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INCHBRACKEN

INCHBRACKEN

THE STORY OF A

FAMA CLAMOSA

BY

ROBERT CLELAND

NEW EDITION--ILLUSTRATED

GLASGOW:
ROBERT FORRESTER, 1 ROYAL EXCHANGE SQUARE

1887

CONTENTS.

INCHBRACKEN.

CHAPTER I.

[THE PARISH OF KILRUNDLE].

The night was stormy and black as pitch. Sheets of chilling rain sped lashing across the glen, driven by the whirling tempest. The burns in the hills, swollen into torrents, came tumbling down their rocky beds all foam and uproar, diffusing through the air an undertone of continuous thunder, that could be distinctly heard in each recurring interval of the gale. Along the road which traversed the clachan of Glen Effick and then wandered up the glen and across the hills, the elements had free scope to work their evil will, and nothing with life dared venture forth to oppose them. The air was full of hissings and roarings and crackings and rumblings, as trees and roofs swayed and shivered to the blast, and the loosened stones rumbled in the beds of neighbouring torrents. The drowsy lights from the inn door and the post-office disclosed nothing but a sheet of falling rain and an overflowing gutter, and the gleams from the round boles in the cottage shutters were but shining bars across the thick darkness of the night. The two bright lamps of the stage coach from Inverlyon, descending the hill road from the east, glowed like the fierce eyes of some monster of the night, and disclosed something of the scene as they passed along, trees tossing and writhing in the wind, wayside burns broke loose from their bounds and foaming across the road, and for the rest,--slop, slush, and blackness. Within, the tumult out of doors gave edge to the glow and comfort of the snug peat fire on the hearth. The wind, rumbling in the rocking chimney, and occasional raindrops hissing on the embers, seemed but to call forth a ruddier light from that goodly pile of burning peat and peeled coppice oak. True the hearth was but clay, and of clay too was the floor of the apartment, but the flicker and play of the flames hid the one as effectually as the comfortable Brussels carpet concealed the other. The whitewashed cottage walls, as well as some outlying yards of carpet, were covered by bookcases whose tops touched the low ceiling, and big books piled and heaped one on the other as they best might be to save space.

This sombre background was somewhat relieved by the glints of the firelight on a few gilt picture frames containing portraits, and by a few steel engravings built curiously in among the books. Those dear old engravings, which forty years ago embellished every middle class home in Scotland,--John Knox preaching, Queen Mary at Leith after Sir William Allan, and Duncan's stirring memorials of Prince Charlie--they were good wholesome art for every day life, and likely to stir the children's hearts, as did the ballads sung round the hearths of an earlier generation, to an honest love of the brave and the beautiful, and a sturdy pride in their Scottish birth. We have higher art now-a-days, or we think so. We spend more money on it; and if not more discriminative, are at least greatly more critical; but is the moral influence of our walls on our households better now than it was then? The boys and girls of to-day will grow up less narrow. Will they be as loyal and true-hearted?

But to return to the study of the Reverend Roderick Brown, licentiate of the Free Church of Scotland. On the window-shelf were pots of hardy roses in luxuriant bloom, and in the distant corner stood a tall crimson cloth screen of many leaves, behind which were concealed the bed and toilette appurtenances of his reverence the licentiate. Beyond this a door communicated with an inner room; but here there are signs unmistakable of a lady's chamber, so we may not intrude.

Drawn up before the fire there stands a large writing-table, on which are books and much manuscript, and at one end sits the occupant, deep in the composition of one of the five or six discourses he will be expected to deliver in the course of the following week. A tall young man under thirty, well-proportioned and even athletic, but pale and thin, and rather worn as regards the face. The straight black hair which he has tossed back from his face in the throes of composition, displays a forehead pale, blue-veined, and high, but rather narrow, eyes dark and deep-set, beneath shaggy brows, in hollow and blue-rimmed sockets, as of one who has gone through much excitement and fatigue, but burning with a steady fire of enthusiasm, which seems as if it would never go out, so long as a drop of the oil of life remains in the lamp to supply it with fuel. The mouth is long and flexible, not without signs of firmness and vigor, but gentle and serene, a smile appearing to lurk in one of the corners, as awaiting its opportunity to break forth. The whole expression is pure and unworldly. An observer must have said, that, whether or not he might be wise and prudent, he did not look like a fool, and he was most assuredly good.

His sister Mary sits opposite him plying her needle, and crooning to herself some scraps of old world song, but softly, so as not to disturb the flow of the minister's thoughts. She is younger by some years than her brother, tall like him, and with all the grace in repose that comes of well-exercised and symmetrical limbs. The head is small, with a wealth of golden brown hair wound tightly round it, face oval and fair, with the complexion of a shell The eyelids are very full, drooping and long-lashed, and beneath them the eyes look forth like violets from the shade. The hands are large and firm, but white, supple, and perfectly shaped, and it is a treat and a joy to watch her as she sits at work. She seems to exhale the breath of violets, suggested perhaps by the colour of her eyes, as one follows her tranquil movements, like Shelley's hyacinth bells--

'Which rang with a music so soft and intense
That it passed for an odor within the sense.'

The varying light of the fire, shining warmly upon her, touches even the folds of her black gown into a subdued repetition of the quivering glories that flicker among her hair.

Those were the disruption times, which all have heard of, and the middle-aged among us can recall more or less vividly. Times so different from the present! When we look back on them, knowing how much there was that was narrow, rugged, and unlovely, we must still feel a regretful admiration for an atmosphere of earnestness and more heroic warmth of feeling than is now attainable to the cold-blooded clear-sightedness and electric dispassionateness of the critical spirit now prevalent, which admits good and detects shortcoming in all varieties of faith and opinion alike, and so, leaves the seeker after the better to follow the worse in pure weariness, satisfied in the end to pursue material advantage, seeing that Truth and Goodness have become abstractions, too high to be attained, or else too widely diffused to be missed, in whatever direction the wayfarer may stray.

In those days the seeker after the goodly pearl of truth, felt constrained to forsake all and followed it; and doubtless the forsaking and the quest brought a moral benefit, though it by no means follows that the form in which they sought it, the Ultramontane fetish of ecclesiastical supremacy--exemption from State interference, combined with an unlimited right to meddle in the State--was in any sense a truth at all. An earnest following out of the supposed truth cannot but be wholesome to the seeker, and to fight for an idea of any kind, must be good in materialistic times.

One is led to use the word 'Ultramontane' in connection with the Free Church 'movement,' by the curious resemblance between the claims of these ardent Presbyterians, and those of the Ultramontane section of the Catholic Church, as well as by the very similar language in which both expressed and supported them. It would seem indeed as if since 1840 a wave of turbulence had passed over the minds of all Churchmen, beginning in this Northern Kingdom and rolling Southwards. England and Ireland have since then been disturbed by unruly priests, and the long pontificate of Pius IX. has witnessed in every country a continued effort of the Spiritual Estate to assert itself against secular authority.

That the struggle in Scotland was for no absolute truth, would appear from the change of front which the body that then arose now presents. It commenced by claiming to have inherited the rights of the historical church, confirmed by act of parliament, to guide the nation and the state in questions of faith and morals. Now it places itself with the voluntary religious associations, and clamours for depriving its own successors of the endowments which its members themselves resigned because of conditions which now do not exist. When Chalmers, ten years before the Disruption, fought the battle of Establishments against Voluntaryism, not only in Scotland, but in England also, he little thought that the Church he was to found, would, in a quarter of a century, become the hottest association of voluntaries in the country! New circumstances have begotten new 'principles,' let us say, for it would not be well to impute anything like trade jealousy to holy men.

Roderick Brown was pursuing his theological studies in Edinburgh, during the years of theological excitement which preceded the catastrophe. Youth is sympathetic, and the leaders of the movement had holy names and historic memories to conjure with. It is not wonderful, therefore, that he caught the enthusiasm of the men about him, and thirsted to bear his part in contending for the truth. At each succeeding vacation he returned to his father's manse with a heightened ardour for ecclesiastical combat; and many and long were their discussions on the Church question and its new lights. To the young man's surprise, he found his arguments fall rather flat and pointless in presence of his father's calm and dispassionate statements of the case; but the elder found the wisdom and understanding gathered in sixty years' intercourse with the Church and the world equally powerless to cool down the heat and ardour of the enthusiastic youth. Therefore, as must ever be the case where affection and respect are combined with common sense, they finally agreed to differ, each forbearing to insist on his own preferences, and confident that the other sought only the right according to his lights.

The disappointment to Doctor Brown was not slight. He felt himself rapidly failing, and he had hoped to find in his son an assistant and successor in whose hands he might contentedly leave the care of his beloved flock, and pass on to an uninterrupted fulfilment the many good works he had commenced in his parish. Besides his parish, the future of his daughter may also have weighed much on the old man's mind. She had been born and bred in the manse, and was as well known to every one of the parishioners, as the minister himself. To the poor she had been the recognised messenger of mercy. Ever since her mother's death (when she was thirteen), had devolved on her with the assistance of the old housekeeper, the many and onerous duties that fall to the country minister's wife; and in fulfilling these she had won the love of rich and poor alike.

Roderick too had been bred in the manse, and was known to every living soul in the parish. He had fished the burns with the sons of the farmers and crofters, when a lad, and as he grew older shot on the moors with the lairds. Gentle and simple alike had only kind words to say of the minister's son, and to these was added sincere respect when he entered on his theological studies, and afforded such assistance to his father in his sacred duties as the laws of the Church permit to the unordained. There would have been but one voice in the parish from Patron, Heritors, and People, as to who should succeed Doctor Brown in his charge, and it was very bitter to the old man to find that for an enthusiastic scruple all his hopes were to be laid low.

In the year of the Disruption, Dr. Brown died, and in the same year his son Roderick was licensed to preach by the Free Church. On many therefore fell a double bereavement; his father was taken away, and forthwith it became necessary to gather up his household gods, the relics of his past, steeped in all the memories of childhood and of those who had made it glad, and to move forth into a new and an untried life.

General Drysdale, the patron and chief heritor of the parish, a staunch Conservative in Church and State, was greatly disappointed at the step taken by the son of his old friend, in quitting the church of his father. He would gladly have presented him to the living, and felt personally aggrieved that he had deliberately incapacitated himself from accepting it. The late minister had been his frequent guest at Inchbracken, and the intercourse between the families of the great house and the manse had been constant and cordial, and had formed a most useful bond of connection between the laird and his poorer tenants; but now, owing to the wrongheadedness of an inexperienced youth, all this must cease, and who could tell how the new incumbent would answer? The breeding of himself and his family might make their presence unacceptable at the castle, and in that case intercourse would necessarily cease, and the laird and his people, in consequence, would drift apart from want of the old link; or even should the new comer answer, it would be long before a stranger could establish ties between himself and the different orders of his flock, and longer still before he could become a bond between one order and another.

But even this did not make up the whole sum of Roderick's offences. His personal merits themselves added another count to the General's indictment against him. Beloved by rich and poor, his religious ministrations were greatly valued in his native parish, and many who might in other circumstances have stood staunch by the Kirk and the laird, were seduced into dissent by his insidious exhortations. Not only had he refused to accept the legitimate cure of souls, but he had raised the standard of rebellion within the bounds, thereby tending to subvert the wisely-appointed order of things, and contributing to the inletting of that free tide of revolutionary democracy which the General espied afar as doomed eventually to sweep away lairds and all other salutary potentates, and lead on to levelling ideas, the abomination of desolation, and the end of the world. Clearly, then, it was the duty of every well-regulated mind to discountenance such doings; and in the interest of public order, and for the sake of his misguided tenantry, General Drysdale's duty to refuse ground for the erection of a schismatic meetinghouse--a temple of discord, upon any portion of his and; or to rent a dwelling to the missionary of rebellion and error.

Roderick therefore being unable to find shelter for himself and his sister within five miles of the church and manse of Kilrundle, betook himself to the neighbouring hamlet of Glen Effick, which was beyond the territory of this well-meaning persecutor, but still hovered on the edge of Kilrundle Parish, over which he could raid at will, and hold meetings on the hillside for the faithful of the flock, who gathered in ever increasing crowds to hear him, emulous of the 'Hill Folk' of old, who, as they were often reminded, 'held not their lives dear, but went forth to serve the Lord in the wilderness.'

Almost all the cottars in Glen Effick would have been proud to receive the minister and his sister, but their means were less than their desires. The cottages were but small, and a few vacant rooms, scattered here and there throughout the village, were all that could be offered to shelter them and their effects. Hence in one cottage he had his books and made his study, and in this also they both slept. In another, across the road, they took their meals, and had bestowed such of their goods as were in use for that purpose. In a third was Mary's piano and many of her belongings, and there they would probably have spent their evenings, but that an old body, with more zeal than space at her disposal, had insisted on bestowing their tea equipage in her corner cupboard, where it was visible through the glass door, and proved her a mother in Israel. Thither they felt bound to follow it occasionally, that so Luckie Howden might have the glory of making tea for the minister.

All this was very tiresome to Mary, and sometimes she thought her patience would break down entirely. During her peaceful and happy life with her father she had imbibed all his ideas. She still clung to the Established Church as her head, and disapproving of the Disruption, she had neither zeal for the cause, nor a pleasing sense of martyrdom to mitigate the worries, discomforts, and privations of her daily life. The one only solace of her lot was her great love for her brother, from whom she had resolved never to part, and with whom she was prepared to endure even greater hardships. An uncle had pressed her strongly to make her home with him, but she could not tear herself from Roderick, and so stayed on.

