"That is the way she must have looked before her trouble came upon her, whatever it may have been," thought Mrs Hume with a sigh. And then she said softly to the minister: "I doubt it is growing late, and the bairns are very weary."

"Yes, it is time to draw to a close." So he ended the discussion with a few judicious words, and then read the remaining verses of the chapter and gave out the psalm.

Sometimes, on receiving such a hint from the mother, it was his way to "omit the singing for a night." But this was John Beaton's first night among them, and the lads and their mother would, he thought, like the singing. And so he read the psalm and waited in silence for John to begin, and then Mrs Hume turned toward him.

A little withdrawn from the rest, John sat with his head upon his hand, and his eyes fixed on the face of Allison Bain. His own face was pale, with a strange look upon it, as though he had forgotten where he was, and had lost himself in a dream. Mrs Hume was startled.

"John," said she softly, putting the book into his hand.

And then, instead of the strong, full tones which were naturally to be expected when John Beaton opened his lips, his voice rose, full, but soft and clear, and instinctively the tones of Robin and his mother were modulated to his. As for the others, they did not sing at all. For John was not singing the psalm which the minister had read, nor was he even looking at the book. But softly, as a mother might sing to her child, the words came:

"Jehovah hear thee in the day When trouble He doth send, And let the name of Jacob's God Thee from all ill defend.

"Oh! let Him help send from above Out of His sanctuary, From Sion His own holy hill, Let Him give strength to thee."

Allison's eyes were open by this time. She seemed to be seeing something which no one else saw, and a look of peace was on her face, which Mrs Hume had never seen on it before. "She must have been dreaming." Then the singing went on:

"Let Him remember all thy gifts, Accept thy sacrifice, Grant thee thy heart's wish, and fulfil Thy thoughts and counsels wise."

And then John's voice rose full and clear, and so did the voices of the others, each carrying a part, in a way which made even the minister wonder:

"In thy salvation we will joy, In our God's name we will Lift up our banner, and the Lord Thy prayers all fulfil."

Then the books were closed, and the minister prayed, and without a word or a look to any one, except only sleepy Davie, Allison rose and went away. But in her heart she was repeating:

"Grant thee thy heart's wish and fulfil Thy thoughts and counsels wise. In thy salvation we will joy—"

"Maybe the Lord has minded on me, and sent me this word. I will take it for a sign."

The two friends went out into the dark, as Saunners said, "strengthened by the occasion," but it was not of Jacob, nor his blessing nor his banishment that they "discoorsed" together as they jogged along, sitting among the straw in Peter's cart. Peter was inclined to be sleepy after the long day, and had he been alone he would have committed himself to the sense and judgment of his mare Tibbie, and slept all the way home. But his friend "wasna ane o' the sleepy kind," as he said, and he had something to say.

"What ailed John Beaton the nicht, think ye? He's ready eneuch to put in his word for ordinar, but he never opened his mouth through a' the exerceese, and was awa' like a shot ere ever we were off our knees, with not a word to onybody, though he's but just hame."

"Ay, that was just it. He would be thinkin' o' his mither, puir bodie, at hame her lane."

"Ay, that micht account for his haste, and it micht weel hae keepit him at hame a'thegither, to my thinkin'. But that needna hae keepit his mouth shut since he was there. It's no' his way to hide his licht aneath a bushel as a general thing."

"It wad be a peety gin he did that. Licht is needed among us," said Peter, who admired in his friend the gift of easy speaking, which he did not possess himself.

"Oh! ay, that's what I'm sayin'. And what for had he naething to say the nicht? I doot it's nae just as it should be with him, or he wad hae been readier with his word."

"There's sic a thing as being ower-ready wi' ane's word. There's a time to keep silence an' a time to speak, according to Solomon. But word or no word I'm no' feart for John Beaton."

"Weel, I canna just say that I'm feart for him mysel'; and as ye say, he's maybe whiles ower-ready to put in his word wi' aulder folk. But gaein' here and there among a kind o' folk, he has need to be watchfu' and to use his privileges when he has the opportunity."

"We a' need to be watchful."

"Ay, do we, as ye say. But there are folk for whom ower-muckle prosperity's nae benefit."

"There's few o' us been tried wi' ower-muckle prosperity of late, I'm thinkin'. And as for John, if a' tales be true, he has had his share o' the ither thing in his day."

"Weel, I hae been hearin' that John Beaton has had a measure o' prosperity since he was here afore, and if it's good for him it will bide wi' him. He kens Him that sent it, and who has His e'e on him."

"Ay, ay; it's as ye say. But prosperity or no prosperity, I'm no' feart for John."

"Weel, I canna just say that I'm feart for him mysel'. Gin he is ane o' His ain, the Lord will keep a grip o' him, dootless. It's no' that I'm feart, but he has never taken the richt stand among us, as ye ken. And ye ken also wha says, 'Come oot from among them and be ye separate.' He ay comes to the kirk when he's here. But we've nae richt hold on him. And where he gaes, or what he does at ither places, wha kens? I hae ay fear o' folk that are 'neither cauld nor het.'"

Fortunately the friends had reached the spot where their ways parted, and Peter, being slow of speech, had not his answer ready, so Saunners went home content at having said his say, and more content still at having had the last word.

All this time John Beaton was striding about the lanes in the darkness, as much at a loss as his friend, Saunners Crombie, as to what had happened to him. He had not got the length of thinking about it yet. He was just "dazed-like," as the schoolmistress would have said— confused, perplexed, bewildered, getting only a glimpse of what might be the cause of it all, and the consequences.

If he had known—if it had come into his mind, that the sorrowful eyes which were looking at him out of the darkness—the soft, brown eyes, like Crummie's, which had met his first on the hilltop, might have power over him to make or to undo, as other eyes had wrought good or evil in the lives of other men, he would have laughed at the thought and scorned it.

He had had a long day of it. Since three in the morning he had walked the thirty miles that lay between Nethermuir and Aberdeen, to say nothing of the rumble in Peter Gilchrist's cart to the Stanin' Stanes, and the walk home again with little Marjorie in his arms. No wonder that he was a little upset, he told himself. He was tired, and it was time he was in his bed. So with a glance at the moon which was showing her face from behind a cloud—she had a queer look, he thought—he turned homeward.

He stepped lightly, and opened the door softly, lest his mother should be disturbed so late. A foolish thought of his, since he knew that "his very step had music in't" to her ears.

"Well, John?" said she, as he paused a moment at her door. And when he did not answer at once, she asked, "Is it well with you, John?"

"Surely, mother. Why should you ask?"

"And they were glad to see you at the manse?"

"Oh! yes, mother. They're ay kind, as ye ken."

"Ay, they're ay kind. And did you see—Allison Bain?"

"Allison Bain!" repeated John, dazed-like still. "Ay, I saw her—at the Stanin' Stanes, as I told you."

"Yes, you told me. And all's well with you, John?"

"Surely, mother," repeated John, a little impatiently. "What should ail me?" And then he added, "I'm tired with my long tramp, and I'll away to my bed. Good-night, mother."

He touched with his strong, young fingers the wrinkled hand that lay on the coverlid, and the touch said more to her than a kiss or a caress would have said to some mothers.

"Sleep sound!" said she.

But the charm did not work, for when daylight came he had not closed his eyes.



CHAPTER NINE.

"The honest man, howe'er so poor, Is king of men for a' that."

John Beaton's father had been John Beaton also, and so had his father before him. The first John had farmed a three-cornered nook of land, which had found a place among the grey stones scattered closely over a certain part of the high coast that looks down upon one of the narrow bays setting in from the North Sea.

He must have been a strong man, this John, for on this bit of land he lived and laboured for sixty years and more, and on it he brought up, and then sent out, to make a place for themselves, in their own, or in other land's, five strong sons and four fair daughters. And he had so brought them up that never, as long as he lived, did he, or any one else, hear aught of son or daughter to cause him to bow his good grey head before the face of man.

