here was no room for argument. He had flung the door of his conscience in the face of her who woke it. But it was too late, for the word was in already. Oh that false reverence which men substitute for adoring obedience, and wherewith they reprove the childlike spirit that does not know another kingdom than that of God and that of Mammon! God never gave man thing to do concerning which it were irreverent to ponder how the Son of God would have done it.

But, I say, the word was in, and, partly no doubt from its following so close upon the dream the factor had had, was potent in its operation. He fell a-thinking, and a-thinking more honestly than he had thought for many a day. And presently it was revealed to him that, if he were in the horse-market wanting to buy, and a man there who had to sell said to him, "He wadna du for you, sir: ye wad be tired o' 'im in a week," he would never remark, "What a fool the fellow is!" but, "Weel, noo, I ca' that neiborly!" He did not get quite so far just then as to see that every man to whom he might want to sell a horse was as much his neighbor as his own brother; nor, indeed, if he had got as far, would it have indicated much progress in honesty, seeing he would at any time, when needful and possible, have cheated that brother in the matter of a horse as certainly as he would a Patagonian or Chinaman. But the warped glass of a bad maxim had at least been cracked in his window.

The peacemaker sat in silence the rest of the night, but the factor's sleep was broken, and at times he wandered. He was not so well the next day, and his wife, gathering that Lizzy had been talking, and herself feeling better, would not allow her to sit up with him any more.

Days and days passed, and still Malcolm had no word from Lenorme, and was getting hopeless in respect to that quarter of possible aid. But so long as Florimel could content herself with the quiet of Lossie House, there was time to wait, he said to himself. She was not idle, and that was promising. Every day she rode out with Stoat. Now and then she would make a call in the neighborhood, and, apparently to trouble Malcolm, took care to let him know that on one of these occasions her call had been upon Mrs. Stewart. One thing he did feel was, that she made no renewal of her friendship with his grandfather: she had, alas! outgrown the girlish fancy. Poor Duncan took it much to heart. She saw more of the minister and his wife—who both flattered her—than anybody else, and was expecting the arrival of Lady Bellair and Lord Liftore with the utmost impatience. They, for their part, were making the journey by the easiest possible stages, tacking and veering, and visiting every one of their friends that lay between London and Lossie: they thought to give Florimel the little lesson that, though they accepted her invitation, they had plenty of friends in the world besides her ladyship, and were not dying to see her.

One evening, Malcolm, as he left the grounds of Mr. Morrison, on whom he had been calling, saw a traveling-carriage pass toward Portlossie, and something liker fear laid hold of his heart than he had ever felt except when Florimel and he on the night of the storm took her father for Lord Gernon the wizard. As soon as he reached certain available fields, he sent Kelpie tearing across them, dodged through a fir wood, and came out on the road half a mile in front of the carriage: as again it passed him he saw that his fears were facts, for in it sat the bold-faced countess and the mean-hearted lord. Something must be done at last, and until it was done good watch must be kept.

I must here note that during this time of hoping and waiting Malcolm had attended to another matter of importance. Over every element influencing his life, his family, his dependants, his property, he desired to possess a lawful, honest command: where he had to render account he would be head. Therefore, through Mr. Soutar's London agent, to whom he sent up Davy, and whom he brought acquainted with Merton and his former landlady at the curiosity-shop, he had discovered a good deal about Mrs. Catanach from her London associates, among them the herb-doctor and his little boy who had watched Davy; and he had now almost completed an outline of evidence which, grounded on that of Rose, might be used against Mrs. Catanach at any moment. He had also set inquiries on foot in the track of Caley's antecedents, and had discovered more than the acquaintance between her and Mrs. Catanach. Also he had arranged that Hodges, the man who had lost his leg through his cruelty to Kelpie, should leave for Duff Harbor as soon as possible after his discharge from the hospital. He was determined to crush the evil powers which had been ravaging his little world.

CHAPTER LX.

AN OFFERING.