CHAPTER II.

[A STORM].

The rumble of the stage coach past the window died away down the street, and silence fell on the room we have been considering. The scratching of Roderick's pen could be heard in the stillness, save when lost in the momentary roar of a gust descending the chimney, followed by the hiss of its watery burden on the coals, or when a bar of 'The Lass o' Gowrie' escaped for an instant from the suppression in which it was held that the sermon might not be disturbed.

At length there sounded the shuffling of feet and the opening and closing of a door. A tap, and the door of their own room opened; and entered the beadle, Joseph Smiley, a little ferrety-looking man with sharp restless eyes, that seemed as though they would squint in their alert impatience to look at everything at once. His dress was a rusty black coat, like the old one of an undertaker's man, and a soiled white wisp of neckcloth. He took off with both hands a limp and sodden hat, streaming with moisture, and deposited it under the table, with a sort of deprecatory bow to Mary, as who should say, 'It is not strong enough to be treated in the usual way, let us lay it down tenderly.' Recovering, he turned to the door, and with an encouraging 'Come in, boy,' introduced a tall over-grown lad of seventeen, dressed in a fisherman's oilskin suit, from which the rain trickled in copious streams.

'I wuss ye gude e'en, mem an' sir,' said Joseph 'Though it's faar frae what I wad ca' a gude e'en mysel', an' deed an' it's juist a most terrible nicht, though nae doubt them 'at sent it kens best.--Ay, Sir! It was juist the powerfu' ca' o' duty 'at garred me lay by the drap parrich an' steer frae the ingle neuk this nicht. Here's a laddie come a' the gate frae Inverlyon, e'y tap o' the coach to fesh ye back wi' him to see his granny 'ats lyin' near hand her end.'

'But Inverlyon is fen miles off, and in another parish,' the minister was here able to interrupt, a matter not always to be obtained when Joseph held forth, for he loved the continuous sound of his own voice above every other noise.

'And why did they not get Mr. Watson, the minister of Inverlyon?' put in Mary; 'I am sure Mr. Watson would have gone at once, and he is so good and so kind a man.'

'Na, na, mem! Naebody 'at kens my granny wad ventur to bring Mester Watson in ower by her!' cried the fisher lad, casting aside his bashfulness, and steadying himself on the tall limbs on which he had been swaying to and fro. 'He bed in, whan a' the gude folk cam out, an' sae she'll hae nane o' him!'

'But why should you want to take Mr. Brown all that distance to-night? and a night like this? Has your grandmother some dreadful secret on her mind? And would not a writer be the best person to get?'

'Na, mem! na! There's nothing like that! My Granny's a godly auld wife, tho' maybe she's gye fraxious whiles, an' mony's the sair paipin' she's gi'en me; gin there was ocht to confess she kens the road to the Throne better nor maist. But ye see there's a maggit gotten intil her heid, an' she says she beut to testifee afore she gangs hence.'

'Ay! weel I wat,' said Joseph, swaying his head solemnly to and fro, 'she's a holy auld wife that same Luckie Corbet! an' I'm sure, minister, it'll be a preev'ledge to ye to resaive her testimony! She's rael zealous against Erastianism an' a' the sins in high places. I'm thinkin', sir, she's gye an' like thae covenanters lang syne, 'at Mester Dowlas was tellin' 's about whan he lectur'd up by on the Hurlstane Muir, about Jenny Geddes down Edinbro' way, an' mair sic like.'

'Ay! an' I'm thinkin' it's that auld carline, Jenny Geddes, 'at's raised a' the fash! My granny gaed to hear Mester Dowlas whan he preached among the whins down by the shore, an' oh, but he was bonny! An' a graand screed o' doctrine he gae us. For twa hale hours he preached an' expundet an' never drew breath, for a the wind was skirlin', an' the renn whiles skelpin' like wild. An' I'm thinkin' my granny's gotten her death o't a'. But oh! an' he was graand on Jenny Geddes! an' hoo she was a mither in Israel, an' hoo she up wi' the creepie an' heaved it at the Erastian's heid. An' my granny was juist fairly ta'en wi't a', an' she vooed she beut to be a mither in Israel tae, an' whan she gaed hame she out wi' the auld hugger 'at she keeps the bawbees in, aneath the hearth-stane, for to buy a creepie o' her ain,--she thocht a new ane wad be best for the Lord's wark,--an' she coupet the chair whaur hung her grave claes, 'at she airs fornent the fire ilka Saturday at e'en, an' out there cam a lowe, an' scorched a hole i' the windin' sheet, an' noo puir body we'll hae to hap her in her muckle tartan plaid. An' aiblins she'll be a' the warmer'e'y moulds for that. But, however, she says the sheet was weel waur'd, for the guid cause. An' syne she took til her bed, wi' a sair host, an' sma' winder, for there was a weet dub whaur she had been sittin' amang the whins. An' noo the host's settled on her that sair, she whiles canna draw her breath. Sae she says she maun let the creepie birlin' slide, but she beut to testifee afore some godly minister or she gangs hence. An' I'm fear'd, sir, ye maun hurry, for she's rael far through.'

Joseph listened with a groan of solemn approval. 'Oh, minister, but it's a high preev'lidge! an' I'm no grudgin' the weet an' the gutters comin' ower to fesh ye, forby the drap parrich growin' cauld at hame!' 'Roderick! It is impossible for you to go. Ten miles! and such a night! And then, think of kind Mr. Watson; how hurt he will be!'

Joseph sighed, and muttered under his breath about sojourners in Meshech, but Mr. Brown took no notice, and replied to his sister,--

'The coach will pass going down at seven to-morrow morning.'

'I'm fear'd, sir, ye'll be ower late by than. She'll maybe no live or mornin.' An' she canna thole waitin', my granny.'

'But we have no gig, you must remember, and I know the inn gig is away, so it cannot be helped,' replied Mary.

'I'm thinkin' sir,' suggested Joseph, 'Patey Soutar wad be wullen' to gie us his pownie, seein' its you. It's a sore nicht for the puir beast, but than there's the gude cause, an' ye'll no be forgettin' the ruch wather e'y pay, sir. Patey's pownie's a canny baste, an' sure-fittet e'y dark. Mony's the time he's brocht Patey safe hame, an' him wi' a drappie in's heid 'at garred him see no' that strecht afore him.'

'Yes,' returned the minister, with a patient shrug; 'and he won't run away with me, that's certain.' It was manifest he would have to go, reason or no reason. To reduce the question to one of common sense would have raised too many questions hard or inconvenient to answer; and as to his own comfort, he had long learned to yield that. In a popular movement the people who are wont to be led will sometimes drive by the mere force already communicated to their inertia, and the minister, accustomed to lead, will sometimes find himself pushed or driven by the very impulse he has himself originated.

Mary's remonstrances were in vain. She could only do her best towards arming her brother against the storm, and seeing that his mackintosh and plaid were securely wrapped around him. Considerate, as usual, for every one but himself, the minister offered the young fisherman shelter for the night, to await the morning coach, but that was declined with a 'Na na, sir! Shanks' naig diz fine for the like o' me. An' surely gin ye can thole the rough nicht, I'se do weel enough.'

Up the steep hill road that runs eastward from Glen Effick and gradually gains the upland moor dividing it from the sea, the two wayfarers floundered in the darkness. The water-courses being already choked with their hurrying floods, the road became the natural vent for the superfluous deluge, and had changed into a roaring torrent, carrying down stones and gravel in its course, and rendering travel against the stream both difficult and dangerous. The pony had full opportunity to prove his character for sagacity and sure-footedness, and he vindicated it triumphantly, for he kept on his way despite of all impediments, while poor Sandie, the fisher lad, found his footing give way and himself rolled over among the rattling stones more than once, when he would pick himself up again with a 'Hech sirse! but my hirdies are sair forfuchan.'

As they won their way upwards, the darkness grew less intense, and the flooding of the road less serious; but it was not till they had reached the level of the moorland looking straight out to sea, that they were able to realize the full fury of the tempest, which threatened each moment to catch them up in its arms and dash them to the ground. The rain, however, had abated, and there was refreshment in the salt keen breath of the distant sea. An occasional rift in the clouds let through a feeble glimmer, and as they staggered along they could make out the broken horizon line of the black tumbling waters.

A flash--and the distant boom of a gun. 'I'm thinkin', sir, there's a ship out yon'er. It's a sair nicht to be on the water.'

Presently another flash--and a rocket cleft its way aloft through the darkness, while the roar of the angry ocean, as they drew near, grew louder and louder.

They now began to descend from the higher level, encountering on the downward course a repetition of the perils and difficulty which had hindered their ascent. Their attention was fully engrossed in picking their steps and left them no leisure to observe other things. At the bottom of the hill there was a considerable breadth of flooded meadow, and there a wooden bridge half submerged spanned the flooded waters of the Effick, shivering in the boiling flood, and threatening to give way beneath them as they hurried across. They now found themselves on the sea road, level and well made, and their troubles or at least the dangers of the way were at an end.

And now for the first time they could realize the horror of the raging sea, with the great billows hurling themselves against the shore, and casting their sheets of foam high in the air, and drenching the road in showers of spray. Again they see the flash of a minute gun, but its voice is drowned in the tumult of the elements. The flash now, not as before, far out at sea--the ship was coming perilously near the shore.

'I'm fear'd they'll hae sair wark to win round Inverlyon pint, noo,' said Sandie; 'they're ower far in shore!'--'The Lord pity them!' he went on, as another flash showed the vessel to be still nearing the land. 'They're driftin' fair in for the Effick Mouth! The Lord hae mercy on their souls!'

'How is the tide to-night, Sandie?' the minister enquired. 'Do you think we can cross the mouth of the bay by the sands under the rocks? It will be wet, of course, with the spray from the waves, but we are too wet ourselves to mind that, and it saves full four miles of the way.'

'Na, sir! The sea's in the nicht, an' there's five feet o' water on the sands. We maun gang round.'

As they journeyed along, they twice again saw the flash of the signal guns; the second time the ship herself became visible, very near the shore, a helpless waif apparently, tossed on the summit of a mountain surge. The bulwarks, which showed as those of a large vessel, stood out black against the murky horizon for an instant, and then sank again among the tumbling waves. Two of her masts were gone, but the third entangled in the wreck of rigging, still held out. Presently there was a crash audible above the storm. Another, and they saw the ship impaled on the jagged rocks at the mouth of the bay. The furious billows rushed up after her, wave on wave, as if refusing to be baulked of their prey, washed over her from end to end, broke down the remaining mast, and shook and ground her among the rocks. A few cries were carried shoreward, shrill above the tempest, and then went out in the night. Another crash--and the wreck parted asunder and fell back into the sea, and was whirled away among the furious breakers, which tore it plank from plank, and strewed the relics of that goodly ship for miles along the shore.

It was wearing towards morning, and the wind was perceptibly falling when these wayfarers reached their destination. A candle burning in the window seemed the only sign of life in the whole slumbering town; and even that guttered and flickered low in its socket, an emblem of the life slowly burning itself out on the adjoining bed. A stentorious breathing, coming at irregular and ever-lengthening intervals, told that Sandie's granny was already setting out on her long journey--that she had closed her eyes for ever on all the things of time, even the ministrations of religion; and that the mysteries to which those ministrations can, at the best, but darkly point, would shortly be uncovered to her immortal view.

The minister was dried and warmed and refreshed, but there was little call for his services. The watchers were too weary with their watching to give much heed to consolation; he did, however, what was possible and retired to rest.

CHAPTER III

[THE FIND].

Long ere daylight the storm had died away. The new-risen sun shone in a sky of transparent blue, with not a cirrhus rag to shew of the enswathing vapours of the night before.

The air, bracingly fresh but calm, stirred faintly among the sandhills by the shore, shaking out the bent and grasses laid limp and tangled by their drenching overnight.

When the minister set forth on his return, the sun still hung low over the eastern sea, and reddened the waves, foam-flecked and tossing in angry recollection of the lash of last night's gale. In the ebb they had shrunk far back across the sands, but again the tide had turned and was advancing. The fisher folk were not astir. No boats could be expected home that morning. Such as were away during the gale must have put in for refuge somewhere, or been swallowed by the sea; nor would any stir outside the harbour till the sea went down. Perforce they must rest; and they rested. The cottages were still shut up, and no smoke curled from the chimneys as Roderick rode over the roughly causewayed street, past the harbour, where a lugger or two swayed up and down upon the heaving tide, and down upon the sands beyond, that he might avoid the long detour of the night before.

The Effick Water spreads itself out into a small firth or bay some three or four miles round, but the mouth of this bay is encumbered by upstanding rocks and boulders, and about these a bar or beach has gathered, standing up out of the water at all times, save the highest tides, or when the sea is driven up by an easterly gale. Through this beach the Effick cuts a channel for its own escape, and that of the water in the bay at the tide's turn, but it is fordable at any time, and at low water is but an insignificant trickling over the shingly beach. The Point of Inverlyon divides Inverlyon bay and harbour from the Bay of Effick, it runs sharply out into the sea and completely conceals the one from the other; and, in those days of scanty provision for the ship-wrecked, a vessel might be driven ashore in the latter desolate bay without the people of the village being aware, especially if the catastrophe took place after dark; and their first intimation would be when in scanning the shore after a gale they came on the wreckage.

