"This was in the year 1772?" exclaimed Dick, who had listened breathlessly.
"It was, sir. The poor child could tell me nothing of his parents, and knew only that his name was Hamish—that he had seated himself in an old boat upon the beach, and fallen asleep, after which he was awaked by the rough rocking of his new cradle, as it tumbled on the waves, which had risen and floated it out into the Sound. He wept for his mother long and passionately; but I brought him hither, and in the bosom of our Mother Church he soon learned to forget his earthly mother, who is now, perhaps, awaiting him in heaven——"
"For her wish has doubtless been mysteriously fulfilled," said Duff, incoherently. "Eternal Power! if this should be the case! Tell me, good sir, is there a scar——"
"Upon his left side?—yes."
"The mark of a stag's-horn, which gored him on the rocks of Loch-na-Keal."
"Yes, yes."
"Then this child whom you found floating on the sea, and who has lived to become the Rector of your College, is my brother, Hamish Duff, for whose supposed drowning in the Sound of Mull, our poor mother died of grief on the sixteenth of November."
"The sixteenth of November! the very day on which he has so long believed he is himself to die."
Dick threw down his plumed bonnet and hastened to the bedside with his eyes full of tears and a wild expression in his face.
"O how like our old father he looks!" he exclaimed, as he turned down the coverlet.