"What you intended to do matters less to me than what you have really done," answered the good-natured laird.
"Are ye na going to put me in prison, or turn me out o' my place?"
"On the contrary, I am going to reward you for the service you have rendered."
"That maun na be," cried Davie, drawing back. "Dinna ask me. I seek na reward but to feel that I can once mair look my fellow-creatures in the face, an honest man. An' the story o' what I ha'e suffered shall aye be a warning to me, and to my bairns after me, to flee frae temptation."
A happy circle was that which gathered round Davie's ingle that night, the ingle from which the ale-house never again had power to allure him.
Jean, the gudewife, with her sewing in her hand, and the old gray cat at her feet, shall be the central figure. Grandmother sits on one side of the fireplace, spinning flax—ever and anon bursting out into some old Jacobite song—and Davie himself in the arm-chair, on the other side, with Jamie on his knee. On a low seat close by him is Nannie—now looking into her father's face, and now glancing beyond—for there sits Robbie Ainslee.
And so we drop the curtain.
LLOYD'S FIRE ON THE BEACH.
Lloyd and Jem were squatted up among the rocks, watching a vessel out to sea.
It was a cold evening,—Christmas eve,—the night coming on fast. No vessel had any business to be out there among the breakers, running in straight on the bar; that is, if any man aboard of her knew what he was about.