It was an hour or two after Roderick had started before the first band of prowlers set forth to search for the rejected spoils of victorious Ocean. The shore was solitary, and he was the first to come upon the tokens of the night's disaster. On passing the point, he found the shattered relics scattered on every side--boxes, barrels, planks, wreckage of every kind. By and by he came upon a stove-in boat, and a little further along the body of a drowned sailor lay upon the sand. He was but partly dressed, and the dark yellow tinge of his skin, the straight black hair, prominent features, and set of the eyes, as well as the long, strange-looking knife, tied securely to his waist, showed him to be a Lascar. So the ship probably had been an East Indiaman, had sailed in safety round the Cape, crossed the Bay of Biscay, and escaped who can tell how many perils, and all to be cast away in the end on this solitary shore, within a few leagues or hours of her destined haven.

Roderick dismounted and examined the poor fellow, but he was manifestly dead, and there was no dwelling near to which he might carry him; so he drew the body up above high-water mark, to await the searchers who were sure to arrive shortly in search of plunder. He had visitations and a meeting to fill up his day on getting home--service due, as he told himself, to the living, and therefore more important than ceremonial cares for the dead.

Hastening forward, he crossed the shingly beach at the mouth of the Effick, and reached the sands gathered about the base of the rocks, and sloping on the one side to the sea, on the other to the inner basin or firth of the little stream,--at high water a brimming lake, but now at the ebb a slimy hollow full of pools, boulders, seaweed, and mussel beds, where gulls and crows met to quarrel over the spoils of sea and land. There he came upon a sight sadder than the last, two women thrown together upon the sand, surrounded and partly covered with wreckage, as though a specially strong eddy had set in this direction, and there unburdened itself of its prey. The first he examined was clad in thin and peculiar garments of white cotton, a life-preserver was made fast about her body, and her hands clung with the inextricable grasp of death to the clothes of her companion. Her feet were bare, so was her head, her skin was a dark olive, and her dress and appearance showed her to be an Ayah or Indian maid, in attendance doubtless on some lady returning to Europe. Her long black hair was clotted and stained with blood, and closer inspection showed terrible wounds and bruises on the head, as though the waves had dashed and pounded her against the rocks before at length relinquishing their hold. Clearly there could be no hope of resuscitation there, and Roderick passed to the other.

From under pieces of plank and broken cabin furniture he was able at last to disentangle the form of a lady. She too was encased in a life-preserver, which in her case too had failed to save her life. The cruel rocks and breakers had made sure of that. Her head and face especially showed contusions and bruises of the most dreadful description, and there was a distortion of the features, as though her last thought had been one of agony, in striking contrast to the calm which had settled on the face of her companion. The arms too were stretched out in an intensity of purpose that death had been unable to paralyze, and the fingers were clenched on a bit of a chain composed of coins connected by knotted links of gold. Could it be that the parting of this chain, and the severance from what it held, was the last agonizing idea which had passed through the poor creature's mind?

As Roderick gazed, a feeble wail hard by gave a new turn to his musings. Not many steps away, but where the sand sloped inwards to the protected waters of the bay, he descried a bundle of clothing, and while he looked it seemed to move, and again the wail was heard. Taking it up he found the bundle to be a tiny infant, warmly wrapped up in many shawls and wound in a life-preserver. The poor drowned mother had probably given her last care to make the little one as safe as she could, and by a miracle she had succeeded. The lightness and smallness of the tiny bundle had secured its safety. While heavier bodies were being hurled and rolled among rocks and stones on the beach, this slight thing had been caught up on the crest of a surge and flung beyond the rocks and boulders margining the sea, into the protected waters of the inner bay, where it would float in comparative safety till, on the subsidence of the tide, it stranded on the shore.

Roderick took it up and undid the swathings, that it might freely use its limbs. At once the infant ceased its wailing; it stretched its little arms, and, looking into his face, it smiled. Who that is human, not to say humane, could resist the appeal?--the flattery of being approved by a pure fresh soul, all untarnished by the world's guile, and so lately come from heaven!

"The baby smiled, and twined its fingers in his
whisker-ends." Page 19.

Roderick was enthralled at once. 'You poor wee darling,' he said, 'we cannot leave you here alone, waiting till other help finds you; you must come with me!'

The baby smiled again, and twined its fingers in his whisker ends. Roderick wrapped it again in its shawls, remounted the pony, and proceeded on his way.

He could not but look back regretfully at the poor dead mother, whom he seemed to be separating from her child; but there was nothing he could do for her without assistance, and that he must go miles to seek, and he knew it would arrive equally soon without his intervention.

He passed a good deal more wreckage as he went, but nothing that had life, nor any more bodies of the drowned. Leaving the shore, he came in time to Effick Bridge. It had withstood the spate, and though badly shaken, was still available for crossing the stream. The waters had subsided over the flooded meadows, and after crossing these he began to ascend the hill. It was a tedious task; the soil was washed away in places, and in others stones had rolled from above, among which he had to pick his way carefully, lest a jolt should disturb his fragile burden.

The morning coach for Inverlyon reached the brow of the hill, coming down, while he was still wending upwards. It stopped there, and its passengers were required to alight, and make their way downward on foot, while the driver, with all precaution, guided his team and the empty vehicle over the encumbered track. The passengers included a parishioner or two of the minister's, who by and by encountered him on their descent, and greeted him effusively. His response, however, was absent and constrained, he was wholly disinclined to stand still in the middle of the tedious ascent, or engage in the desultory gossip so dear to his rustic friends. In truth, he was worn out. His tempestuous journey over-night, the early start without breakfast, the sad spectacle of death which he had beheld, and doubts how best to do his duty to his helpless charge, had thrown him into a melancholy and preoccupied mood, and deprived him of all power to enter into indifferent chat. He made no attempt, therefore, to rein up the 'pownie,' and that canny beast went tranquilly forward, picking his steps as seemed best among the sods and heather tufts by the side of the road.

'What's come ower the minister? He wad scarce gie us the time o' day as he gaed by, an' he glowered at a body like the far awa end o' Willie Cant's fiddle. An' what brings him awa down here at this time o' day? An' ridin' on that godless chield, Patey Soutar's pownie! I'm sair misdoubtin' but he's been after nae gude!'

'Hoot, awa! Peter Malloch, ye maunna judge sae hard. I'm jalousin' he's been awa a' nicht, an' aiblins he's meditatin' on his next discoorse. Gin he'd gotten as far as the twalthly, or even the seventhly, ye see, he wadna be for brecken aff, to haver wi' a curran fules, ower a' the clashes o' the country side.'

'Speak for yersel, Tammas! An' dinna ye be for judgin' the office-bearers o' the Lord's Kirk by yer ain silly sel'. I'm thinkin gin he'd kenned a' 'at I cud hae telt him, he'd hae frisket up his legs, an' drawn bridle fast enough. The Sustentation Fund's prosperin' bye a' expectation, an' I wad hae telled him a' about it. But noo he can juist bide till the next Deacons' Coort, whan I'll read my report. Set him up wi' his high looks! Is't no me 'ats gatherin' the siller that's to pay him wi?'

'Hoot! Peter, man, I'm thinkin' he was that carried like in's mind, he didna ken even wha it was gaed by! But I'm sayin', Peter, what was yon the minister was carryin' afore him on the saidle, 'at he took sae muckle tent on? It was sma' an' muckle happit up, an' he ne'er took his e'en aff it. Gin it hadna been him I'd hae said it was a bairn, an' he was blate ower 't.'

The subject of the discussion went on his way, unwitting of the offence he had given. 'Tammas' was scarcely wrong in surmising that he did not know who passed. Had he been questioned at the moment he would no doubt have answered correctly, but as there was no one to do so, the impression on his consciousness glanced off, causing, indeed, the mechanical salutation at the moment, but powerless to influence his thought.

Upward toils the pony, picking his steps from one soft sod to the next; the rider sunk in a brown study lets the bridle hang loosely on his neck, and the baby, rocked by the springy undulations of his gait, sleeps again, unconscious and content. The summit is gained in time, the road grows easier, and the pace mends, till a shout in front startles their drowsy senses.

'Hallo! Roddie!--halt! You're not going to pass an old friend like that!'

Roderick, wakening with a start, catches the bridle of the good-natured beast, which has already come to a stand. A middle-aged gentleman is descending a heathery knoll overhanging the road, and carries a salmon rod on his shoulder, and a boy follows with his basket, apparently well filled, and from which there peers a companionable-looking bottle neck.

'Good morning! Captain Drysdale.'

'Good morning, Roddie! Glad to see you after so long.'

'Going to try a last cast at the salmon before the fishing closes? You have every prospect of good sport. The water looked splendid at the bridge as I came over. The spate has fallen, but the water is still brown, and dotted with foam-spots. You will have a fine day's sport.'

'I hope so, lad! And I only wish you were coming with me! Od! Roddie, do you ever think of the jolly days we used to have, when young Kenneth was at home, lad! The fishing! and the days after the grouse! we expect Kenneth home to-day for three months' leave,--in fact he should have come last night. I wish you were to be with us too, old man!'

'Thanks, Captain John; but that can scarcely be. A minister should have other things to think about,--at least the Presbytery would say so, and I do not think the General would relish the crack of a dissenter's gun on any moor of his.'

'Hang the dissenters! and that weary Free Kirk that has set the people by the ears. I never could understand how they contrived to inveigle a sensible fellow like you--gentle born and bred, and your father's son, in among a crew of canting demagogues.'

'Please don't! Captain Drysdale. Nothing but a conviction that it was right could have led me to take the step, and give up so much of what I valued most. Having that conviction, I am sure even you must approve my acting up to it. My choice has cost me much, but I counted, the cost before I made it. So, as regards the church, we had better "let that flea stick to the wa'" as my beadle says. We might argue till we vexed each other, but neither would be converted to the other's views.'

'Well, Roddie! And probably your beadle says again--"They that will to Cupar, maun to Cupar;"--there's no use speaking, but it's a great pity!--And where, in the name of all that's wonderful, are you trapezing to, at this hour of the morning? And of all the steeds in the country side to carry a douse Free Kirk presbyter, if that is not Patey Soutar the drunken cadger's pony! Bonny on-goings! my lad. What would the 'Residuary' Presbytery, as you are pleased to denominate the church of your fathers say to that? Ha, ha! I doubt not the Free is both free and easy--ha! ha! And what may that be your reverence is carrying home so gingerly? My stars! I believe it is a child!'

At this point the baby disturbed first by the cessation of the pony's rocking gait, and then fairly awakened by the Captain's loud guffaw, lifted up its small voice and wept.

'Indeed, Master Roddie, yours seems to be a very free church indeed!'

'Captain Drysdale, I do think some things should not be said even in jest, which is all you mean, I know. But I do not think I have hitherto so desecrated my sacred calling as to have laid myself open to such insinuations even in jest.'

'Tush, man! Don't be so thin-skinned. One must have his joke. Besides, after all, you have no need to be much vexed, "it is such a little one," as the French girl said to her confessor.' And with a volley of 'ha, ha, ha!' Captain John bounded down the hill.

CHAPTER IV.

[DOWN BY THE BURNSIDE].

Mary Brown arose even earlier than her wont on the morning that succeeded the gale. The air was fresh and sweet with the scent of bog myrtle, fir, and early heather. The hillsides, new washed, were vividly green in their clothing of pasture coppice and feathery birch. The sombre moors were warming into crimson when they met the morning sun, and the shadows among the rocks and distant hilltops showed the whole gamut of blues and purple greys.

Mary perforce had to take a morning walk. Their breakfast-room was at some distance from the cottage in which she spent the night, and the sweet air tempted her to extend the stroll through the village to an old bridge that crossed the stream at its western extremity. There she sat down on the stone parapet to sun herself, and thaw out the chilliness which she had absorbed from the walls of her damp little cottage chamber.

How the poor seem to thrive and bloom and flourish into ripe and hearty old age in those houses with their turf and stone walls! vying in health and gaiety with the lusty house leek that ridges the roof thatch! Can it be that they are made of another clay from those who walk on planked floors, and shiver at every draught that sifts through an ill-adjusted casement? Mary was no hothouse plant: her health was good, and she had always spent much of her time out of doors, careless of weather; but the clammy dampness and closeness of the little cottage rooms oppressed her, and she now drank in the pure clear air of the hills with thirsty content.

The swiftly passing waters beneath the bridge, were a darker brown after the rain, and spotted with patches of white foam, and they sung with a low continuous movement as they slid over the rocks and broke on the piers of the arch. Down the stream on a grassy flat the village women were spreading out their little heaps of wet linen fresh wrung from the stream, to bleach in the sun. Farther on a few cattle had come down to drink; and beyond that, cottage roofs and palings closed in the view.

In the village street the grey shadows of the cottages alone broke the monotony of the deserted road, till as she looked a figure issued from the door of the inn, and slowly came towards her. The distance was too great to enable her to identify the person; yet some vague association, indefinite but altogether pleasant, was called up by the gait and set of the shoulders as he approached, and added a new chord of feeling which filled up the harmony of the peaceful scene. The breeze flitting through a neighbouring wood came laden with a spicier fragrance of resinous pine, and the hum of vagrant bees mixed with the melody of babbling waters, and all the music of all the sunny mornings she had ever known came back on her with a mysterious gladness as she watched the approaching stranger. He was coming nearer, however, and she turned her head till he would pass.

The gentleman came forward smoking an early cigar, and likewise enjoying the quiet beauty of the morning. The view looking up the glen was wilder than in other directions. About a mile above the village the woods ended, and the shoulders of the hills swept down into the ascending valley in breadths of green pasture and brown and purple moor, while the jagged outline of the more distant hills, bounded in the background a broad bank of grey which stood sharply out against the transparent horizon.