One son, neither the eldest nor the youngest, stayed near home. First he had broken stones on one of the great highways which they were stretching through Scotland about that time. Then he learned to cut and dress the grey granite of his native hills, and then to build it into houses, under another man's eye, and at another man's bidding. After a time he took his turn, first as overseer, and then as master-builder, and succeeded, and men began to speak of him as a rising man, and one well-to-do in the world. All this was before he had got beyond middle life.

Then he married a woman "much above him," it was said, but that was a mistake. For though Marion Sinclair came of a good stock, and had all her life lived in a home well placed and well plenished, among folk who might have thought themselves, and whom others might have thought to be John Beaton's superiors, yet no man or woman of them all had a right to look down on John Beaton. He stood firm on his own feet, in a place which his own hand had won. No step had he ever taken which he had needed to go back upon, nor had he ever had cause to cast down his eyes before the face of man because of any doubtful deed done, or false word spoken.

And Marion Sinclair, no longer in her first youth, might well go a proud and happy bride to the home of a man wise and strong, far-seeing, honest, and successful—one who loved her dearly, as a man of middle age may love, who in his youth has told himself that he had neither will nor time for such sweet folly.

With all his strong and sterling qualities he was regarded by the world in general, as, perhaps, a little hard and self-opinioned. But he was never hard to her, or to the one son who was born to them. He exacted what was his due from the rest of the world, but he was always soft and yielding to them in all things. He was proud of his success and of his good name in the countryside, and he offended some of those who came into contact with him by letting his pride in all this be too plainly seen. But he was prouder far of his wife, and his happy home, and of his young son, with whom, to his thought, no prince in all the land could compare.

And so it went well with him, till one day the end came suddenly. A broken bank, a dishonoured name, scathe and scorn to some—to him among the rest—who was, God knows, neither in deed nor in thought guilty of the sin which had brought ruin upon thousands.

He made a gallant stand for his good name and his well-earned fortune, and for his fellow-sufferers; but he was an old man by this time, and he died of it.

Mrs Beaton had never all her life been a strong woman, and had never needed to think and act for herself in trying circumstances. She had not the skill to plan nor the strength to execute, and it was too late to begin now. But she could endure, and she did so, with long patience; and though her face grew thin and white, she gave no sign of anger, or discontent, or of breaking down under her troubles, as all her little world had believed she would surely do.

Amid the din and dulness of the great town in which they first took refuge for a while, she made a home for her son, and waited patiently to see what his young strength might do for them both, and never, by word or look, made his struggle for standing room in the crowd harder for him, or his daily disappointment worse to bear.

He fought his way to standing room at last—standing room at a high desk in a dark office, at work which he had still to learn, and which, though he loathed it, he might have learned to do in time if it had not "floored him" first.

"Mother," he cried one night in despair, "let us get away from this place—anywhere, where there is room to breathe. I will work with my hands as my father did before me. There are still surely stones to break somewhere up there in the north. We'll get fresh air at least."

So, without a word of doubt or of expostulation, she made haste to get ready, while they had yet the means of going, and they went north together, where they found, indeed, fresh air, and for a time they found nothing else. But fresh air was something to rejoice in, since it brought back the colour to the lad's cheeks and lightened the heart of the mother, and they kept up one another's courage as well as might be.

A chance to earn their bread, that was all John wanted, and it came at last; but it was dry bread only for a while.

"What can you do? And what are you willing to do?" said a man who was the overseer of other men, and whom John had seen several times at the place where his work was done. John answered:

"I am willing to do anything. And I think I could break stones."

"I think I see you!" said the man with a shrug.

"I only wish I had a chance to show you. I think I might even chip awa' at cutting them, to as good purpose as some of those lads yonder."

"Here, Sandy," said the overseer. "Gie this lad your hammer, and let him try his hand, for the fun o' the thing."

The man laughed, but John Beaton was in earnest. In a minute his coat was off, and he set to work with a will. He needed a hint or two, and he got them, with a little banter thrown in. The lad stuck to his work, and could, as his friend said, "do no' that ill." He had perhaps inherited the power to do the work, since he could do it, he thought, and he asked leave to come again in the morning.

"Ye hae earned your shilling," said the overseer, when it was time to go, and he held one out to John. He hardly expected the lad to take it, but he took it gladly, and looked at it, the man thought, in a curious way.

"Is it the first shilling ye ever earned?" said he.

"The very first! May I come back to-morrow?"

"O, ay! gin ye like; but I should think that this is hardly the kind o' work ye're best fitted for."

"One must take what one can get," said John.

That was the beginning. He went again, and as hands happened to be scarce at the time, he was kept on, and his wages were raised as his skill and his strength increased. By and by he was offered permanent work on a mill that was to be built in a country place at some distance. It would take months to build, and he would be sure of work for that time; so he took his mother with him, and what household stuff they had left, and lived in a tiny room in a cottage for a while.

Not very far from the new mill was Nethermuir, a quiet place, out of the way, where they might live, they said to one another, unknown and forgotten. And here, after many thoughts about it, they resolved to make themselves a home.

At the end of the street on which stood the missionary kirk and manse, was a small house which had once been of the better sort, but which had been vacant for some time, and had fallen into disrepair. The thatch was rotten and the roof had partly fallen in, but the foundation was firm, and the walls were thick and strong. This house John leased for seven years, at a very small rent, and by his own strength, and skill, and will, with some help from his fellow-workmen, he made of it such a house as was not unworthy of being a home for his mother; and in it, while her son went here and there as his work called him, she lived content.

Terrible as the blow was which took from them husband and father and home, it might have been worse in the end had John Beaton died a rich man. So said some of the lookers-on, who long before that time had declared that his son, having all his life long got more of his own will than was good for him, was in a fair way to become a "spoiled laddie" at last.

Some said it who envied the lad, and others said it who loved him well, and it is possible that they were not far wrong in the belief. John the younger was a "bonny lad," tall and strong, sweet-tempered and light-hearted, a favourite with all. But he was open to temptation like the rest of his kind, even more so than many, and not all of those who gathered round him in his prosperous days were of the sort likely to influence him for good. He went through the first years at the university without getting much good from it, it was said. He had disappointed his father greatly, as well as his teachers; but though he had been foolish and idle, he had not disgraced himself by anything beyond idleness and folly. Whether he would have gone through the course without doing worse, might be questioned.

The chance was not given him. His father died, and instead of inheriting what would have been called wealth among those who were his friends, he found himself penniless, having his own bread, and possibly his mother's also, to win. And seeing there was good stuff in the lad, his mother's helplessness and desolation might be the saving of him, said one of his mother's humble friends.

They had friends—yes, many of them—but some of them had suffered loss as they themselves had suffered, and had no power to help except with kind words. Others who had the power to help had not the will, or only the will to help in their own way. Others added to their offers advice that could not be followed, or they hurt the sore hearts of the lad and his mother with words which implied censure on the dead, because he had not foreseen and provided against the coming of evil days. And so, seeing no help among "kenned folk," the two went out, "not knowing whither they went."

They had gone away bravely enough, and even through the dark days which came first, it cannot be said that they quite lost heart or hope. As long as his mother was content, John told himself, he did not care what fell to him to do or to endure; and as long as John was well, and within reach of hand or voice, it was well with the mother. It was not till the first months were over that John's heart seemed to fail. When the mill was finished, instead of going with the men to other work in another direction, he remained in Nethermuir, hoping to find something to do in the neighbourhood, so that he might be near his mother. He found enough to do for a time in making the little house a comfortable and even beautiful home for her. Then he prepared the neglected bit of ground around it for a garden and took pleasure in doing it. It was work which he liked, and which he knew how to do, but it put nothing into the family purse, which was getting low, and something must be done to replenish it.

He worked for a few weeks in harvest in the narrow fields of Peter Gilchrist, and to good purpose, though the work was new to him; and he made friends with Peter himself, which was something. But the harvest wore over and winter was coming on, and then he wrote to Jamie Dunn, his first friend, saying he was now ready and willing to go wherever he should be sent.

But in his heart he knew that for the only work which was left to him to do, he was neither ready nor willing, nor for the kind of life which he saw stretching a long, weary way before him.