Clementina was always ready to accord any reasonable request Florimel could make of her; but her letter lifted such a weight from her heart and life that she would now have done whatever she desired, reasonable or unreasonable, provided only it was honest. She had no difficulty in accepting Florimel's explanation that her sudden disappearance was but a breaking of the social jail, the flight of the weary bird from its foreign cage back to the country of its nest; and that same morning she called upon Demon. The hound, feared and neglected, was rejoiced to see her, came when she called him, and received her caresses: there was no ground for dreading his company. It was a long journey, but if it had been across a desert instead of through her own country, the hope that lay at the end of it would have made it more than pleasant. She, as well as Lady Bellair, had friends upon the way, but no desire either to lengthen the journey or shorten its tedium by visiting them.

The letter would have found her at Wastbeach instead of London had not the society and instructions of the schoolmaster detained her a willing prisoner to its heat and glare and dust. Him only in all London must she see to bid good-bye. To Camden Town therefore she went that same evening, when his work would be over for the day. As usual now, she was shown into his room—his only one. As usual also, she found him poring over his Greek Testament. The gracious, graceful woman looked lovelily strange in that mean chamber—like an opal in a brass ring. There was no such contrast between the room and its occupant. His bodily presence was too weak to "stick fiery off" from its surroundings, and to the eye that saw through the bodily presence to the inherent grandeur, that grandeur suggested no discrepancy, being of the kind that lifts everything to its own level, casts the mantle of its own radiance around its surroundings. Still, to the eye of love and reverence it was not pleasant to see him in such entourage, and now that Clementina was going to leave him, the ministering spirit that dwelt in the woman was troubled.

"Ah!" he said, and rose as she entered, "this is then the angel of my deliverance!" But with such a smile he did not look as if he had much to be delivered from. "You see," he went on, "old man as I am, and peaceful, the summer will lay hold upon me. She stretches out a long arm into this desert of houses and stones, and sets me longing after the green fields and the living air—it seems dead here—and the face of God, as much as one may behold of the Infinite through the revealing veil of earth and sky and sea. Shall I confess my weakness, my poverty of spirit, my covetousness after the visual? I was even getting a little tired of that glorious God-and-man lover, Saul of Tarsus: no, not of him, never of him, only of his shadow in his words. Yet perhaps—yes, I think so—it is God alone of whom a man can never get tired. Well, no matter: tired I was, when lo! here comes my pupil, with more of God in her face than all the worlds and their skies He ever made."

"I would my heart were as full of Him too, then, sir," answered Clementina. "But if I am anything of a comfort to you, I am more than glad; therefore the more sorry to tell you that I am going to leave you, though for a little while only, I trust."

"You do not take me by surprise, my lady. I have of course been looking forward for some time to my loss and your gain. The world is full of little deaths—deaths of all sorts and sizes, rather let me say. For this one I was prepared. The good summer-land calls you to its bosom, and you must go."

"Come with me," cried Clementina, her eyes eager with the light of the sudden thought, while her heart reproached her grievously that only now first had it come to her.

"A man must not leave the most irksome work for the most peaceful pleasure," answered the schoolmaster. "I am able to live—yes, and do my work—without you, my lady," he added with a smile, "though I shall miss you sorely."

"But you do not know where I want you to come," she said.

"What difference can that make, my lady, except indeed in the amount of pleasure to be refused, seeing this is not a matter of choice? I must be with the children whom I have engaged to teach, and whose parents pay me for my labor—not with those who, besides, can do well without me."

"I cannot, sir—not for long at least."

"What! not with Malcolm to supply my place?"

Clementina blushed, but only like a white rose. She did not turn her head aside; she did not lower their lids to veil the light she felt mount into her eyes; she looked him gently in the face as before, and her aspect of entreaty did not change. "Ah! do not be unkind, master," she said.

"Unkind!" he repeated. "You know I am not. I have more kindness in my heart than any lips can tell. You do not know, you could not yet imagine, the half of what I hope of and for and from you."

"I am going to see Malcolm," she said with a little sigh. "That is, I am going to visit Lady Lossie at her place in Scotland—your own old home, where so many must love you. Can't you come? I shall be traveling alone, quite alone, except my servants."