The steep ascent of the old-fashioned bridge, and its brown stone parapet, picked out in all the sunlit greens and yellows of moss and wall rue, made a bold foreground to the picture, and the sable-clad figure of Mary Brown on the summit, gave life and purpose to the whole.

The gentleman ascended the bridge. Mary's back seemed not unfamiliar to him, but it was only on casting a side-long glance in passing that a recognition became possible.

'Mary Brown!'

Mary started. Her thoughts had wandered away in a day-dream; she looked round, and there stood the stranger at her elbow, with both hands held out.

"He was coming nearer, ... she turned her
head till he would pass." Page 24.

'Ken--Mister--Captain Drysdale!' The light came suddenly into her eyes, and perhaps a shade of warmer color into her cheeks as she gave her hand.

'Why not Kenneth, as of old? Am I to say "Miss Brown?" I fear you have a bad memory for old friends!'

'Not that--but who would have expected to see you here?'

'And who could have thought to see you here,---sitting upon a bridge, in Glen Effick, at seven o'clock in the morning?'

'We live in this village now. But where have you fallen from? When we heard of you last you were at Gibraltar.'

'And so I was till the other day, when the doctors ordered me home on sick leave. But tell me. How come you to be staying in this poor little place? Some of your old charity doings I suppose. Will you not let me drive you over to the manse, my gig is getting ready now. As you may suppose, I was storm-staid here last night, and I am just setting out for home. Though, of course, I shall be only too glad to wait till you are ready to start.'

'Then you have not heard of my dear father's death, and that Roderick has been appointed to the Free Church congregation in the parish.'

'I knew about Doctor Brown, and felt deeply grieved. But I understood Roderick had succeeded him in the parish. The General always said he intended that he should.'

'General Drysdale meant to be very kind; but Roderick has joined the Free Church, so he could not accept, and I fear both the General and Lady Caroline are a good deal displeased. But you know he had to do what he thought right. Tell me, however, have you been very ill?'

'Oh! I have been broiling on that terrible rock all the summer, like the rest, and I had a pretty sharp attack of fever. But the week at sea, coming home, has set me up again. But about you and Roddie,--do you mean to say that for his church crotchets he has dragged you out of the old manse where you were born? And that you and he are living down here? Where do you live, by the way? Not in the village tavern, surely!--with its pipe-smoking and toddy-drinking--and yet I see no place else.'

'We live in the cottages. Several of the villagers each give us a room, so we are not so badly off for space, though the rooms are pretty far apart.'

'I would not have believed that your brother could have behaved so badly as to bring you down to that. And I did not think my mother would have allowed it. Were you not asked to stay at Inchbracken?'

'I fear she and General Drysdale are too much displeased with my brother for bringing the Free Church controversy into the parish, and with me for following him, even to waste another thought upon either of us. And perhaps, Captain Drysdale, it is wrong in me to stand here talking to you, when I know how deeply we have offended your family. Perhaps they might not like it.'

'And what then? Miss Brown. Am I still in pinafores at eight-and-twenty, that my mamma is to give consent before I may be allowed to speak to my very oldest friend? Why! Mary, girl, I have had you in my arms before you could walk, and I have fished you out of more than one burn, where you might very well have been drowned if I had not been near. And you know when you were eight years old you promised'--

'Pray stop! Captain Drysdale. Those are old stories, and neither you nor I are to be bound by the foolish speeches of our childhood. Dear old Kilrundle! I shall never forget our happy days there. But things have changed--I think this must be your gig.'

It was his gig, and with a very hearty shake-hands on either side, he got into it, and drove away.

'Prettier than ever,' he kept saying to himself, and the touch of the soft hands and the light in the violet eyes seemed to remain with him, and to vibrate about his heart, like the echo of a pleasant strain, till an hour later be alighted at Inchbracken.

Mary Brown strolled back to the village, her thoughts running on many things at once, the pleasant memories of the long ago and the somewhat sordid experiences of the present. Had Mrs. Sangster of Auchlippie been by, and known what was passing in her mind, she would surely have told her she was looking back to the fleshpots of Egypt, and exhorted her to take warning by the melancholy fate of Lot's wife.

Mrs. Sangster was a lady who took a particular interest in her own side of the ecclesiastical contest; and indeed it paid her to do so. She was the wife of the great man of the congregation, and seeing how mightily her consequence had prospered under the schism, she might well be zealous. From being an unpretending gentleman farmer, and the smallest heritor in the parish, her husband was now one of the few landed proprietors adhering to the Free Church, and one of those, therefore, whom she delighted to honour. Their snug home with its arable land and pastures, had now become a territorial designation attached to his name by an accented 'of,' like a German 'von,' and when he attended the General Assembly at Edinburgh he found himself sitting in committee and on platforms with the Church's solitary Marquis and the great magnates of the cause, while Madame had her seat in the Assembly among the honourable women, behind the Moderator's chair.

Fortunately for Mary, Mrs. Sangster did not appear. It was only her messenger in the person of a bare-foot herd laddie, who brought an invitation to drink tea; so Mary might let her thoughts linger in Egypt as they would. Indeed, in her case the rebuke could hardly be held to apply, seeing it was not the Free Church she had followed into the wilderness, but only the steps of her dear brother, that she might support and minister to him wherever and however he might need her help; consequently her religion manifested itself only as it had always done, in charities and good deeds, and as she had little to say on controversial subjects she was held to be 'juist a wee cauldrife'--a weakly sister after the pattern of Martha, troubled about many things and much serving, but hardly sound on the importance of the Headship, seeing she was disposed to look on all ministers as alike good, whether they had come out or stayed in.

Mary lingered long over her breakfast, but at length it was concluded, and she rose and returned to the study over the way. In the distance coming down the hill road, she now descried her brother jogging slowly down towards her.

'Eppie,' she cried, 'here comes my brother at last; will you make him some tea?'

'Hoot, mem! He's no wantin' his breakfast, I'm thinkin', or he'd be for makin' mair speed, saw ye e'er a hungry man danderin' down the road like yon? But preserve us a'! What's yon he's carryin' afore him on the bit pownie? It micht e'en be a bairn by the looks o' the bun'le, an' the tent he taks on't.' 'A' weel, sir!' she shouted as he drew near, 'Ye've had a sore traivel. Hoo's a' wi' ye, sir? An' wad ye like a dish o' tea, sir! Or a drap kale? My pat's on this twa hour, an I'm thinkin' there's a hantle mair fushion in that, nor a' yer dribblin' teapats. Tak tent, sir!' she added as he proceeded to alight before the door, 'gie us the bun'le an' ye'll licht easy. Lord sakes! sir, wha's acht the bairn? A gangin' fit's aye gettin', folk says, but wha'ar gat ye the wein?'

'Well Eppie! It's a poor little shipwrecked sailor, and I believe an orphan. I picked it up among the wreck of a ship that was lost at Effick Mouth last night, and we must care for it till we find out whom it belongs to. Though I fear its parents are among those lost in the shipwreck. Poor little soul! See how it takes to you already, Eppie!'

'The bonny lamb! an' sae it diz, an' it micht tak up wi' waur folk nor Eppie Ness. I'se tent ye, my birdie! Hoot awa! Miss Mary, what ken a young thing like you about fendin' for a bairnie? Young folk hae muckle to learn, an' yer time 'ull come, hinnie, or I'm muckle mistaen. I'll seek out the bit cradle whaur my ain bonny wee lambie lay, 'at's been wi' the Lord noo gaun on twenty year, gin ye'll haud this wee birdie, Miss Mary. An' ye can be seein' til its claes, an' we'll hae to mak meat til't.'

So the baby was carried into the house, undressed and bathed and fed, and put to sleep in Eppie's cradle. When the shawls were removed they disclosed a little girl dressed in many delicate embroideries, and around its body was entwined part of a gold chain corresponding to the links which Roderick had observed in the grasp of the drowned woman on the beach. These properties they carefully folded up and put away to assist in the future identification of the child, and Roderick wrote a letter to the Edinburgh Witness describing the waif he had rescued from the sea, in hopes it might meet the eye of some friend or relation.

CHAPTER V.

[JULIA].

When Captain John joined the family at dinner that day, it was with feelings of more than his wonted self-content. He had returned from his fishing only the hour before, and had brought with him the two finest salmon that had been caught that season. The game-keepers and retainers had admired them as in duty bound, but theirs was the admiration that pleases only faute de mieux, seeing that it can be counted on, while to-day his nephew, his old rival in field sports, was present to join in the applause.

They sat down, a party of five, the three gentlemen already described, Lady Caroline, and her kinswoman Miss Finlayson. Lady Caroline was the great lady of the neighbourhood. She was tall and dignified, with a thorough appreciation of her own importance; also she was somewhat indolent, and therefore disposed to be good-natured and condescending, whenever her superiority was quietly acquiesced in. She spent a few weeks each summer in London with her husband, but these visits were yearly becoming shorter. There were so many persons of more consequence than herself, and she found herself so much in the position of one in a crowd, that she felt as if losing her sense of personal identity, became depressed, and hurried home never to return, or would have done so had it not been for Miss Finlayson, her judicious young friend, who never once presumed to advise or direct, but who yet could influence her in opposition to her own inclination, to remain in town to the end of the season, to return again the next year, and to do any thing else the said Miss Finlayson might desire.

Miss Finlayson was a young lady of five or six-and-twenty, and of slender fortune and accommodating disposition, who could converse or keep silence, read, write, play or sing, laugh or cry in sympathy with the mood of her protectress. In person as in manner she can only be described negatively. She was quite what a young lady should be at all points, or at least, when you come to particularize, nothing that she should not be. Had Madame Contour, her London dressmaker, sent home her person and demeanour, as well as her admirably fitting draperies, she would have been very much as she was. Her figure was tall and well-proportioned, waist small, bust a little flat, easily amenable to the touch of art, arms slender but well rounded and charmingly white, hands and feet adapted to the smallest and daintiest of gloves and slippers. Her complexion was pale but clear, lips thin, mouth long, nose slightly aquiline, eyes somewhat pale, forehead too high, but with the dark hair drawn well over the temples, and long ringlets descending nearly to the waist. Altogether a pale but not unpleasing vision, and what Madame Contour would have called 'very ladylike.' She had come to Inchbracken three years before, on a cousinly visit of a fortnight; but Lady Caroline had found her so delightful and invaluable a companion that she had been induced to prolong her stay from month to month, till at length, after prolonged entreaties, she had consented to sacrifice what she called her independence, and make Inchbracken her home.

Her insight into the character of those about her was unusually distinct, and the tact with which she applied the knowledge so acquired thoroughly artistic. With the General she was all grateful deference and modest trust; hanging on his lips for any occasional oracles of wisdom that chance might issue, but very careful not to bore him with her presence or conversation unsought, and ever ready with a light for his cigar when his own matchbox was mislaid, as it generally was. With Captain John she was gay, always ready with a flippant repartee whenever he attempted to gibe, but still upon her guard. There was a twinkle in the old gentleman's eye whenever they engaged in a passage of arms, which suggested that he too had some of the insight on which she depended so much in playing the game of life. With Lady Caroline, as already said, she was self-adaptive and sympathetic, and yet to all appearance spontaneously so, and without ever sinking her own individuality, or permitting herself to be taken for granted like a dependent. Besides amusing, she contrived to relieve her of many small burdens and domestic cares, and so became altogether indispensable to her indolent kinswoman. She interfered in nothing, and yet there was no part of the household machine that did not run smoother when lubricated by her good offices. The housekeeper, the head gardener, even my lady's own woman came in time to solicit in an emergency the favourable intervention of this best natured of all young ladies, and always with the best results.

Lady Caroline found at length that she need neither think nor act, save when she felt inclined, and she declared with fervour, that Julia Finlayson was as good as a daughter of her own. That amiable person was quite content that it should be so, and indeed was most willing that Lady Caroline should have a full legal claim on her filial duty. By some deft manipulation of circumstances, the idea of her becoming a daughter-in-law had been suggested to her ladyship's mind, while the dear disinterested Julia stood immaculate from every suspicion of scheming, and, strange as it may seem, Lady Caroline was disposed to acquiesce. Her Kenneth, she said, would never make a great marriage, and if he would bring home a nobody, there was none she would more willingly take to her mother's heart than 'poor Julia.' The adjective is not exactly an enthusiastic one, but narrow circumstances had taught Miss Finlayson philosophy, and she did not look to gather grapes off thorns. If the thorns would only consent not to scratch till she had made good her hold, she knew she could pick them off at her leisure afterwards; and then for a crackling blaze under the pot! It would be 'poor thorns' then! But meanwhile, to acquire a mother-in-law, that lady's consent is by no means the essential or only step. 'First catch your hare,' or the pot will be empty, and the thorns to crackle under it will never be required. Though the damsel sit expectant and willing in her bower, what matter, if the wooer comes not? and so far Kenneth had shown no desire to approach Julia's bower in wooer's guise. Most callous of men, and most indifferent of cousins, he had passed under all the battery of charms and accomplishments, and never known. In all cousinliness he had taught her to fish, and to row on the loch. When she admitted a curiosity as to men's pursuits and a liking for tobacco smoke, he had welcomed her to the smoking-room, where she felt inclined to study Bell's Life, and also to the billiard room, where, in fact, he made her a very tolerable player, but that was all,--he felt to her only as if she had been a very little brother, and wondered what she meant by so many dainty affectations, and why she should bother to do so many things he shrewdly suspected she did not like. As to her clever little leadings, feints, and fencings colloquial, they were so much good brain-power thrown away, and might have been spoken in French or Sanscrit for any idea they conveyed to him. In fact she was altogether too sophisticated and utterly fine for this country-bred swain, and besides, she was always there.