He could do as his father had done before him, he told his mother cheerfully, and who had done better than he? But to himself he owned that this was to be doubted. He could never do as his father had done; he was not the man his father had been, or he could never have played the fool, wasting his time and losing his opportunities, as he had done. He had been spoiled with softness, with idle days, and the pleasant things of life, which he could not forget, and which, like a weakling, he was in his secret heart longing for still. And even his father had not won what men called success, and a firm footing among his fellows, till the best part of his life was over.

But his father had been content through all his days as they came, and with his day's work and his day's wages. And his father had known his own strength and could bide his time. As for his son, John told himself that he was neither strong nor wise. He knew, or he feared at this time, that only the thought of his mother and her need of him kept him from despair.

He called it despair, poor lad, not knowing what he said. The depths of despair came to him with the thought of enlisting as a common soldier, to go away and live his life with as little exercise of his own will as the musket he carried, and to death and a nameless grave. Or it meant to sail away before the mast, a slave to some tyrant who held the power of life and death, because he held the power of the lash. And it might have come to one or other of these possibilities with him, if it had not been for his mother and her need of him.

For the dead level of the life which he saw stretching out before him seemed even worse to him than that—the life of ceaseless, ill-remunerated labour, the companionship of men grown dull through a changeless routine of toilsome days, or debased through ignorance or self-indulgence, a life and a companionship with which he might at last grow content, being no stronger or wiser than other men.

These were dark days for the young man. At last he took his mother's gently spoken words of counsel to heart, and opened the box in which she had secretly packed his college-books, and where they had lain hidden all this time. But the sight of them, and the associations they called up, made him heartsick and ashamed, and it was only by the exercise of strong self-restraint that he made himself pretend to take some interest in them for his mother's sake. After this he fell into the way of taking long walks in all directions, and did a turn of work here and there as he could get it, and generally came home hungry, and tired, and ready for his bed, so that no reading could be expected of him.

But the days were growing short, and the dark hours many and long, and the mother's heart "grew wae" for her son many a time. By and by something happened.

It was a good thing for the minister's Davie that John Beaton was within sound of the voices of the lad's terrified companions the day that he fell into "Burney's Pot," and it was a good thing also for John. The little lad was nearly gone when he was pulled out of the water, and having no knowledge of his home or name, since his young companions had taken to their heels as soon as they saw Davie safe, John took him home to his mother, and together they did what could be done for his help.

This was the beginning. Davie was allowed to fall asleep in Mrs Beaton's bed, and in the gloaming John carried him home wrapped in a blanket, and then he saw the minister and his wife and Marjorie. It was the beginning for John of more than can well be told.

His manner of life from that time was changed. Not that he went often to the manse at first, though the door was always open to him, and a welcome awaiting him. But the life he saw there, the words he heard, and the spirit that showed in all that was done, or said, or planned, in great things and in small, came like a new revelation to him; and the more he saw and thought of it all, the less he thought about his own loss and his changed life and his unhopeful prospects.

He had more days of leisure that winter than well pleased him, but not one of them was spent in wandering aimlessly about the dreary hills. He had company, most days, wherever he went. If he had not Robin or Jack, there was always Davie, who seemed to think he had a special claim upon him. Davie had not yet been promoted to a seat in the parish school, but was beginning to think himself, at eight, too big a boy for Mistress Jamieson's rule, since he could say the Catechism from end to end, proofs and petitions and all. With Davie trotting along at his side, John had little chance for brooding. Besides, he had taken to his books again, and meant to employ his leisure and make up for lost time if such a thing might be. It was not likely that he would have much use for Latin or Logic in the life that lay before him, he told himself; but he might as well make the most of the idle days, and keep his mind from stagnation.

And he had less of leisure after a while. It was about this time that he began to try his hand at the making of "headstones" for the kirkyard. Chance put such work in his way, and being ready of hand and quick of eye, and having long patience and much need of a job, he set to work with a will. He did not succeed in pleasing himself, but he pleased his employer, which answered the purpose; and he did more at the work, at odd times, when he could get nothing else to do.

The life which he saw lived in the manse did something for him, and the Word as it was held forth in the little kirk did more; but that came long afterward. The minister was the busiest of men, either among his books or among his people, or in his garden or his land; but he was never too busy for a cheery word to John, or for help or counsel to any one who needed them. And the same might be said of the minister's wife. She was active and had enough to do at home, but she was glad to help those who needed help anywhere. She had good sense and good judgment, and was ready with sweet words or sharp words, as the case presented seemed to demand. She was firm where firmness seemed to be required, but had long patience and unfailing gentleness in her dealings with the weak and even with the wilful; and as the days passed, John took heed of her words and ways with ever-growing interest.

She had not an easy life, but she had usually firm health and she had a cheerful nature, and the peace of God was in her heart. So she "stood in her lot" strong and unafraid, whatever might befall.

She was a loving mother to her sons, but her rule was firm as well as gentle. There was no need in that house to appeal to the father's stronger will where obedience was not promptly given. It was a serious matter indeed that needed an appeal to their father. To the lads their mother's word was law. Not that the law was not forgotten sometimes, or even wilfully broken in times of strong temptation. But confession of sins, though not always prompt, was, in course of time, quite certain. She had their confidence entirely. It was an unhappy boy, indeed, who carried about, for even a few days, a sinful or sorrowful secret hidden from his mother.

In among these lads John came as another brother, and Mrs Hume was kind and gracious in her intercourse with him. She was faithful also, and told him of faults and failings which his own mother never acknowledged, and helped him to correct them, as, even had she seen them, his own mother might have hesitated to do. It was, indeed, a good day for John when the door of the manse was opened to him.

And then there was Marjorie, poor little soul, who was nearly nine, and who looked like six, a fair, weak little creature, who could only walk a step or two at a time, and who was yet as eager to know, and to do, and to be in the midst of things as the strongest of them all. "Another brother," she called their new friend, who had more sense and patience than Robin or Jack, and who could carry her so easily and strongly without being tired. It was a happy day for Marjorie when John came in to see her. It was better than a new book, she thought, to hear him talk.

"And a new book is so soon done with," said Marjorie, who did not see very many new books, and who had usually learned them by heart before she had had them many days. But John had always something to tell her. He told her about new places and new people, and he had seen the sea, and had sailed on it. He had been in London and had seen the king and the queen, "like the travelled cat," as Robin said. And there was no end to the stories he could tell her that she had never heard before. She was never tired of listening to him, and hailed his coming with delight, and long before he had come to feel quite at ease with the mother, John had learned to love dearly the eager, gentle little creature, from whose eyes the joy at his coming chased the look of pain and weariness.

As for the friendship which grew more slowly, but quite as surely, between John and the elder boys of the manse, it cannot be said whether he or they benefited most by it. To Robin and Jack, John seemed a far wiser and stronger man than he knew himself to be—a man of wider experience, higher aims, and firmer purpose. And their belief in him, their silent yet evident admiration of all his words and ways, their perfect trust in his discretion and sympathy, did as much for him as for them, and helped him to strive for the attainment of all the good gifts which they believed him to possess.

He helped them in many ways. He helped them at their work and kept them back from taking part in many a "ploy," which, though only foolish, and not so very wrong, were still both foolish and wrong to them, because in engaging in them they would waste their time, and—being the minister's sons—set a bad example to the rest of the lads, and, worst of all, vex their father and their mother. And they could bear to be restrained by him, because, in the carrying out of all harmless fun, they profited by many a hint from John, and sometimes even by his help. But they all agreed that the less said about this matter among the neighbours the better for all concerned.

John had been in Nethermuir several months before he saw the inside of the little kirk. He knew little about the folk who worshipped there, except that they were said to be "a queer kin' o' folk, who set themselves up as better than their neebors, and wiser than a' their teachers." Differing, as they seemed to do, both in preaching and in practice, from the kirk of the nation, they were doubtless wrong, thought John. But whatever they were, they were folk in whom he took no interest, and with whom he had nothing at all to do. So when he had gone to the kirk at all, he had gone to the parish kirk to please his mother, who was not always able to go so far herself. Sometimes he had permitted himself to go even farther than the kirk, coming back when the service was half over to sit for a while on a fallen headstone, as Allison did afterward when her turn came.