A shadow came over the schoolmaster's face: "You do not think, my lady, or you would not press me. It pains me that you do not see at once it would be dishonest to go without timely notice to my pupils, and to the public too. But, beyond that quite, I never do anything of myself. I go not where I wish, but where I seem to be called or sent. I never even wish much, except when I pray to Him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. After what He wants to give me I am wishing all day long. I used to build many castles, not without a beauty of their own—that was when I had less understanding—now I leave them to God to build for me: He does it better, and they last longer. See now, this very hour, when I needed help, could I have contrived a more lovely annihilation of the monotony that threatened to invade my weary spirit than this inroad of light in the person of my Lady Clementina? Nor will He allow me to get overwearied with vain efforts. I do not think He will keep me here long, for I find I cannot do much for these children. They are but some of His many pagans—not yet quite ready to receive Christianity, I think—not like children with some of the old seeds of the truth buried in them, that want to be turned up nearer to the light. This ministration I take to be more for my good than theirs—a little trial of faith and patience for me—a stony corner of the lovely valley of humiliation to cross. True, I might be happier where I could hear the larks, but I do not know that anywhere have I been more peaceful than in this little room, on which I see you so often cast round your eyes curiously, perhaps pitifully, my lady."

"It is not at all a fit place for you," said Clementina with a touch of indignation.

"Softly, my lady, lest, without knowing it, your love should make you sin. Who set thee, I pray, for a guardian angel over my welfare? I could scarce have a lovelier, true; but where is thy brevet? No, my lady: it is a greater than thou that sets me the bounds of my habitation. Perhaps He may give me a palace one day. If I might choose, it would be things that belong to a cottage—the whiteness and the greenness and the sweet odors of cleanliness. But the Father has decreed for His children that they shall know the thing that is neither their ideal nor His. Who can imagine how in this respect things looked to our Lord when He came and found so little faith on the earth? But perhaps, my lady, you would not pity my present condition so much if you had seen the cottage in which I was born, and where my father and mother loved each other, and died happier than on their wedding-day. There I was happy too until their loving ambition decreed that I should be a scholar and a clergyman. Not before then did I ever know anything worthy the name of trouble. A little cold and a little hunger at times, and not a little restlessness always, was all. But then—ah, then my troubles began. Yet God, who bringeth light out of darkness, hath brought good even out of my weakness and presumption and half-unconscious falsehood. When do you go?"

"To-morrow morning, as I purpose."

"Then God be with thee! He is with thee, only my prayer is that thou mayst know it. He is with me, and I know it. He does not find this chamber too mean or dingy or unclean to let me know Him near me in it."

"Tell me one thing before I go," said Clementina: "are we not commanded to bear each other's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ? I read it to-day."

"Then why ask me?"

"For another question: does not that involve the command to those who have burdens that they should allow others to bear them?"

"Surely, my lady. But I have no burden to let you bear."

"Why should I have everything and you nothing? Answer me that."

"My lady, I have millions more than you, for I have been gathering the crumbs under my Master's table for thirty years."

"You are a king," answered Clementina. "But a king needs a handmaiden somewhere in his house: that let me be in yours. No, I will be proud, and assert my rights: I am your daughter. If I am not, why am I here? Do you not remember telling me that the adoption of God meant a closer relation than any other fatherhood, even His own first fatherhood, could signify? You cannot cast me off if you would. Why should you be poor when I am rich? You are poor: you cannot deny it," she concluded with a serious playfulness.

"I will not deny my privileges," said the schoolmaster, with a smile such as might have acknowledged the possession of some exquisite and envied rarity.

"I believe," insisted Clementina, "you are just as poor as the apostle Paul when he sat down to make a tent, or as our Lord himself after he gave up carpentering."

"You are wrong there, my lady. I am not so poor as they must often have been."

"But I don't know how long I may be away, and you may fall ill, or—or—see some—some book you want very much, or—"

"I never do," said the schoolmaster.

"What! never see a book you want to have?"

"No, not now. I have my Greek Testament, my Plato and my Shakespeare, and one or two little books besides whose wisdom I have not yet quite exhausted."

"I can't bear it!" cried Clementina, almost on the point of weeping. "You will not let me near you. You put out an arm as long as the summer's, and push me away from you. Let me be your servant." As she spoke she rose, and walking softly up to him where he sat, kneeled at his knees and held out suppliantly a little bag of white silk tied with crimson. "Take it—father," she said, hesitating, and bringing the word out with an effort: "take your daughter's offering—a poor thing to show her love, but something to ease her heart."