If you had partridge every day for breakfast, partridge for dinner, and partridge again at supper, how long would you continue to relish that dainty food? And so probably in the case of a healthy young man with plenty of social opportunities, a permanent residence under the same roof does not afford the sportswoman the best opportunity to bag her game. So many weapons and devices become useless after a trial or two. What can be the efficacy of a parting glance, for instance, if the glancer has only gone behind the rose-bush at the other end of the garden? And how can one recall a last tête à tête, when the partner in it sits in an adjoining chamber, ready to resume? And how can imagination and memory ever come into play, with the fair object always in full view? Miss Finlayson was not only too sophisticated, but she was always there, and so, simple Mary Brown, though probably not so handsome according to Madam Contour's standard, and certainly less clever and accomplished, had taken possession of the young man's affections, and kept them, in spite of all the wiles of the syren.

All this, however, had come to an end two years ago when Kenneth, after long leave and quarters in the nearest garrison town, was ordered with his regiment to Gibraltar. In the meantime Mary Brown had become involved in the disgrace into which every well regulated mind in the Inchbracken circle considered that her brother had sunk. In fact she had so completely fallen out of their world that she need not be considered further, except to keep her out. Wherefore Julia made haste to welcome Kenneth's return, with all the warmth of a cousin, and to intimate as far as a well-bred damsel may, that she was capable, perhaps, of even warmer feelings.

The conversation at dinner that evening ran much on Captain John's successful angling. The appearance of his largest salmon at table gave the ladies an opportunity to join in the applause, which every male inhabitant of the house and offices had already offered.

'If you would only go out oftener, John!' said Lady Caroline. 'None of the men ever seem able to bring home anything larger than a small grilse.'

'Was it above or below the bridge you caught him? Captain Drysdale,' asked Miss Finlayson.

And so John was launched on an extended narrative of his day's spoil. Every bolt and plunge and feint and double of his fish was duly recorded, with sufficient local description to make the whole perfectly intelligible. He told his story remarkably well, and quite aroused the interest of his auditors. Too much so, perhaps, if the General's opinion had been asked; but then the General may have been hypercritical, owing to an idea he had of elevating dinner into one of the fine arts. 'You see,' he would say 'one can only dine once in twenty-four hours, that is to say if one is not to be talked about, which would be unpleasant, or to lose use of one's liver, which would be worse. And so, for myself I confess I look forward to dinner as the event of the day, and like to approach it in a proper spirit. There should be some talk of course, because we are neither beasts nor cannibals; but it should be light, gay, and cheerful, for good spirits promote digestion--yet not too engrossing--and especially--no discussion! That distracts the attention, till a man may not know whether it is a quail or a snipe he is eating. We want a cheerful tranquility at dinner, in order to appreciate rightly the dishes submitted; and give due attention to the business before us and that, I take it, is the deglutition of food.'

On the present occasion, however, the General's views were neither asked nor propounded, and John rambled pleasantly forward through the various events of his day.

'By the way, Kenneth! I met your old crony, young Brown, this morning. Poor lad! Fanaticism has changed him sadly; long-haired, lank-jawed, and saucer-eyed, that is what he has become. He might be a Covenanter, or a member of the Barebones Parliament. He appeared to be returning home from Inverlyon, where he must have been last night, for it was about eight o'clock when I met him on the road this morning, jogging along, (how he used to gallop about the countryside of old!) and mounted, of all beasts for a douce Free Kirk priest to be astride, on that poaching rascal Patey Soutar's pony!'

'Hm!' said the General,'I always said secession was just inserting the small end of the wedge! They quarrel with our vested right of patronage now, but that is only the beginning. By and by they will question our right to the grouse on our own hills, and want to repeal the game laws! If they had their way, I wonder would they leave us a roof over our heads, or a coat on our backs? That comes of your Reform Bills! and putting the government of the country in the hands of people who have nothing to lose! But I did not expect to see the son of my old friend array himself with such as these. It is very sad.'

'Did he seem cheerful, John?' asked Kenneth.

'He looked as I say, tired, thin, and hollow-eyed. But when I tried mildly to remonstrate, and show that he had made the change for the worse, he fired up briskly enough, and held forth quite at length. He might have been talking still, I daresay, but that just then, there came a squeal from a parcel he carried on his saddle bow. I pricked up my ears at that, and resolved to take my innings then. He had been discoursing on the solemnity of his avocations, which precluded shooting and fishing, so here I had a fine opening for chaff, saying that his presbytery might reasonably forbid these, seeing that it allowed other pastimes so much more engrossing, for--saving your presence, Lady Caroline--the bundle contained a baby! Poor fellow, he seemed so put-out, I really did not catch his explanation--though of course there was one, (there always is--) The confusion seemed quite out of proportion, for after all as the French girl said to her priest, "it was such a little one!" Ha, ha!!'

But no one joined in the laugh. The ladies were examining the flowers painted on their plates, and the gentlemen kept a severe silence. You surely went too far there! Captain John! Good man. He loved to make a joke, but it was not often that he achieved one. If desire had been qualification, he would certainly have been a wit; and when he thought he had achieved one, he repeated it till every one he knew had heard it. Hence the repetition of the morning's rather thread-bare jest.

Perhaps it was only to break an awkward silence that Miss Finlayson took up the word.

'Your woman Briggs tells me, Lady Caroline, that that Tirpie girl, old Tibbie's daughter, has come home again. When Briggs came over from Inverlyon last night, there was some one else in the stage-coach, all wrapped up, who sat and cried the whole way. She got out at Tibbie's cottage. This morning Briggs went over about some sewing, and there was the girl looking so thin and pale. Briggs says it was distressing to see her, she looked so weak and heart-broken. Perhaps you may remember that she was ailing and went away to some friend at a distance. Now she is home again. I fear she is not a good girl, at least not all her mother would wish her to be. But perhaps you could let her have some fine sewing, Briggs says any other kind of work would be too much for her.'

The boisterous unmannerliness of Captain John's remark had caused a sensation, but it was as nothing to the dismay which followed Miss Finlayson's perfectly quiet, evenly uttered, and perhaps charitably intended words. She seemed virtuously unconscious of all evil, but by some occult association of ideas, her statement fell into the minds of her auditors as corroborative and supplementary to what had been meant but as a little verbal horse play by the Captain.

Lady Caroline looked deeply shocked, Kenneth flushed scarlet with indignation, and as his glance met John's, the latter returned it with a twinkle of mingled amusement and admiration. He passed his napkin across his mouth to hide an uncontrollable grin, and muttered to Kenneth his neighbour--'the scandalous jade!'

William the footman appeared to quiver as if struck. His eye dilated and his jaw fell. The dish he carried would have fallen, and there would have been a catastrophe, had not the butler trodden on his toe and recalled him with a reproving glance to that sublime impassibility which alone is worthy of a footman on duty.

The General alone remained tranquil. He was eating his dinner. He heard something pass between the ladies about one of the cottagers, but his thoughts were running on other things, whether, for instance, another clove of garlic, or perhaps an olive would not give a rounder fulness to the sauce on his plate.

There was little or no conversation afterwards. Every one seemed distraught, and following out a train of new and unpleasant ideas, except Miss Finlayson, who seemed securely content, a participant with the General in his digestive tranquility. Perhaps she had fired her shot and it had sped home to its mark, or perhaps there was no mark and no intention when the winged words flew forth. We read that of old 'a certain man drew a bow at a venture.' The arrow sped, and entering the unguarded joint of a harness, it laid a warrior low. It may be that Julia's arrow was thus unwittingly shot, but Captain John did not think so.

CHAPTER VI.

[SOPHIA].

Three weeks later, Mrs. Sangster entertained friends. Dinner at Auchlippie took place earlier than at Inchbracken--finished the afternoon rather than began the evening. At its conclusion the master withdrew, to make the round of his stables and cattle sheds, and see that the stock was fitly provided and bestowed for the night. His son, Mr. Peter Sangster of Manchester and his friend Mr. Wallowby, likewise of Manchester, and now in Scotland for a short vacation, also withdrew and lighting their cigars sauntered down the avenue. Only the Rev. Mr. Dowlas was left within doors in company with Mrs. Sangster and her daughter. The latter sought her embroidery frame in a distant bay window, and soon became engrossed in counting the squares of her Berlin wool work.

The elder lady was left alone to converse with her ghostly friend, and the pair selecting the two easiest and roomiest chairs they could find, drew a long breath and settled themselves for along and confidential 'crack.' There was much to tell and to hear about the fortunes of the 'cause' throughout the several parishes of their presbytery, in which Mr. Dowlas was a guiding spirit; but at length they came round to the lady's own parish of Kilrundle, which she, as ruling lady of the ruling elder and chief adherent, considered as her own in a more especial sense than did any other of the parishioners.

'And I think,' she said, 'Mr. Dowlas, that we here in Kilrundle, have fought the good fight as well as any of you. They tell me there were not two dozen residuaries in Kilrundle Church on Sunday, though the Inchbracken family are far more particular about their servants attending ordinances now than they used to be. And Lady Caroline goes twice every Sunday herself. You know there was many and many a Sabbath day in the old time, that she never darkened the kirk door at all, but now she goes to countenance that sticket dominie that fills good old Doctor Brown's pulpit. Well! poor misguided woman, let us hope she may perhaps get some small enlightenment to her darkened mind! Though, I fear, the motive which draws her to the sanctuary, being only the support of high handed error and worldliness, is one not likely to bring a blessing. It seems doubtful to me too if we have any right to consider the churches of the Establishment as sanctuaries at all. Just hot-beds of soul-deadening Moderatism and Erastianism, where the word of God is only permitted, in so far as it can be made to square with Lord Aberdeen's Bill.'

'Well ma'am! they do say that that sinful Act of Parliament is laid on the table of the residuary presbyteries side by side with the word of God! But I would fain hope that that is an exaggeration. I hear you are having very full meetings at the Muir Foot; times of refreshing, I hope, and sincere milk of the word.'

'We've much to be thankful for. On fine days when the heather's dry, far more turn out than ever I saw in Old Kilrundle Kirk in its best days; and even when it rains, you'd be surprised to see how many sit out the discourse under their plaids and umbrellas. I hope the hearts of the persecutors may be turned before long, however, and that we may get a stanse for a church, before the rough weather sets in. There's a very suitable stanse, just opposite Inchbracken Gates, and in full view of the Old Kirk. That would suit us finely and be a standing testimony against the backslidings in high places, and I want Mr. Sangster to head a deputation and wait on the General, poor thoughtless worldling, and lay our case before him, simply but faithfully; but I cannot prevail on him to undertake the duty, for I think it is a duty. He says he cannot afford to quarrel with General Drysdale, who has always been a good neighbour, though I cannot say it myself. I have found Lady Caroline always very high with me. I fear, poor woman, she wants some grievous affliction to bring her to a due sense of her unworthiness, and that she'll get it. However, widow Forester has a small free-hold down Glen Effick, and the Deacons' Court are considering about buying a corner fronting on the high road. She wants a big price for it though, and they cannot get her to move from her terms. She says the bit of land is all she has in the world, and she must do the best she can with it.'

'Ah!' sighed the minister, 'filthy lucre!' It is strange, people will set so much store by things which perish in the using, notwithstanding the noble example of the widow in the gospel, who cast into the treasury all her living!'

'Yes, it is indeed sad to see such worldly-mindedness; and you see we've a poor congregation, and whatever money is spent on the ground, there will be just so much less to lay out on the building, and we will end with having some poor draughty little place, with narrow benches and straight backs, enough to give one the fidgets in a long service, or an attack of rheumatism. We have subscribed twenty pounds ourselves to the church building fund, and it seems very hard that so much of the money should just be going into widow Forester's pocket; I cannot think that a person like that can be in a proper frame of mind. Indeed, I called on her myself, and strove to place the matter before her in all love and faithfulness. I earnestly besought her to leave all care and anxiety for her poor perishing body in higher hands,--and, what do you think? Mr. Dowlas, she had the assurance to tell me that we had better give them a site for church, manse and school, up here at Auchlippie! The impertinent beasom! I just gave her one look, and I walked out of her house--and I will never speak to that woman again!'

There came a twinkle into the minister's eye. He was by no means devoid of the sense of humour, and perhaps that trait in himself, which led the 'unregenerate' to think they detected in him a considerable vein of pawkie selfishness, led him more keenly to enjoy his friend's unconscious display of a similar propensity. He soon, however, solemnized his features and voice with the regulation ecclesiastical sigh.

'The flesh is weak! my dear friend,' he said in time, 'and we must bear with one another's infirmities! The strong especially must bear with the weak.'

'Yes,' retorted the lady, whose meekness was generally absent on the faintest hint of reproof, 'but the weak are required to look up to the strong for guidance as well as protection; for the powers that be are ordained of God. And I consider that the like of Widow Forester was very far out of her duty to speak back to me. The Shorter Catechism is most precise about superiors, inferiors, and equals.'

'Ah yes!' said the minister, with his twinkle of eye, and more unction of voice. He was too sensible a man to embroil himself with an angry woman and a hospitable hostess. 'It is a wonderful compendium of sound and wholesome doctrine, the Shorter Catechism. I hope our young friend Mr. Brown sees that the lambs of the flock are well grounded in its hallowed teachings.'