On fine days his mother went with him, and then it was different. He sat with the rest and listened to what the minister had to say, with no inclination to find fault. Indeed there was no fault to be found from John's point of view or from the minister's. It cannot be averred that in what was said there was either "food or physic for the soul of man." But not knowing himself to be in especial need of either the one or the other, John missed nothing to which he had been accustomed all his days to listen in the kirk.

"We had a good discourse," his mother would say, as they went slowly home together, and John always assented. "Yes, mother, we had a good discourse."

So John went most days to please his mother. But there came a day of rain, and sleet, and bitter east wind, when, if her conscience would have permitted, Mrs Beaton would have refrained from making her usual suggestion about the propriety of honouring the Sabbath-day by going to the kirk. As for John, he was no more afraid of the rain, and the sleet, and the east wind than he was afraid of the summer sunshine; but when he proposed to go to hear Mr Hume, the sound of the sleet and the rain on the windows silenced any objection she might have had to his going "once in a way, the day being wild and wintry," and she even added a hope that he might "hear something to do him good."

This was at the very beginning of his acquaintance with the minister and his family. If he had waited for a while, till the charm of their friendliness and genuine kindness had wrought, till the time came when he had seen with his own eyes, and heard with his own ears that which proved his new friend to be different in some ways from the most of those to whom he had all his life looked up as leaders and teachers, yet not unworthy also to teach and to lead, John might have been better prepared to get the good which his mother hoped for him. And yet he might not. At any rate, it was to that dark day in the little kirk that, in the years which came afterward, he looked back as the beginning of "good" to him.

"A dismal hole," he called it, as he went in among the first and sat down in a corner. It was scarcely barer or more dingy and dim than the rest of the kirks in country places were in those days; but it was very small, and it had windows only on one side. On that dark day it was dismal, and it could not have been beautiful at any time. The chill of the sleet and the wild east wind had got into it, and John wondered at the folk who should choose, of their own free will, to pass two hours, or even three, in the damp and gloom and dreariness. "There will be few here to-day," thought he.

But they came one after another, and by twos and threes, and there was the stamping of wet shoes, and the shaking out of wet plaids, and many a sneeze, and many a "hoast" (cough). And still more came, some of them with familiar faces from the neighbouring streets, and some from beyond the hills, miles away. Peter Gilchrist was there, of course, and Saunners Crombie, and an old woman or two, who would better have kept the house, John thought, on such a day. And by and by the kirk was well filled. John would have liked to see the minister's seat. It was close to the door, and so was the one in which he sat; but a little porch, which protected the door, came between. He heard the clatter of the boys' feet as they came in, and once he heard their mother's "quietly, boys," gently but firmly uttered, and by that time the minister was in the pulpit, and the service began.

It was just to be like other services in other kirks, John thought at first. There was a psalm read, and a remark was made on a verse here and there, and then they sang. He had a certain enjoyment in the singing, because he had never heard anything like it before. The sleet or something else had kept the usual precentor at home, and Saunners Crombie filled the office for the time. He had the singing mostly to himself for the first verse, because no one knew what tune he meant to sing, and some of those who joined, trying to do their best, "went out of it a'thegither," as Saunners said angrily afterward. The second verse went better. The minister's boys took it up and their mother, and were joined by "the discordant crowd," as John called them while he listened; and though he might have done good service on the occasion, he never opened his lips.

Then came the "long prayer," in which John certainly did not join. But he listened, and after a little he wondered. It was "like all the prayers," he said to himself at first—confession, petition, thanksgiving. Yet it was a little different. The words came with a certain power. It was as if he who prayed saw the face of Him whom he addressed, a living Person whom he knew and had proved, and not an awful unknown Being hidden in light unapproachable, or in dimness or darkness. He was speaking to One whose promise had been given, and many times made good unto those who trusted Him. And to him who was asking, evidently the promise was sure, the Word unchangeable.

"All good things! Why, a man who believed that need be afraid of nothing," said John to himself.

Then a chapter from the New Testament was read. It was the one in Corinthians about charity, from every verse of which a sermon might be preached, the minister said; but he only lingered a minute on the verse which speaks of the charity "which thinketh no evil," and by the little stir that went through the congregation, John thought that perhaps a word on that subject might be specially needed.

Then came the sermon, and John listened intently. But he did not like it. He told his mother, when he went home, that he had heard the folk saying about the kirk door that they had had a grand sermon. "And they should ken," said John with a shrug.

"The text? Oh! it was a fine text: 'Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God unto salvation.' It was like no sermon I ever heard before," said John, "and I am not sure that I ever wish to hear another of the same kind."

John did not go to the manse that week, and he had no intention of going to the kirk on Sunday, but when Sunday came he changed his mind and was there with the rest. He sat in his corner and listened, and wondered, and grew angry by turns.

"Is not my Word like as a fire? saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?"

That was the text and that was the way in which the Word came to John Beaton, and he would have none of it—for a time.

To his mother, who went to the kirk with him after a while, it came in another way. It was not new to her. It was just what she had been hearing all her life, she said, only the minister made it clearer and plainer than ever it had been made to her before. Or it might be that her heart was more open to receive the Word than it used to be in former days, when both heart and hands were full of the good things of this life, which, she said, had contented her to the forgetting of the Giver's greater gifts.

She had never been a woman of many words, and even to her son she rarely spoke of these things. But as time went on she grew sweeter and gentler day by day, he thought. He left her with less anxiety when he went away, and he found her always when he came home peaceful and content. For the peace of God was with her.



CHAPTER TEN.

"O! love will venture in where it daurna weel be seen; O! love will venture in where wisdom ance has been."

Saunners Crombie had not been mistaken when he told his friend that "a measure of prosperity" had, of late, come to John Beaton. A debt long due to his father had been paid to him, and the story which the debtor had to tell was worth many times the money to John and his mother.

It was not the first good deed done in secret by the father which had since his death come to the knowledge of the son. Other stories had been told by friends and neighbours, and even by comparative strangers, of kind words spoken by him, and generous help given, which had healed sick hearts, and opened the way out of depths of despair to some who were sinners, and to some who were only sufferers. And now this man came to tell how he also had been helped—saved, he called it, and he told it with tears in his eyes, though more than a generation had passed since then.

David Cunningham was the son of the minister of the parish where the first of the three Johns had lived, and where the second John and his brothers and sisters had been born. He had fallen into foolish ways first, and then into evil ways, and through some act of inexcusable folly, or worse, had, it seemed, shut upon himself the last door of hope for a life of well-doing. An offer of a clerkship in an East Indian house had been given him by a friend of his family, and a sum sufficient for his outfit had been advanced. This sum he had lost, or rather it had been claimed for the payment of a debt which he could not have confessed to his father without breaking the old man's heart. It would have been utter ruin to the lad if John Beaton had not come to the rescue.

This was before John was a rich man, or even had a prospect of riches, but he gave the money willingly, even gladly, to save the son of his father's friend.

"When you come home a rich man you can pay me, if I be living; and if I be dead, you can pay it to them who may come after me," said he. And now David Cunningham had come home to pay his debt.

"Every month from the very first," he told John, "I put something away toward it, and a good many months passed before the full sum was saved. Then, when I wrote to your father that it was ready for him, he told me to invest it for him, and let it grow till I should come home again. That was five-and-thirty years ago, and it has grown well since then. It is yours now, and much pleasure and profit may you get out of it."

"There is no fear of that," said John.

"And I have a better wish than that for you," said Mr Cunningham gravely. "May you have the chance and the heart to help to save some poor fellow as your father saved me."

"Thank you for the good wish. I will try to follow in my father's steps," said John. "But the money is my mother's, and the pleasure of doing good with it will be hers."

"And if all I have heard of her be true, her pleasure will be to give pleasure to her son," said his friend.

"Yes; that is true, too," said John.