He took it, and weighed it up and down in his hand with an amused smile, but his eyes full of tears. It was heavy. He opened it. A chair was within his reach: he emptied it on the seat of it, and laughed with merry delight as its contents came tumbling out. "I never saw so much gold in my life if it were all taken together," he said. "What beautiful stuff it is! But I don't want it, my dear. It would but trouble me." And as he spoke he began to put it in the bag again. "You will want it for your journey," he said.

"I have plenty in my reticule," she answered. "That is a mere nothing to what I could have to-morrow morning for writing a cheque. I am afraid I am very rich. It is such a shame! But I can't well help it. You must teach me how to become poor. Tell me true: how much money have you?" She said this with such an earnest look of simple love that the schoolmaster made haste to rise that he might conceal his growing emotion.

"Rise, my dear lady," he said as he rose himself, "and I will show you." He gave her his hand, and she obeyed, but troubled and disappointed, and so stood looking after him while he went to a drawer. Thence, searching in a corner of it, he brought a half-sovereign, a few shillings and some coppers, and held them out to her on his hand with the smile of one who has proved his point. "There!" he said, "do you think Paul would have stopped preaching to make a tent so long as he had as much as that in his pocket? I shall have more on Saturday, and I always carry a month's rent in my good old watch, for which I never had much use, and now have less than ever."

Clementina had been struggling with herself: now she burst into tears.

"Why, what a misspending of precious sorrow!" exclaimed the schoolmaster. "Do you think because a man has not a gold-mine he must die of hunger? I once heard of a sparrow that never had a worm left for the morrow, and died a happy death notwithstanding." As he spoke he took her handkerchief from her hand and dried her tears with it. But he had enough ado to keep his own back. "Because I won't take a bagful of gold from you when I don't want it," he went on, "do you think I should let myself starve without coming to you? I promise you I will let you know—come to you if I can—the moment I get too hungry to do my work well and have no money left. Should I think it a disgrace to take money from you? That would show a poverty of spirit such as I hope never to fall into. My sole reason for refusing now is that I do not need it."

But for all his loving words and assurances Clementina could not stay her tears. She was not ready to weep, but now her eyes were as a fountain.

"See, then, for your tears are hard to bear, my daughter," he said, "I will take one of these golden ministers, and if it has flown from me ere you come, seeing that, like the raven, it will not return if once I let it go, I will ask you for another. It may be God's will that you should feed me for a time."

"Like one of Elijah's ravens," said Clementina, with an attempted laugh that was really a sob.

"Like a dove whose wings are covered with silver and her feathers with yellow gold," said the schoolmaster.

A moment of silence followed, broken only by Clementina's failures in quieting herself.

"To me," he resumed, "the sweetest fountain of money is the hand of love, but a man has no right to take it from that fountain except he is in want of it. I am not. True, I go somewhat bare, my lady; but what is that when my Lord would have it so?"

He opened again the bag, and slowly, reverentially indeed, drew from it one of the new sovereigns with which it was filled. He put it in a waistcoat pocket and laid the bag on the table.

"But your clothes are shabby, sir," said Clementina, looking at him with a sad little shake of the head.

"Are they?" he returned, and looked down at his lower garments, reddening and anxious. "I did not think they were more than a little rubbed, but they shine somewhat," he said. "They are indeed polished by use," he went on with a troubled little laugh: "but they have no holes yet—at least none that are visible," he corrected. "If you tell me, my lady, if you honestly tell me, that my garments"—and he looked at the sleeve of his coat, drawing back his head from it to see it better—"are unsightly, I will take of your money and buy me a new suit." Over his coat-sleeve he regarded her, questioning.

"Everything about you is beautiful," she burst out. "You want nothing but a body that lets the light through." She took the hand still raised in his survey of his sleeve, pressed it to her lips, and walked, with even more than her wonted state, slowly from the room.

He took the bag of gold from the table and followed her down the stair. Her chariot was waiting her at the door. He handed her in, and laid the bag on the little seat in front.

"Will you tell him to drive home?" she said with a firm voice, and a smile which if any one care to understand let him read Spenser's fortieth sonnet. And so they parted. The coachman took the queer, shabby, un-London-like man for a fortune-teller his lady was in the habit of consulting, and paid homage to his power with the handle of his whip as he drove away. The schoolmaster returned to his room—not to his Plato, not even to Saul of Tarsus, but to the Lord himself.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

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