'Oh he does, and I am very particular myself that my young women's class have all the scripture proofs to each question at their finger ends. I would like you to examine them, Mr. Dowlas, to-morrow afternoon. You see Mr. Brown is but young yet, though he is a most excellent lad, and I feel to him almost like a mother, and try to advise him as an older head sometimes can. But he's rather fractious at times to the voice of instruction. Young folk, you see, will be young folk!'

'Yes ma'am,' said Mr. Dowlas, who, whatever his faults, was always loyal to his cloth, and would permit no one but himself to say anything against a cleric in his presence, 'I look on you people of Kilrundle as most fortunate in your minister. He is one of the excellent of the earth, and has few equals in the presbytery either for piety or learning, or I think talent. If he lives he will take a high place in the church, and then his zeal and his sacrifices for the cause are something to make many an older member blush. You see, to him Erastianism showed itself in its most enticing aspect, for his father, we must all admit, was a worthy man, though moderate.'

'Ah yes!' broke in the lady; 'there's where it is! In this life he had his good things, and was thought a worthy man; but he would not join at the Disruption. The pleasures of sin for a season were too much for him, and now he is gone to his account! It's a solemn thought, Mr. Dowlas, to think where that poor old man may be now!' Here she became ejaculatory. 'Without are dogs--and moderates.'

The minister here broke in to prevent worse, 'As the tree falleth, dear lady, so shall it lie. Old Doctor Brown led a godly life, and it is not permitted to pry into the mysteries beyond the veil. He belonged to an earlier generation, and was so bound up in the work of his parish that I do not think he gave much thought to what was transpiring in the church at large. We may judge from the training he gave his son, that his heart was in the right place, and from the course his son has taken since he was brought face to face with the questions of the day, we may guess how the father would have acted if he had been similarly placed. Just see how young Roderick, though not yet ordained, has brought out the whole of his large parish with him. It is a great achievement! When do Mr. Sangster and the Session intend to moderate the call, and get him ordained and settled among you?'

'Well! to tell you the truth, Mr. Dowlas, I have been rather delaying and keeping back Mr. Sangster (so far as a wife may) from pressing that matter forward too precipitately. It seems to me that, with the young man's talents, it is like hiding gospel light under a bushel, to keep him in this poor neighbourhood. If he had only a chance now to preach in Edinburgh or Glasgow, or even Aberdeen, who knows but he might get a call to a city church? While if he is once ordained and settled here, he may be twenty years before he gets out of it. Between ourselves--you see, there has been a very considerable intimacy between him and our Sophia, for years and years back. I cannot say that anything has ever been said--I will not say that anything wants to be said--but a mother's heart, Mr. Dowlas, will ponder and be anxious. Before the Disruption, when there was every prospect of his becoming assistant and successor to his father, such an arrangement might have been feasible enough--not that it could be said to be much of a match for our daughter--but when there is true love and true religion, and a very good position in the county--for the Browns always visited with the best, and the money the uncle that died in India left them--. I fear I am a wee bit romantic, Mr. Dowlas, but I think if matters had arranged themselves in that way, and Sophia had wished, I could have given my consent. But the Disruption has changed all that! Still, with a city charge, and a nice congregation able to support a minister, like St. George's, Edinburgh, we will say,--perhaps we might have thought of it yet. But if he settled down here in Kilrundle, without either church or manse, it would be a clear tempting of Providence to entrust him with the happiness of our Sophia. I think of her that we have reared with such care, and given the most expensive education to!--potichomania, even, and the use of the globes!--to be living about among the cottars in Glen Effick. It would never do! The clay floors would bring on a galloping consumption in six month's time!'

'Mr. Guthrie, ma'am, of Edinburgh, will remedy all that before long. Have you not heard of the wonderful success that is attending his scheme? which is, to build a manse for every minister in the Church? I hear he is carrying everything before him, and I am not surprised. Such energy and such powers of persuasion could not possibly fail.'

'I hope it may be so, for the Church's sake. But as regards Mr. Brown, he would still be in but a small way to take a wife. Not that I would have you for a moment to imagine that we are looking for a proposal from him. I have great confidence in Sophia's sound Christian principles. I do not think she would ever bring herself to do anything rashly or unadvisedly--she has great prudence and sound sense. Did you observe Mr. Wallowby at dinner, and the very marked attention he paid her? I believe he is interested in her already! and no wonder, for there are few like her, either for good looks or solid sense. Mr. Wallowby is very wealthy, and perhaps Sophia might see it her duty to accept, if he were to propose. Great wealth opens such a door for extended usefulness! That would relieve my mind greatly as to Roddie Brown, poor man, and his prospects. But as I said before, Sophia has never opened her mind to me, nor, I believe, has either admirer spoken to her. Roddie would speak fast enough, I am sure, if he either saw his way to keep a wife, or got encouragement from us; but we must see our way better before doing that. As for Mr. Wallowby, he only arrived yesterday, but I think so soon as he knows his own mind, he will let us know it too.'

'It is an anxious time for a mother, when a beloved daughter's settlement comes to be decided. But here come our young friends Mr. and Miss Brown!'

In fact the Sangster dog-cart here drove past the window, and set down the young preacher and his sister at the door. Thereupon supervened considerable noise of voices in the hall, for Peter Sangster and his friend had been smoking through the bars of the lodge gate when the dog-cart came in sight, and Mr. Wallowby had been so taken with what he was pleased to call the trim clipper-like cut of Mary Brown, that he had persuaded Peter to dismiss the groom driving, and get in themselves to accompany the new comers to the house. Peter being an old acquaintance and admirer of Mary's was not averse, and when he found her seated at his side, he wished the avenue had been of greater length.

Sophia left her embroidery frame to meet Mary as she alighted, and carry her off to her chamber, while Roderick entered the presence of the Lady of Auchlippie.

Mr. Dowlas hailed the arrival with sincere satisfaction, for his hostess' postprandial confidences had been a little irksome. She had been loquacious and exciting, when, if the unvarnished truth may be told, he would fain have been silent, still, tranquil, somnolent and perhaps even asleep; for he had dined copiously. At any time it is unpleasant to hear one's sincerely cherished sentiments caricatured, or made ridiculous by being introduced in a discordant connection, but it is aggravating when the exhibition is obtruded on a mind rendered reposeful by the sense of physical repletion. The lady's jumble of genuine selfish worldliness and artificial pietism had been very far from soothing. He could not but admit in his heart, that he had detected something like the same stirring of mixed motives in himself; but then, even to himself, they had taken a more seemly guise. Here in their grosser manifestation they shocked him greatly. It seemed like looking in a distorting mirror, when the gazer cannot withdraw his eyes from the hideous image, which he still perceives to be his own, although so different and deformed.

Mr. Dowlas rose, and said he would take a short stroll in the garden before tea. Mrs. Sangster re-seated herself with Roderick, and proceeded to make herself busy with the worldly affairs and spiritual state of many members of his flock, giving much valuable advice, as of a mother in Israel to her youngest son. Her eye, however, rested not on his comely face, but peered over his shoulder to see how it sped with Sophia and Mr. Wallowby, for she was resolved that no detrimental influence should come between that wealthy man of Manchester and her daughter's charms, if perchance she might find favour in his eyes.

Alas! the rich man's eyes were fixed on Mary Brown, whose lively talk engaged both himself and Peter, while Sophia, resplendent embodiment of repose and still life, completed the group, but contributed nothing to the conversation. Mrs. Sangster grew restless as she watched, lost the thread of her discourse more than once, resumed in the wrong place, and wondering what her interlocutor would think, grew more and more confused. Had she looked in his face instead of past him, she would have been reassured. He had moved his chair a little so as to see, by turning his eye, in the same direction to which her looks were directed, and he sat regarding her with a smile of reposeful content. He probably knew nothing of what she was saying, and in truth he bestowed only so much attention as enabled him to smile or bow when a pause in the current of words seemed to call for a sign of assent. The young man's soul was steeped in tranquil satisfaction. He breathed the same air, he occupied the same room with Sophia,--the Sophia ever present in his thoughts by day and his dreams by night, and when he raised his eyes they rested on her form.

Sophia Sangster--the name is prosaic enough. Not Romeo himself could have taught the nightingales to warble it. But there are no nightingales in the North, and the name of the girl he loved best had never struck Roderick as wanting in melody. She was about the same age as his sister, but taller and larger in every way. Indeed, she was on as large a scale as a woman can well be, without disturbing the sense of fitness and harmony; but the proportion was so fine, that unless when some one was near with whom to compare her, she would have passed for the medium height. Perfectly modelled, and in the finest health, she lent to each movement a rhythmical repose, while rest was in her the suspended action we see in a marble statue, all free from the limp flaccidity of lolling sloth. Her abundant hair was coiled in numberless braids about her head, whose low forehead reminded one of ancient sculpture. So also did the straight nose, full lips, and chin. The rich currents of exuberant health lent brilliant carnation tints to a soft and delicate skin, and nourished the cool shining of the large brown eyes beneath the shadow of their curving lids and long dark lashes-eyes into which poor Roderick had gazed with reverent wonder since long ago.

He saw in this maiden of the admirable physique, and the transparent well-coloured eyes, all that was responsive to his enthusiastic and imaginative nature. Another Pygmalion, he had breathed into her clay a life derived from his own, and now, heathen-like, he worshipped and rejoiced in the work of his own hands, and basked in the light of perfections which existed only in his fanciful desires. With her fine person and her talent for silence and repose, she was like a handsome wall, on which the magic lantern of his thoughts could disport itself in the gayest hues of imagination, and, for the present, with far more comfort and delight than had the Sophia of his worship been a real person, liable to be found wanting, and falling short of expectation. Being an ideal creature altogether, it wanted but a little more make-believe in a new place to fit her exactly to each varying mood.

A young child finds greater and more lasting amusement in the rough, coarse cuts to be found in a backstreet picture book, than in the daintiest illustrations of Caldecott or Kate Greenaway; and the reason, no doubt is, that art having realized less, there is more scope for imagination--more field for the young idea to play in. So too in heathendom, the worship of Isis continued a living cult long after that of the Latin gods had become merely a state ceremonial. The blank impersonal carving of the Egyptian idol left unlimited possibilities to the devout imagination, which each worshipper could work out according to his own needs, while the fully realized conceptions of Grecian art showed more to the worshipper than perhaps he could take in, and the bodily perfection displayed recalled rather the victor in some circus contest than suggested the mysteries of the unseen.

But while we have been talking of her daughter, Mrs. Sangster and her guests have gone to tea. Tea was a meal forty years ago. The company sat round the table, which was set out with plates of bread and butter, various kinds of cake, and sundry varieties of preserves, the work of Sophia all, and works whose excellence warranted the pride she took in them; for before all else Sophia was a notable housekeeper.

After tea there was music, but it being Saturday night, Sophia refrained from performing her last-learned polka, seeing it was an elder's house and two ministers were present; not that she feared to seduce these grave gentlemen into the levity of a dance, but that it was not consonant with the Sabbath exercises of the coming morrow. Mary therefore was called on to sing for them 'Angels ever bright and fair,' and such other morsels of Handel as she could recall without her music. After that, Mr. Sangster called for his favourite Psalm tunes, in which he and Mr. Dowlas joined with immense relish, and no small volume of sound. Mary's voice was completely overborne in the din, and Mr. Wallowby added a new experience in sacred song to his not very complimentary catalogue of the transgressions and shortcomings of the Scotch as measured by the standard of Manchester.

CHAPTER VII.

[JOSEPH].

If night follows brighter day in more sunny climes, the colder skies of Scotland enjoy at least the compensation of a lengthened gloaming. The crimson glory of sunset ebbs more slowly away, and a paler daylight lingers on and on, fading by imperceptible degrees, as the blue transparent vapours of the still and warm earth rise to meet the golden blue of heaven; it is hours before the two unite to wrap the world in the purple gloom of night.

On a slope of the upland moor which divides Glen Effick from the coast was the spot where the Free Church congregation of Kilrundle held its Sunday meetings in the open air. 'The Muir Foot' sloped evenly down into the glen, not far outside the village, and close to the high road, from which, nevertheless, it was entirely screened by a thicket of birch and hazel. On the inner edge of this was a small platform for the preacher, roofed and enclosed with canvas, and hence denominated the tent. When the services were in Gaelic and the preacher indulged in much action, the arrangement might have been suggested of Punch and Judy to a frivolous stranger, but the people were too full of solemn and earnest enthusiasm to see anything amiss. A stray colt on the hillside projected against the sky, would bring to the minds of some a vision of Claverhouse and his troopers in the olden time, for that was a theme often presented to their thoughts in tract and sermon. They had almost persuaded themselves the covenanting scenes were to be played over again in their own times, and were steadfastly resolved to 'quit themselves like men' in the day of trouble.

Before the tent there was a plat of turf, through the middle of which a burn babbled over the stones; beyond, the moor swept gently upwards, and here the worshippers were wont to sit, tier above tier, like the audience in a theatre, to listen to the preaching of the word. In that gloaming the place was not altogether deserted, the tap of a hammer driving nails reverberated through the stillness. Joseph Smiley the beadle and a joiner by trade, was at work making preparation for the services of the morrow. He had driven a few posts into the sward, and on these was nailing planks to form a rough bench or two, for the eldership and the élite of the congregation. There were also two or three wooden chairs, but these he hid away in the tent to keep them safe till the Sangster family should appear, and he had an opportunity to present them.

'It's nane o' yer orra bodies 'at's to hecht their tail on thae chairs, an' me feshin' them a' the gate fra' hame, I'se warrant! I'll mak an errand up til Auchlippie come Monday, an' gin I hae na twa half crowns in my pouch, or a pair o' the maister's breeks in my oxter at the hamecomin', my name's no Joseph Smiley!' With these comfortable reflections he put on his coat, gathered up his tools, and started for home in the gathering darkness.