But as the money was well invested, it was to be allowed to remain where it was for the present. The income from it would secure to his mother a home more like that to which she was born than the one in which she had lived since her husband's death, "though, God bless her, she has never murmured," said her son.

And John was triumphing in his heart. He saw, or he thought he saw, his way clear to the carrying out of several plans, which he had been dreaming about, but which he had hardly suffered himself to regard as possible till now. He had been in Aberdeen all the winter, working both with his head and his hands. He had fallen in with an old schoolfellow, who was in the second year of his university course, a cripple lad, who was altogether unfit for the kind of life enjoyed most by lads of his age when set free from their lectures and their hours of study. He was living a lonely life till John found him, and his visits to the lad's rooms were good for them both.

John had been reading steadily during the winter leisure of the years he had been in Nethermuir, and now he enjoyed greatly going over the ground with his friend, and gradually the knowledge came to him that he had grown in mind as well as in stature since the days when he had trifled with, or utterly neglected, the opportunities which had been given him. He could do now with ease and pleasure that which in those idle days had been a task and a burden. Gradually that which had been a vague longing, a half-acknowledged desire, became a settled purpose.

It was to consult with his mother as to the carrying out of this purpose that he had come to Nethermuir at this time, and he had not meant to sleep until all his plans were laid before her. But when three days had passed—on the fourth he was to return to Aberdeen—not a word with regard to them had been uttered. John had not got out of the maze into which he had fallen when he first caught sight of Allison Bain, standing with loosened hair and smiling eyes, watching the mad play of the bairns, with little Marjorie in her arms.

He had not forgotten his plans or his purposes. There were moments when he would have been willing to forget them, when he even tried to forget them and to smile at his thought of them, as he had sometimes smiled at a foolish dream in the light of the morning. He was not quite sure that he needed to speak to his mother at all. He might at least wait a while. Why should he trouble her by speaking about changes which might never come?

And yet, had he not told his mother all his plans and even his thoughts all his life? Her word would make clear what course he should take. Her "single eye" would see the fine scheme he had been dreaming about in its true light. He could trust his mother's wise simplicity more than his own ambitious desires, which could hardly be worthy, he thought, since they were the outcome of discontent.

And why should he not be content as he was? He had fallen from no high estate. His father and his father's father had wrought with their hands, and had been honoured of all who knew them. Why should he not be content to live as they lived, or to work his way upward to an easier life, as his father had done?

"At any rate, I will have it out with my mother to-night," said he.

He was standing, when he came to this resolve, on the very spot where he first caught sight of Allison Bain. It was the second time he had stood there since that day, for no reason that he could have told to any one. He had come to the spot in the early morning after that first sleepless night. He needed a walk to stretch his legs, which were rather stiff after the long tramp of yesterday, he told his mother, when he came home to the breakfast he had kept waiting, and he told himself that he only chanced to take that road rather than another.

He said nothing about it to Robert Hume. They had the night before agreed to take an early walk together. Robin was late; but happily, as he thought, he caught sight of John as he was disappearing over the first hilltop, and followed with no thought of finding himself in the way.

But when he came to the head of the last hillock, and saw John standing where he had stood the day before, "looking at nothing," as Robin told his mother afterward, he was seized with sudden shamefaced-ness, and turning, shot like an arrow down the brae.

John had been less at the manse than he usually was while visiting his mother. He was to go there in the evening, and he must speak to his mother before he said anything about his half-formed plans to the minister or Mrs Hume, as he came home fully intending to do. So he turned homeward on the last afternoon; and as he walked he was saying to himself, with indignant contempt of his indecision, that after all he must be a poor creature, a fool, though he had never been in the way of thinking so till now.

"Well, John lad," said his mother, looking up as he came in.

Her little maid had gone home for the day, and Mrs Beaton was sitting in her arm-chair "just waiting," as she said.

It was a nice little room. A bright fire burned in the grate, and a shining tea-kettle was steaming on the hob. The carpet on the floor was faded and worn, and the furniture was of the plainest; but there were a few pretty things in the room to brighten it, and over the mantel-piece was a portrait of John's father, "taken at his best." For some strange reason, which he himself did not understand, John paused at the door, and looked up at the strong, good face.

The picture was not much as a work of art perhaps, but it was a striking likeness. There was the firm mouth, and the kind grey eyes, and the broad shoulders, rounded and stooping a little, after long years of labour, and the abundant dark hair, which had showed no silver threads until the last blow came to end all. A sudden pang smote John's heart as he looked.

"I was but a lad," he said to himself. "I didna ken what he was till I lost him."

"You are growing like him, John," said his mother softly.

"Am I, mother? I doubt it is only your loving een that can see it."

"Are ye troubled, John?" were the words that rose to the mother's lips, but they were not spoken. "Ye're needing your tea, John," said she instead.

John laughed. "I'm needing something, and I'll be glad of my tea in the meantime. No, you are not to rise. You are to sit still in your chair and tell me what to do."

Not that he needed telling. The skill, and the will, and the gentleness natural to a loving daughter had come to this mother's son through long and loving service. So the little table was brought forward, on which all things were already arranged. The tea was "masket," and the teapot covered with the "cosie," and during the three minutes necessary and sufficient for its proper infusion, John went to his room, and the mother's face grew grave while she waited.

"He's no' at peace with himself. But he'll tell me if he's needing my help. God bless him and keep him this day—and forever and ay."

Then John came in and they had their tea, and spoke about other things, about the visit she had had in the afternoon from little Marjorie, whom Allison Bain had carried in her arms to see her, as she often did, and of how the child was growing stronger every day. And then they agreed together that little Annie Thorn, who had been coming in to help Mrs Beaton all these years, should come now to stay always, because it would be better in many ways for both mistress and maid. They spoke of other things besides; but it must be acknowledged that John said little, and was not so ready with assent or with response as he was wont to be when his mother had anything to say to him.

After a time they fell into silence for a little, and then John said:

"I have something to tell you, mother."

"Is it good news, John?" said his mother with a little flutter at her heart.

"Part of it is good, surely. As for the rest—that may be good or bad, as you shall take it."

"I'm waiting, John."

For John's head had drooped on his hand, and he sat thinking.

"And you're a wee anxious? But there is no occasion, mother dear. I have good news. I meant to tell you the night I came home. I could hardly wait till I got home to tell you. I dinna ken how I put it off," added John hurriedly. "Mother, did you ever hear my father speak of a good turn he once did to one David Cunningham, a long time ago it must have been?"

"No. He wasna one who was in the way of telling o' the good turns he did, as ye ken. But I mind the name of Cunningham."

"This must have been before your day. Maybe a good while before it." And John went on to tell the story of his father's timely help to a foolish lad, and of the debt which the man wished to pay, according to his friend's desire, to those who came after him. And when he had told all he knew about it, and how the money which his father had given had been increasing during all these years till it had become a sum so large that the interest alone would keep his mother in comfort for the rest of her life, his mother only said softly:

"Well, John?" as though the something which he had had to say was still to be told.

"Well, mother, I think it is your turn now. Wasna that grand of my father?"

"It was like him. And is this David Cunningham able to spare all that money? It would be an ill thing to harm or harass him now after so long a time."

"I cannot say whether he be rich or poor; but I am certain sure that nothing will hinder him from paying his debt. He told me that the sight of my face had given him more pleasure than anything he had seen in Scotland yet," said John laughing. "I would have brought him out to see you, if the doctor would have let him come. He is but a frail man, and must go south again till summer is fairly here. He said little about himself, but I know he is a married man."

"And he would be sorry to hear of your father's losses at the last."

"Ay, that was he, and angry at the ill done him. If he had but known, he said, he could have helped to tide him over the worst of his troubles, and it might have prolonged his life."

"It was God's will, and we must submit," said Mrs Beaton softly.

"Yes, it was God's will." Then John rose and set the table back into its place, and stirred the fire and sat down again.

"Well, John?" said his mother in a little.

"Well, mother! You are a rich woman again, in a small way."

"I have ay been a rich woman. If I had been asked would I have more, I would have said I am content. I am glad of this for your sake, John, if you are glad. But I think the message from your father, as it seems, is more to me than the money."

