'Be a good lad,' he said quietly and composedly. 'Fear not for me; I go in friendship with all men. Poor, poor Cloncaird!' he said, thinking of one of his murderers whom he had always befriended, 'it is a pity for his wife and young family!'
Then he closed his eyes and we thought he had already passed from us.
But presently he opened them again and looked toward me.
'Be kind to Nelly!' he said, smiling so kindly at me, that my heart nearly broke. He shook his head at seeing my grief and the tears running down, for, indeed, I could not withhold them.
'There is no need,' he said, reprovingly, 'no need for the like of that ava'. Be a brave lad, Launcelot, and just as true to your God as you have proved to me, who have been a loving master to you here below. I am only wae for the poor, misguided lads, that were so far left to themselves as to lay me here like this.'
And with that there was but his body on the sands, for the spirit of the gentlest master that ever a man served had gone its way to its own Master.
But it was even as he said—for the end of such an one there is no need of tears.
Then I stood up, and the terrible thought came in upon me like Solway tide. How—how shall I take him home to Helen Kennedy—to his orphaned bairns, and to the stricken house of Culzean?
CHAPTER XXX
I SEEK FOR VENGEANCE