'Joseph Smiley!'

The words came out of the darkness under a tree, as he passed through the thicket and gained the road. Joseph recognized the voice, though he could not see the speaker.

'The deil flee awa wi' her auld banes! If that's no Tibbie Tirpie! What brings the auld witch here wi' her blathers and fleetchin'! I hae lippened til her haudin' her tongue afore folk, but here she's grippet me my lane. But we maun speak the carlin fair'--so much under his breath, then aloud--

'Hoo's a' wi' ye, Mistress Tirpie? It's lang sin we hae forgathered the gither. But I'm aye speerin' after ye; I ken ye're weel!'

It's no my bodily health 'at's ailin', Joseph Smiley, but my heart's sair in me, an' ye ken what for.'

'I'm sure, Luckie, I kenna what ye're drivin' at; gin gude will o' mine wad gar ye thrive, ye'se thrive wi' the lave! an' as for sare heart I kenna what there can be to fash ye. But there's balm in Gilead, Mistress Tirpie, take ye yer burden there. I'm but a puir door-keeper in the house of the Lord,--tho' it's better that nor dwellin' in tents o' sin,--juist a puir silly earthen vessel, but I'se testifee sae far.

'Joseph Smiley! Ye twa-faced heepocrit. Hoo daar ye tak the word o' God atween yer leein' lips like that? Are ye no feared the grund will open an' swally ye up?'

Fient a fear! Luckie, gin the earth swallied a' body 'at spak unadveesedly wi' their lips, it wad hae a sair wamefu'! There's no mony wad be left stan'in' ower grund. An' I'm misdoubtin' but ye'd no be to the fore yersel', Tibbie. But lay by yer flitin'. Hoo's a' wi' young Tib?'

'An' it sets ye weel, Joseph Smiley, to be speerin' after my puir dautie, after a' 'at's come an' gane. An' ye hae na come naar her this three month come Saubith, for a' the wite ye hae wrocht her.'

'What's the wite, mither? Is she no weel?'

'No weel!--An' ye'll be for no letting on ye ken ocht about it!'

'What wad a ken, Mistress Tirpie? She was aye a fine bit lassie, blythe and bonny as ye'd see in a' the country side, but sin' she gaed awa, naebody kenned whaur, I hae na heard tell o' her ava.'

'Lay by! Joseph Smiley; I ken a' 'at's come an' gane atween ye; she's telled me a'.'

'The saft silly tawpie!' this aside, and under his breath.

'I ken a' about yer guilefu' tongue, an' a' yer pawkie gates. An' think ye I'll haud my whisht, an' see her bear the wite her lane? Ye ken ye swore to marry her.'

'Speak laich, mither; ye dinna ken wha's hearkenin'. They hae lang lugs 'at travel after dark.'

'Ye ken it's true! Joseph Smiley. Ye took yer Bible aith, an' ye beut to keep it. Wha's fraickin' tongue but yours has played a' the mischief? She gaed awa' at yer biddin', an' the bairn's left there, an' naebody kens wha's acht it. But the matter canna bide sae, an' ye'se beut to mak' a decent woman o' her noo. An' a gude wife she'll mak ye, an' a faithfu' whan a's done.'

'Speak laich, woman! An' bide a wee. (The deil's in the wife! the way her tongue rins). Oh Mistress Tirpie! I'm bund till own it was ill my pairt to do as I did; but the best o' us wull gang astray whiles. King Dawvit himself, tho' I wadna be sae presumptious as even mysel' wi' the like o' him, gaed ance wrang amang the lasses, but he made it a' richt belive; an' sae aiblins wull I. But it taks time--we maun bide a wee.'

'An' what's to come o' Tibbie or than?'

'The deil may flee awa' wi' her for me! An' I wuss he wad,' muttered Joseph below his breath; but aloud his words were more prudent. 'She maun just juke an' let the jaw gae by, like the lave. An' after a', there's naethin' kenned till her discredit, we tuk braw gude care o' that; and there's a gude tent taen o' the bairn as ye cud tak' yersel', an' ye're its grannie. Bide a wee; it'll a' come richt. Ye see, Mistress Tirpie, I'm an office-bearer e'y kirk, an' there maun be nae clashes or clavers about me, or I'd lose my place. Gin thae lang-tongued gouks cud find but a haunel, it's nae Joseph Smiley was be lang the bederal o' Kilrundle, an' then whaur wad the siller come frae for me to keep a wife?'

'Hech! Joseph Smiley, but ye're a pawkie loon an' a slick-tongued! Ye'd fraik the tail aff auld Hornie himsel'. But I'm misdoubtin' ye. Ye'll be slippin' through our fingers yet, like an eel. But I'd be laith to lose ye yer place; an' gin ye'll swear again afore me an' cripple Cormack, an' own her for yer wife, I'se raise nae din. Least said suinest mendet. But Tibbie's real lonesome, an' aye at the greetin'. Ye maun come an' see her twa fore nichts ilka week, an' keep up her heart.'

'I'se tak my aith to yersel, Tibbie, wi' muckle pleasure, an' I'se some an' see Tib, but I'll say naething afore auld Cormack. I winder that a sensible woman like you wad fash wi' sic a doited auld gomeral, 'at can nae mair haud his tongue than he can flee. But I maun be steerin', or it's cauld parritch I'll sup this nicht. Sae here's wussin' ye weel, an' mind me kindly to Tibbie--bonny lass!--gude nicht.'

'Fushionless senseless gowk!' he muttered to himself as he turned homewards. 'An' she's gaun to wive her on me is she? We'll see, Luckie! Time wull tell! But it winna be by garrin' me own up afore auld Cormack!'

Tibbie likewise wended home. As she recalled her interview, she could not but admit to herself that excepting fair words she had taken little. At the same time she had broken ground, and her adversary had betrayed no small dread of a scandal. She, had, therefore she thought some slight hold on that slippery person, and took comfort in recollecting that a salmon ere now has been angled for and landed with a single horse hair. 'But we maun ca' canny,' she muttered to herself. 'He's a kittle chield to drive.' She began now to regret she had not used her little pull towards securing some present advantage. It is sweet to spoil the Egyptians. Besides, any tribute secured would be an admission of her power, and every such tribute and admission would add strength to the chain by which she hoped eventually to secure her victim. Wherefore, it was resolved and decided in Tibbie's council of one, that no time should be lost, but the very earliest opportunity taken to commence operations.

CHAPTER VIII.

[A FIELD PREACHING].

Sunday in summertime among the hills is not like other days of the week, and it is not like the Sundays given to less favoured scenes. It is free from the smothering sense of restraints experienced in cities, shut up as it were for the day, with their inhabitants paraded through the streets in solemn raiment returning home to depressing lunches and drowsy afternoons. It seems rather to foreshadow that bright eternal Sabbath we looked forward to in childhood, ere faith grew dim-sighted or criticism had been heard of,--that day when every act shall be spontaneously holy, and each sacred observance a delight. The glorious sunshine, the bright breezy sky streaked and dappled with shining white clouds, the crimson moors and the all-pervading scent of the heather, the hum of bees and the chirp of grasshoppers in the herbage, a silence that is musical with faint and distant sounds, burns babbling in the hollows, lambs bleating on the braes, all speak to the spirit of perfect peace and freedom and holy gladness.

The Sangster family preferred walking to church that morning. It was a long walk, but they set forth in good time and the phaeton would bring them home. It was with some misgiving lest she was yielding to the allurements of sense, that Mrs. Sangster consented to gratify this desire of the young people, but prudential considerations seemed to recommend the arrangement. Sophia could have no better opportunity for free and friendly talk with Mr. Wallowby, and Peter could walk with Mary Brown. Mary had two or three thousand pounds, and was a 'nice girl,' and should his lordship Peter, so incline, would not be an unsuitable connection. Peter's private idea was not unlike his mother's, indeed their views in secular matters were wonderfully alike, and each could count on the support of the other without the unpleasant feeling of conspiracy, which comes of putting schemes into words, when they are apt to confront one so strangely and stare one out of countenance. He was therefore the earliest in the hall and stood hatted and gloved, ready to step forward so soon as his intended companion should issue from her room.

'What brings that fool Wallowby, in such a hurry?' he thought to himself, as the latter appeared shortly after him, also equipped for the walk But the 'fool Wallowby' had his own plans. He too was minded to cross the moorland with 'that jolly Brown girl,' as he called her to himself, rather than with the other 'stick' who had so little to say for herself.

'I think we have got ready too soon,' said Peter; 'the ladies will not come down stairs for twenty minutes at least, they take so long to dress,' and he moved as if for the door.

'One expects to have to wait,' replied Wallowby, and he stood his ground.

Presently Mary appeared, descending the stairs. Wallowby secured her book as she reached the landing, and placed himself at her side; and Peter, not to be cut out, had to make a dash for her parasol on the stand, and so constitute himself a third in the party. They set forth, and when Mrs. Sangster got down stairs she beheld to her disgust Mary Brown disappearing in the shrubbery attended by both the squires.

'Bother that lassie!' she muttered, but whether it was her own daughter or the other will never be known. At that moment Sophia, in perfect tranquility, was still giving her orders in the kitchen for the family dinner.

Mr. Sangster kept his room. He often did so of a Sunday, for the time had not yet arrived when a godly divine should stigmatize taking medicine on Sunday as a form of Sabbath breaking.

Eventually Sophia was ready to start, and at the same moment the two ministers appeared. Mrs. Sangster was of course taken possession of by the elder, and there was nothing for it but to let the ineligible escort Sophia. There was consolation then in remembering how slow and safe she was. No fear of her being hurried into an entangling admission during one moorland walk, but 'Oh! if Providence had only seen fit to grant her a bright lively girl like Mary Brown!'

No misgiving oppressed the soul of Roderick. The Sabbath in any case was to him a day of holy calm, whose devout associations he had cultivated by long habit into a sacred joy. To-day these were exhausted by the surroundings. The sunshine on the hills seemed to bring him into the very presence of a loving creator, and the companion by his side was one whose image in his thoughts had long stood for the embodiment of the good and beautiful. It was no vulgar love-making that he poured forth as they walked along, but the enthusiastic utterances of a devout young heart brimming over with piety and content.

And she? She looked up in his face and softly smiled. No need for words, the light in her eye spoke more eloquently than poets had ever sung. Poor youth! That light had shone as brightly and the smile had been as sweet--less vague and more intelligent--when a little while before she stood at the kitchen table and bade the cook put ten eggs instead of twelve in the custard for dinner.

Yet she really liked Roderick Brown. He was so good and so kind. She had known him all her life, and she knew that he admired her. He did not exactly say so, in fact she did not expect that, it would have been too frivolous; but his voice grew softer when he spoke to her, his eyes glowed, and his pale face would sometimes flush. She did not understand much of what he said, but she knew she was not clever, and was content it should be so. It was 'nice' to hear him talk about heaven in his earnest eloquent way; it sounded all so real, and she felt always more sure of going there when she was with him--he was so good.

Over the moor, down a brae, across a burn and up another slope. Moorland again, past a peat hag with the new cut turf drying in the sun. Straggling groups dotted the outlook, the dwellers in many a distant shieling, all converging towards the common goal--the preaching tent. Old men and women, mothers with their children, shepherds with their dogs, lads and lasses, the latter carrying their heavy shoes and stockings in their hands, till they should come to the last burn before reaching the kirk, there, after a preliminary footbath, to put them on and appear before the congregation decently clad.

Joseph Smiley, ever on the alert, produced his chairs as the Lady of Auchlippie and her suite entered the assembly and took her place in the front with a condescending smile, and Mr. Dowlas disappeared from view behind the curtains of the tent.

Roderick not being as yet an ordained minister, was not authorized to celebrate the sacraments of the church, which necessitated the occasional intervention of some one who was, as on the present occasion, when Mr. Dowlas was to perform the rite of baptism, as might be guessed from frequent thin small wails which issued intermittingly from the neighbouring covert. Immediately in front of the tent were the elders and deacons seated on the uncomfortable benches which Joseph had constructed, and near them the older and more devout of the people sat on their folded plaids, on stools or bunches of bracken. These were the more earnest church members, denominated the 'far ben christians' by their neighbours. Behind, reclining at their ease on the elastic heather, where it sloped upward from the grassy level, were the general company, who felt diffident about including themselves with the 'professors,'--men, women, children and collie dogs, basking in the sun and fanned by breezes sweet with the heather and the wild thyme.

Mr. Wallowby had all the prejudices of a middle-class Englishman. Whatever differed from the use and wont of his native county and country was wrong, and a good many things in the North had therefore met with his disapproval; but of all the matters on which sane men could differ, the most preposterous appeared to him to be church affairs, in a country where the established religion was not entitled to be called a church at all, but only, by a supercilious adoption of the native speech, a 'Kirk,' as something altogether different; though, to be sure, all bodies of Christians not affiliated to his church were in the same position, excepting the Latin and Greek communions, which being older than his, are wont to treat it with precisely the same contemptuous disrespect. The present conventicle promised at least more interest than a schismatic service in a kirk, and Mr. Wallowby had come in a mood of bland condescension to enjoy the humours of the scene, and amuse his superior mind with Sawney at his devotions. But when he seated himself in the silent assemblage, the spirit of the scene seemed to fall on him, and he found himself strongly impressed.