"Yes, mother, and to me as well."

"You had something to tell me, John," said his mother, in a little.

"I thought I had when I came home. Now I am not sure. There is something that we may speak about together, and you will help me to make up my mind one way or the other."

Mrs Beaton listened in silence as John went on to tell her what he had been doing and thinking for a while. He had not been idle since the building season ended. He had been in the employment of one of the builders of the town. He had been able to make himself useful to him— first by going over and putting to rights the books of the business, which had fallen into confusion, and afterward at more congenial work, where his knowledge of drawing, to which he had given much time when he was a boy, was brought into account with a success which had surprised himself. And now his employer had offered him a permanent place, with an opportunity to acquire the kind of knowledge of his work which would come but slowly to him while he worked only with his hands.

He owned that he liked Mr Swinton, and that they got on well together. Yes, the prospect of success seemed reasonably certain if he were to give himself wholly to the work. And then he came to a pause.

"Yes. It looks like that," said his mother. She missed the eager hopefulness with which her son was wont to bring forward any new plan or prospect of his, and she thought it wiser to let him go on of his own accord to say his say than to question him. "Do you think well of it, mother? But there is one thing to be said which will please neither you nor me. I doubt in such a case we will need to say farewell to Nethermuir, and take up house in the town."

"Ay, we should both be sorry for that, but it could be done. You have more to say yet, John?"

"I thought I might have more to say, but since you are content with things as they are, it might be as well to say nothing."

"Tell me what is in your mind, John. You needna doubt but I'll take it reasonably, whatever it may be."

John laughed.

"I have no fears for you, mother. It is for myself and my own discontents that I fear."

"Tell your mother, laddie."

Then he went on with his story. How he had taken to college work in earnest with Sandy Begg, how he had enjoyed it and been successful with it, and how the thought had come into his mind that after all he might go on again and redeem his character by doing now what he had failed to do when the way was made easy to him.

"I think my father would be pleased, mother, if he could ken. When I think of him I canna forget that I gave him a sore heart at the time when his troubles were coming thick upon him. I would like to do as he wished me to do, now that the way seems open."

"Is the way open?" asked his mother gravely. "If you take that way, all that you have been doing and learning for the last years will be an utter loss. I have ay liked to think of you as following in your father's steps to overtake success as he did."

"I am not the man my father was, as no one should ken better than my mother."

"But if you were to fall in with this man's offer, you could take the road your father took with fewer steps and less labour, and I might see you a prosperous man yet before I die. And all the good your father did, whether openly or in secret, would begin again in his son's life, and some of it, at least, your mother might see. I canna but long for the like of that, John."

"I would try to do my best, mother. But my best would fall far short of what my father did."

"Oh, fie! John, laddie! What ails ye at yourself the nicht, man? Do I no' ken my ain son by this time, think ye? Ay, do I. Better, maybe, than he kens himsel'."

"There can be small doubt of that, mother. Only your kind eyes see fewer faults and failings than he kens of himself. And, mother, I am afraid the man who had my father for his good friend has done me an ill turn. He has, in a measure, taken away the motive for my work, and so I can have little pleasure in it."

"But, John, you will have your ain life to live and your ain work to do when your mother is dead and gone. I have been pleased and proud to have my son for breadwinner, and to ken that he was pleased and proud for the same reason. But for all that, I am glad that you are set free to think of your ain life. You are wearing on, lad, and it would be a great gladness for me to see you in your ain house with wife and bairns about you before I die. Ye can let yourself think of it now, since I am off your hands."

"May ye live to see all you wish, mother. It winna be this while, though. There's time enough for the like of that."

"Well, that's true. There's no' to say much time lost at four-and-twenty. But I am growing an old Woman and frail, and I mayna have so very many years before me. And ye needna put marriage off till middle life as your father did. Though he ay said had we met sooner it might have been different even with him. And it would be a wonderful thing for me to see my son's wife and bairns before I die," repeated she softly.

John rose and moved about the room. He had to do it with caution, for there was no space for more than two or three of his long, impatient strides between the four walls. His impulse was to rush out to the darkening lanes or even to the more distant hills, that he might have it out with himself there.

For his mother's words had moved him and a pair of wistful, brown eyes were looking at him from the dying embers and from the darkness without. He was saying to himself that the way lay straight before him if he chose to take it—the way to moderate success in life, a competence before his youth was past, and, as his mother had said, a wife and a happy home.

And would all this content him? Who could say? No thought of these things had troubled him, or even come into his mind till now. And no such thoughts would have come now, he told himself, if it had not been for his mother's words and a pair of bonny een. Should he let himself be influenced by a dream—a mere fancy?

It would pass away, this folly. It must pass away. Would it be wise to let circumstances guide him to take the course which seemed for the time to be the easiest, the most direct to insure a measure of success? Should he be wise in putting out of his thoughts the hopes and plans which had been occupying him lately? No, he was fit for higher work than cutting stones or building or planning houses. He could not go back to such work now. Even his mother's desire must be put aside when the work of his life was in question.

And yet!—and yet his mother's simple wisdom had never failed him since the day they had gone forth together from what had been the happiest of homes. She might be right, and he might be putting away the substance to please himself by chasing a shadow. So he said to himself, as she waited quietly with folded hands. He was anxious, uncertain, bewildered, as unlike himself, or as unlike his own idea of himself, as could well be. He was amazed and angry at his foolishness, and eager only to get away from his mother's eyes.

"I promised to go to the manse a while to-night, mother," said he with his hand upon the door.

"Yes, and quite right. The minister has clear vision and good sense, and will give you none but good advice. But bide a wee. You have told your mother nothing yet. Sit down and let me hear what you are thinking to do. Since we have begun, it will be wise to go through to the end. So that you truly ken your ain mind, I shall be content."

John was far from knowing his own mind. That was what ailed him. And he had been so sure of himself before he came home. And so sure also that he could persuade his mother to see as he did about that which he desired to bring to pass! He did not feel that he could do justice to himself of his plans and prospects at this moment.

He sat down, however, and went over the matter from the beginning. He said something also about his hopes and plans for the future. He by no means meant to give up his work at present. He meant to work in the summer as he had hitherto done, and go on with his reading in the winter. If he and Mr Swinton were to come to an agreement, it would be all the easier for him. He had no fear but that he could get on with both work and reading till he had got through with the college at least.

"But, O John! it will be a lang look to the end! I can hardly hope to see it, though that would matter little if it were the best thing for you. But what is to come after?" asked his mother with a sigh.

John could not tell her that. But there was nothing more certain than that when he should be "thoroughly furnished," the right work would be found—the very highest work—and a kind of life which would suit him, though he might not grow rich in it.

"John," said his mother gravely, "I hardly think all that would help you to live a better life than your father lived. It is not the kind of work that matters; it is the way it is done. Your father did his duty in the sight of God and man, and went far beyond what folk whiles call duty, never letting his left hand ken what his right hand was doing. And I have ay hoped that ye might follow in his steps. It is like a slight on your father, John, when ye speak of higher work."

"Mother! you cannot really think that of me! And, mother, you must mind that my father meant me to do as I wish to do. It is only to begin a little later than he hoped. And there is no fear but I shall see my work when I am ready for it."

"And yet there is many a man in Scotland with a store o' book learning who has done little work, or only ill work, for God and man. And even with a good-will the opportunity doesna ay come."

"Well, never mind, mother. There is no pressing need to decide now, at least till summer is over. We will wait to see what may happen." He did not speak cheerfully, however.

"John," said his mother earnestly, "are ye sure that your heart is set on this? What has come to you? Has anything happened to unsettle you, lad? Tell your mother, John."

John laughed as he rose and then stooped down and kissed her.

"Nothing has happened. It is quite possible that you are right and that I am wrong. We will just wait and see, and decide the matter later. Even if we have to leave Nethermuir, it need not be till summer is over. I am sorry that I have troubled you with this now. You will vex yourself thinking about it all."

"'Deed I'll do nothing of the kind. I'll just leave it all in better hands than either yours or mine. And as to your troubling me—Who has a lad a right to trouble if it be not his ain mother? And when a' is said, our way is laid out before us by Him who kens a' and cares for a'. Why should I trouble myself taking thought to-day for the things o' to-morrow? Go your ways to the manse, John, and I'll bide still and think about it all."

But the visit to the manse was not so satisfactory as usual. There were other people there, and though John had a few minutes alone with Mr Hume in the study, there was no time to enter fully into the matter which he had at heart, and on which, he sincerely believed, he wished for the minister's opinion and counsel, and so he said nothing about it.

Robin went down-stairs with him, and while he was making ready the lantern to light the way to an outhouse, where Davie had a puppy which his friend must see, John stood waiting by the kitchen-door. In her accustomed corner sat Allison, spinning in the light of the lamp which hung high above her head. She raised her eyes and smiled when John came in, but she gave no other answer to his greeting, and went on with her spinning, apparently quite unconscious of his presence. As for him, he found nothing to say to her, though the lighting of the lantern seemed to take a good while. To himself he was saying:

"I am glad I came. Of course I knew it was but a fancy and utterly foolish, and that: it would pass away. But it is well to know it. Yes, I'm glad I came in."

Could this be the stately maiden he had seen smiling in the sunshine on the hill, with wee Marjorie in her arms? There she sat in the shadow, with the accustomed gloom on her face, wearing the disguise of the big mutch with the set-up borders, tied with tape under the chin. An apron, checked in blue and white, held with its strings the striped, short gown close over the scanty petticoat of blue. John wondered whether her thoughts ever wandered away from the thread she was drawing from the head of flax so silently.

"A decent, dull servant-lass, strong and wholesome, invaluable doubtless in her place, but just like any other lass of her kind." That is what he said, and then he added:

"She has bonny een." Ay, wonderful soft een, with a world of sorrow and sweetness in them; and he waited with impatience till she should lift them to meet his again. But she did not. And though he let the lads pass out before him, and turned at the door to look back, there she sat, busy with her thread and her own thoughts, with never a thought of him.

"A good lass," he repeated as he followed the lads; but he could not quite ignore the sense of discomfiture that was on him, as he went down the lane with Robin at his side. He had enough to say to Robin. He had something to tell him about his winter's work, and without meaning to do so, he gave him "an inkling," as Robin called it to his mother, of the plans he had been making, and of the new course which was opening before him.

But John said no more to his mother. It was late when, he came home that night, and there was no time for many words in the morning, for he had a long journey before him.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

"Oh! the happy life of children still restoring joy to ours! Back recalling all the sweetness."

Summer came slowly but happily to Marjorie this year, bringing with it, oh! so many pleasures to which she had hitherto been a stranger. She had had the early spring flowers brought into the parlour many a time, and ferns and buds and bonny leaves, for all the bairns of the place were more than glad to be allowed to share their treasures with her; and the one who came first and brought the most of these, thought herself the happiest, and great delight in past summers had all this given to the child. She had watched, too, the springing of the green things in the garden, the wakening of pale little snowdrops and auriculas, and the gradual unfolding of the leaves and blossoms on the berry-bushes, and on the one apple-tree, the pride of the place.

But she had never with her own hands plucked the yellow pussies from the saughs (low willows) by the burn, nor found the wee violets, blue and white, hiding themselves under last year's leaves. She had never watched the slow coming of, first the buds, and then the leaves on the trees along the lanes, nor seen the hawthorn hedges all in bloom, nor the low hills growing greener every day, nor the wandering clouds making wandering shadows where the gowans—the countless "crimson-tipped flowers"—were gleaming among the grass. All this and more she saw this year, as she lay in the strong, kind arms of Allison. And as the days went on it would not have been easy to say whether it was the little child, or the sad and silent woman, who got the greater good from it all.

For Allison could no longer move along the lanes and over the fields in a dream, her inward eyes seeing other faraway fields and hills and a lost home, and faces hidden for evermore, when a small hand was now and then laid upon her cheek to call her back to the present. The little silvery voice was ever breaking in upon these dreary memories, and drearier forebodings, with cooing murmurs of utter content, or with shrill outbursts of eager delight, in the enjoyment of pleasures that were all of Allie's giving. And so what could Allie do but come out of her own sorrowful musings and smile and rejoice in the child's joy, and find a new happiness in the child's love.

There was much to be done in the house, but there was no day so busy or so full of care but that Allison could manage to give the child a blink of sunshine if the day were fair. There was much to do out of the house also, what with the cows and the garden and the glebe. Cripple Sandy, who was the minister's man-of-all-work, had all that he could do, and more, in the narrow fields. So Allison rose early and milked her cows, and led them out herself, to no wide pasture, but to one of those fields where she tethered them first and flitted them later in the morning when they had cropped their little circle bare. And both at the tethering and the flitting Marjorie assisted when the day was fine, and it was a possible thing. She woke when Allison rose, and being first strengthened by a cup of warm milk and a bit of bread, and then wrapped warmly up in a plaid to keep her safe from the chill air of the morning, she was ready for a half-hour of perfect enjoyment. When that was over, she was eager for another cup of milk and another sleep, which lasted till breakfast was over and her brothers had all gone to school.

And when the time for the afternoon flitting of the cows came, Marjorie was in the field once more, sitting on a plaid while the placid creatures were moved on, and she and Allie went home again as they came, through the lanes in which there were so many beautiful things.

Sometimes a neighbour met them, who had something to say to the child, and sometimes they met the bairns coming from the school. When they came home by the longest way, as Marjorie liked best to do, they would have a word with the schoolmistress, as she was taking the air at her door when the labours of the day were over, and sometimes a smile and a flower from Mrs Beaton in her garden over the way. This was the very best summer in all her life, Marjorie told her father one day, as Allie laid her down on her couch in the parlour again.

All this was beginning to do the child good. Even the neighbours noticed the change after a little, and were glad also. Some of them meant that the coming and going passed the time and contented her. Others said that it was well that her mother's heart was set at rest about her, and that she got more time for all else that she had to do; and all thought well of the new lass for her care of little Marjorie.

The mother, who had consented to these new doings with misgiving, began, after a little, to see the change for the better that was being wrought in the child. Long before midsummer there was dawning a soft little gleam of colour on Marjorie's cheek, not at all like the feverish tints that used to come with weariness or fretfulness or excitement of any kind. The movements of the limbs and of the slender little body were freer and stronger, and quite unconsciously, it seemed, she helped herself in ways on which she had never ventured before.

Her father saw the change too, though not so soon as her mother; but having seen it, he was the more hopeful of the two. And by and by they spoke to one another, saying if this thing could be done, or that, their Marjorie might be helped and healed, and grow strong and tall like the other bairns, and have a hopeful and happy life before her. But they paused when they had got thus far, knowing that the child was in God's hands, and that if it were His will to bring about the fulfilment of their desire, He would also show a way in which it was to be done. Whether this might be or not, their little gentle darling would ay be, as she had ay been, the dearest blessing in their happy home.

"And may God bless Allison Bain, however it is to be."

"Yes," said the mother. "I think a blessing is already coming to her through the child."

"Is she less sad, think you? She seems more at home among us, at least."

"I cannot say that she is lass sad. But her sadness is no longer utter gloom and despair, as it seemed to be at first. And she says her prayers now, Marjorie tells me. I see myself that she listens to what you say in the kirk. I think it may be that she is just coming out of the darkness of some great sorrow which had at first seemed to her to end all. She is young and strong, and it is natural that her burden of trouble, whatever it may be, should grow lighter as the time goes by. Oh! she is sad still, and she is sometimes afraid, but she is in a better state to bear her trouble, whatever it may be, than she was when she came first among us. I sometimes think if some good and pleasant thing were to come into her life, some great surprise, that might take her thoughts quite off the past, she might forget after a little and get back her natural cheerfulness again."