The minister shortly appeared in gown and bands, and although silence overspread the crowd before, it seemed to deepen as the worshippers straightened themselves in their seats, and fixed their gaze intently on his face. Around, the swelling hills showed not a sign of life or habitation; yet in this sequestered hollow a thousand souls perhaps, were gathered together for prayer. The minister gave out a psalm, and the whole congregation presently burst forth in song. At first the voice of the precentor quavered uncertain and thin in the wide expanse of the open air, then one by one a few others tremulously joined in, till at length the ear of the people caught the familiar cadence of 'Bangor,' and the multitudinous voice rose in a mighty swell, filling up that recess in the hillside, brimming over and reverberating among the rocks around. Here and there around him he would perceive the momentary jar of a bad voice or a false ear, but these were overborne in the vast flood of sound, in which every one joined with a seeming intensity of feeling that counterbalanced mere technical imperfections, and fulfilling the purpose of all art, that of conveying emotion from soul to soul, the song of those uncultured voices impressed him as he had never been by choir and organ under the fretted roof of church or minster.

Mr. Dowlas preached from the Canticles, applying the apostrophe to the Shulamite to such as had wandered from the truth. The audience listened with silent and deep attention, but without any of the ejaculation and amens with which Mr. Wallowby's dissenting fellow-countrymen relieve and stimulate their fervour. Some aged grandmother would occasionally shake her head in concurrence with the minister's words, but that was all.

At the beginning of the sermon a slight rustling attracted Joseph Smiley's attention. He looked up and beheld Tibbie Tirpie taking her seat on the outskirts of the crowd. She was accompanied by a young woman who leant on her arm and appeared delicate and pale till she caught sight of Joseph, when her cheeks became suffused with crimson, and she bent down her head. A look of annoyance came into his sharp, squirrel-like eyes, but he passed his hand across his mouth, which appeared to act like the wet sponge over a much be-written slate, and left it blank and sober as before.

There were four babies to be baptized at the conclusion of the sermon, and during the singing of a hymn, Joseph, as master of the ceremonies, proceeded to the clump of hazel bushes and thence ushered three well pleased mothers, each with her latest born held proudly in her arms. As struts the brood hen before her chippering train, calling the universe to witness the last new life added to the mighty sum by her praiseworthy exertions, so sailed these worthy women behind the beadle, and took their places with rustle and importance in front of the congregation. The husband of each came diffidently behind, and stood in front of his proprietress, tall, awkward, and a little shame-faced before all the people, the length of leg and arm appearing sadly in its owner's way, and the hands especially difficult to dispose of. Behind the matrons came Mary Brown, carrying the little waif rescued by her brother from the sea, Roderick himself bringing up the rear. Their appearance created a sensation, and a hum of enquiry ran through the congregation, for many were as yet ignorant of the addition to the minister's family. Mary gave her own name to the little one, and Roderick presented it for baptism as the several sires presented theirs, vowing to bring it up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Mr. Dowlas concluded the service, and while the younger and the English-speaking part of the congregation rose to depart, the older members drew more closely together before the tent, and Roderick at once commenced the afternoon service in Gaelic for their behoof. Many of them having come long distances, it was best that the two services should follow each other without interval, that they might start the earlier on their return home. In reverent haste the retiring worshippers withdrew from the ground, that they might not disturb the Gaelic congregation, and in ten minutes every one of them was out of sight. Joseph's duties were now over till the breaking up of the meeting, and as he did not understand Gaelic he withdrew to a mossy bank hard by, where birch trees warded off the afternoon sun, and stretched himself at length to enjoy a little repose. He had drawn from the crown of his tall black hat a bannock and a hunch of skim-milk cheese wrapped in a turkey red cotton handkerchief which he spread out on his knees, and proceeded to refresh himself. While he was still so engaged there approached him from the thicket in his rear Tibbie Tirpie.

'I wuss ye gude day! Joseph Smiley.'

Joseph snorted with impatience, and the squirrel-like gleam came into his eyes, but he merely answered--

'Gude day to ye! Tibbie,' sweeping together the scattered fragments of his repast, and causing them all to disappear in one comprehensive gulp. Then he wiped his mouth with the red cloth, replaced it in the hat, and resumed his wonted look of solemn composure.

'A weel, Tibbie! an' it's a graund discourse we hae heard this day; an' I houp it'll do ye gude. He's a godly man, Mester Dowlas, an' he's gaen hame wi' Mistress Sangster til a verra gude denner I mak nae doubt. But you an' me has haen a feast of fat things o' his providence. Marrow an' fatness truly, tho' it's juist a when bannocks we may hae to stay the flesh withal an' aiblins just a drappie o' something to wash a' down. Will ye taste, hinnie?' Thereupon he arose and retreated some steps to where the tree stems would conceal him from any wandering eye among the congregation, and drew forth from his bosom a flat bottle, which he applied to his lips, throwing back his head the while. After a prolonged gulp he paused for breath, and passed the bottle to his friend with one hand, while with the back of the other he wiped his lips.

'Pruive all things! Eppie. Try the speerits, an' I'm thinkin' ye'll find them not that bad.'

Eppie tasted and sipped, and tasted again, very well pleased, nodded, and returned the bottle, which was forthwith emptied where the bulk of its contents had already been poured.

'Hech! but my eyes are enlichtened like Jonathan's, an' noo let's crack about the preachin'.'

'Joseph! I hae bed a wee, as ye said. What is't a' comin' til?'

'Bed sin yest're'en! No muckle bidin' there I ween! But let's lay worldly business by, this holy Sawbith day, an' think o' wir sauls!--our puir perishin' sauls!' `An' what'll come o' your saul? Joseph Smiley, an' you sinnin' wi' the high haund an' wrangin' my puir lass Tibbie. Saw na ye hoo she was e'en ower blate to forgather wi' the neighbours, an' gaed creepin' hame afore the kirk wad skell?'

'The mair fule she! There's naething kenned again her. What maks her blate?'

'It's no for you to speer! Them 'at pet the cat e'y kirn, can best fesh't out. Ye ken what's wrang, an' ye beut to mak it richt!'

'Hech! Tibbie, ye're troubled an' carefu' about mony things. But wan thing is needfu', as the Scriptur says, an' this is the Sawbith day, an' I'se speak o' naething else but that same. Think o' yer saul! Tibbie, yer sinfu' saul!'

'Speak o' yer ain sins, ye rascal! an' let mine be. Yer saul's black wi' them, an' it's time ye was mendin'.'

'Na, na, Tibbie! that wad be works! an' they're filthy rags. I'm a' for grace!'

'For grace? ye villain! Grace Grimmond belike, gin' a' folk says be true. An' what's to come o' Tibbie? But ye'se never wad wi' Grace onybody, sae lang as Tibbie's to the fore! Tak my word for't.'

'Ye tak me up wrang, neighbour, it's the kingdom o' heaven I'm after, whaur they neither marry nor are given in marriage. An' I houp ye'll win there yet! It's no o' women, puir silly earthen vessels I'm speakin' or wull speak this holy day.'

'But ye'll hae to speak o' them! Ay, an' speak plenn--or I'se doon t'ey minister an' hae ye up afore the Kirk-Session the maament the kirk skells. I'm for nae mair o' yer parryin' I'se tell ye--ye thocht ye had puir Tibbie a' by her lane, yon fore nicht, doon i' the loanin', whan ye ca'd God to witness ye took her for yer lawfu' wife, an' juist wanted it keepit quiet till the bawbees was gathered for the plennissin'. But ye didna keek ahint the dike, an' ye kenna wha was hearkenin'!'

Joseph's countenance fell, his eyes opened wider, and strove to read in the other's face whether the witness suggested was a reality or a mere ruse to overawe him. He took the red handkerchief from his hat, and mopped his brow as a partial screen for his features, and finding evasion no longer possible, concluded to mitigate his opponent's excitement, and manœuvre for time.

'Ye needna thrape that gate, Mistress Tirpie, gin Tibbie wad hae me; I kenna the lass in a' Glen Effick I'd sooner wad wi', but what ye said ey noo about the bawbees an' the plennissin' hauds true yet. I canna tak the lassie hame an' no a bed for her to lie down on, an' what for wad ye be raisin' a din an' a clash? It's a filthy fowl 'at files its ain nest. An' it's yer ain dochter the folk wad lichtly, gin ye didna haud yer tongue.

'But ye can bide wi' me, Joseph, till yer gear's gathered; I'se be blythe to hae ye.'

Na, na, Luckie! Ilka pat till its ain cleek! we maun hae our ain fire-side.'

'An' it's little fireside me an' Tibbie's like tae hae gin ye haud back muckle langer! I hae na claes eneugh to keep her warm, an' she hasna strength to tak' wark, an' hoo can she get her strength on sowans an' kirn-milk? An' that's a' I hae to gie her. Ye maun keep yer wife, Joseph, e'en gin ye dinna bide wi' her.'

'An' hoo's a man to gather the bawbees, gin he's payin' them awa faster nor they come?'

'Ye ken that, Joseph; an' I'm thinkin' it's a denty pose ye hae hidden awa in some auld hugger, an' hae na the heart to spend. We a' ken ye for a hard thrifty body 'at winna spend yer ain, gin ye can finger ither folk's.'

Ye're hard on me, Luckie, but I'se do what I can. I hae nae siller in my pouch the day but a bawbee for the plate, seein' it's Sawbith, but I'll tell ye what I wull do, speak to the minister. An' he's the gude man wi' the free haund and the saft heid. Gin ye getna a' ye need out o' him, yer tongue winna wag sae souple, as I hae fand it can this hour back.'

And here, to avoid rejoinder he ran down the slope and took his place demurely on a stool by the tent to await the conclusion of the exercises.

CHAPTER IX.

[THE BABY].

The moorland overhanging the scene of the 'exercises' was always dotted over at their conclusion, with straggling companies of the worshippers returning home. At each branching of paths they would separate and change again to break up and separate further at fresh junctions, till at length the whole assemblage had dissipated itself over the extensive tract and disappeared.

The air freshened by a breeze was so warm and bright that it tempted to linger in friendly gossip, especially those whose week spent in some remote nook among the hills brought never a stranger to their door or a scrap of news. Some of the villagers, too, chose the moor as a roundabout way home, where they would meet more acquaintances than on the hot and dusty road, and while obtaining the air and exercise, avoid the sinfulness or disrepute of taking a walk upon the Sabbath day. Those from a distance had brought refreshments, and were now seated in the neighbourhood of some clear spring discussing their simple meal of scones and cheese and hard boiled eggs.

Seated in such a group were old Angus Kilgour, crofter, and Stephen Boague, shepherd, with their respective wives and families. Boague's offspring were three tow headed children who played noisily with a couple of dogs till their father interfered and bade them 'mind it was the Sabbath-day,' and called the dogs away. The young Kilgours were older, a big lad who carried a basket for his mother, a couple of girls competing, it seemed, for the favourable notice of a youth between them, a not unwilling captive to their charms, but still uncertain to which he should surrender, and another daughter whose tardy arrival was delaying the family repast.

'What hae ye in yon creel? Mistress,' cried Kilgour to his wife. 'We can bide nae langer for Meizie, she'll be danderin' alang wi' some laad nae doubt and niver thinkin' o' hiz. Here wi' yer creel, Johnnie! an' gie's a bannack a' round. I'm rael hungry. An' syne we'll hae a pipe, Stephen Boague, you an' me, an' here comes Peter Malloch, he's a graund chield for a crack. Hech! Peter Malloch, sit down, ye'll eat a bit, an' hae ye settled yet about pettin' up the new kirk?'

'A weel I'm thinkin' we'll hae't settled braw an' sure noo. We'se get a piece off Widdie Forester's kale-yard be like, gin we can raise the siller. We'll hae to mak an effort to do that, as Mester Dowlas says, an' it'll be a kittle job, but pet a stiff shouther till a stey brae, as the folk says. We maun ca' a meetin' I'm thinkin', an' hae him to speak, he's a graund man to crack the bawbees out o' folk's pouches.'

'Ou ay!' ejaculated Stephen, 'He's a gude man, but unco worldly! He's aye cryin' about the pennies an' the sustentation fund. Nae fear o' him gaun a warfare at his ain charges!'

'An' belike ye'd cry about the pennies yersel', Stephen Boague, gin ye'd naething else to lippin til.'

'Weel, that was aye what I liket best about the auld Kirk! A' thing was proveedet, "without money an' without price," an' that's Scripter. Juist the sincere milk of the word an' naething to pay for't!'

'I'd think shame o' mysel', Stephen Boague,' broke in his wife, 'to speak like that! An' ca' ye yon the word at's preached up by at Kilrundle? A curran Erastian havers! Settin' up the law o' the land ower the word o' God, an' the will o' the Coort o' Session abune the General Assembly o' the Kirk! My certie! I'se no ca' yon the milk o' the word. It's grown sooer wi' ill keepin'! A wersh savourless gospel, for puir starved sauls, hungerin' for the truith an' gettin' naething but a clash o' cauld parritch!'

A weel! gude wife, ye maun hae yer say, but gin ye had to fin' the pennies ye'd maybe no be sae glib! an' but twa e'y pouch to buy the sneeshin'.'

'Haud yer tongue, Stephen! an' fill yer pipe,' said the hospitable Angus, 'It's no expecket that the puir man's to pay the same as the weel-aff folk, out o' their abundance.'

'An' wha's the man to say that Stephen Boague did na pay his way the best? I'd like to ken. Na, na! It's juist anither patch on the auld breeks, an' weel the gude wife kens whaur to clap it on! an' the siller's saved. But a man beut to hae his grum'le.'