Mrs Hume ceased suddenly. For a moment a strong temptation assailed her. If ever man and wife were perfectly one in heart and thought and desires, these two were. As for the wife, no thought or wish of hers, whether of great things or of small, seemed quite her own till she had also made it his. Seeing the look which had come to her face, her husband waited for her to say more. But she was silent. She had no right to utter the words which had almost risen to her lips. To tell another's secret—if indeed there were a secret—would be betrayal and a cruel wrong. Even to her husband she might not tell her thoughts, and indeed, if she had but known it, there was, as far as Allison Bain was concerned, no secret to tell.

But Robin, who was in the way of sharing with his mother most things which greatly interested himself, had told her about his morning run over the hills after John Beaton, and how he had found him "looking at nothing" on the very spot where, the day before, he had got his first look at Allison Bain, and how he had turned and run home again without being seen. Robin only told the story. He drew no inference from it, at least he did not for his mother's hearing.

His mother did that for herself. Remembering John's dazed condition at worship on the first night of his homecoming, it is not surprising she should have said to herself that "the lad's time had come."

And what of Allison? She had asked herself that question a good many times since John's departure; but she owned that never, either by word or look, had Allison betrayed herself, if indeed she had anything to betray, and of that she was less assured as the days went on. But whether or not, it was evident, Mrs Hume assured herself, that Allison was "coming to herself" at last.

And so she was. Young and naturally hopeful, it is not to be supposed that Allison's sorrow, heavy and sore though it was, could make all the future dark to her, and bow her always to the earth. She had lost herself for a time in the maze of trouble, into which death, and her enforced marriage, and her brother's sin and its punishment, had brought her. But she was coming to the end, and out of it now. She was no longer living and walking in a dream. She was able to look over the last year of her life at home with calmness, and she could see how, being overwrought in mind and body, spent with work and watching and care, she had fallen under the mastery of blind terror for her brother's safety, and had yielded where she ought to have stood firm.

She had no one to blame for what had befallen her. Her mother had hardly been in a state to know what was going on around her, except that her "bonny Willie"—as she called him in her prayers, and in her murmured longings for him—was faraway, and might not come home in time to see her die, or to help to lay her in her grave. Her father grieved for his son, but, angry at him also, had uttered no word either to help or to hinder the cause of the man who had made Allison's promise the price of her brother's safety. But he went about with bowed head, listening, and looking, and longing, ay longing, for the coming of the lad. So what could she do but yield for their sakes, and take what seemed the only way to bring him back again?

But one wrong was never righted by the doing of another, and her sacrifice had come to worse than naught. Though she had sinned blindly, she had suffered for her sin, and must suffer still. But gradually the despair which darkened all the year was passing. There was hope in her heart now, and a longing to throw off the dead-weight which had so long held her down. And the lightening of her burden showed now and then in eye, and voice, and step, so that all could see the change. But with all this the thought of John Beaton had nothing to do.

She had seen him just as she had seen other folk and he had come into her thoughts once or twice when he was not in her sight. But that was because of the good understanding there was between him and little Marjorie. The child had much to say about him when he was at home; and when she was carried out in Allison's arms on those days, she was always wishing that they might meet him before they went home again.

One day they met, and Marjorie being gently and safely transferred to John's arms, Allison turned and went back into the house without a word of explanation or apology.

"It's ironing day," explained Marjorie, a little startled at the look on John's face.

"Oh! it's ironing day, is it? Well, never mind. I am going to take you to the very top of Windhill to give you a taste of the fresh air, and then I shall carry you home to take tea with my mother and me."

"That will be delightful," said Marjorie with a sigh of pleasure.

No. In those days Allison was thinking nothing at all about John. When she went about the house, with no gloom, but only a shadow of softened sadness on her face, and a look of longing in her eyes, it was of her brother that she was thinking. She was saying in her heart:

"God help him in that dismal place—he who should be free upon the hills with the sheep, or following the plough on his ain land at home."

And when a sudden smile came, or a bright glance, or a murmur of song, she was telling herself that his time was nearly over; that he would soon be free again to go faraway over the sea, where, with kind help from Mr Hadden, he would begin a new life, and all would be well with him once more. Yes, and they might be together again.

But this could not be for a long time. She must not even try to see her brother. For Brownrig would be sure to have a watch set on him when he was free. And Brownrig—having the law on his side, as he had said in the hearing of many, on the night of the dark day on which her father was buried, raising his voice that she too might hear him, the door being locked and barred between them—Brownrig would come and she would be found, and then lost forever.

"For," said Allison to herself, "I should have to drown myself then, and make an end of it all."

She was standing on the edge of Burney's Pot, near the mill-dam, when she said this to herself, and she shuddered as she looked down into the grey water.

"But it will never come to that! Oh! no, mother, it will never come to that. But to save myself from that man, even to end all would surely be no sin."

But these thoughts did not haunt and terrify her now, as her doubts and dreads had done during the winter. She had no time for brooding over the past. Every hour of the day was more than full with all she had to do, and there were no long, dark evenings, when she had only her wheel and her own thoughts for company.

And there was Marjorie. Marjorie had something to do with her thoughts through all the hours of the day. She was always there to lift or to lay down, to carry here or to carry there, to speak to or to smile upon. And she grew sweeter and dearer every day. Above all, the time was hastening, and Willie would soon be free. That thought made all the days bright to Allison.

And so she grew, not light-hearted, but reasonable and patient in her thoughts of all that had befallen them, and, at most times, hopeful as to all that might lie before them.

The neighbours who, at her first coming among them, had been inclined to resent her gloom and her silence, were ready now, for the sake of her friendly looks, to forgive the silence which she kept still. Even in the kirk she was like another woman, they said, and didna seem to be miles awa', or dreaming, or in fear.

Of this change Allison herself was conscious, when she thought about it. The minister's words did not seem "just to go by" her as they used to do. She listened and took her portion with the rest of the folk, and was moved, or glad, or doubtful, or afraid, as they were, and thought about all she had heard afterward, as doubtless some of the rest did also.

She was not desirous now, as she had been at first, for more than her own turn of staying at home from the kirk. This was partly because little Marjorie was sometimes able to go there; and when she went she was carried in Allison's arms, where she rested, sometimes listening to her father's voice, and sometimes slumbering through the time. But it was partly, also, because there came now and then a message to Allison there.

For some of the good words spoken must be for her, she thought, since the minister said they were for all. Allison was not good at remembering sermons, or even "heads and particulars," as Robin was. For a long time she had heard nothing but the minister's voice, and carried away no word of his, either for correction or instruction. His sermons were "beyond her," as she said. They meant nothing to her. But now and then a good word reached her out of the Book; and sometimes a word of the minister, spoken, as was the way in those days, as a comment on the psalm that was to be sung, or on the chapter that was read, touched her, strangely enough, more even than the words of the Book itself, with which she had been familiar all her life.

One day in early summer she carried her wee Marjorie to the kirk with a sad heart. For the Sabbath-days were the worst to bear, since she had least to do, and more time for thinking. All the morning her thoughts had been with "her Willie," shut in between stone walls, away from the sunshine and the sweet air, and she was saying to herself: Would the shame and the misery of it all have changed him, and would he come out, angry and reckless, a lost laddie? Oh! if she could only go to meet him at the very door, and if they could get away together over the sea, to that country so great and wide that they might easily lose themselves in it, and so pass out of the sight and out of the thoughts of all who had known them in their happy youth, before trouble had come! Might it not be? And how could it be? Might she not set Brownrig and his wicked wiles at naught, and go with her brother to save him?

And then the minister's voice was heard: "Fret not thyself because of evildoers." And so on: "Commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in Him and He shall bring it to pass."

"Bring it to pass!" In the midst of her trouble and longing, Allison had almost uttered the words aloud, as though they had been spoken to her alone of all the listening people, and then Marjorie stirred in her slumber and brought her to herself again.

"Rest in the Lord. Wait patiently for Him. Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in the way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass."

Surely those words were for her! And she heard no more till he came to the good man whose "steps are ordered of God."

"Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand.

"I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread."

And then Robin touched his mother's hand. For Allison had drawn her big black bonnet over her face to hide from the folk in the kirk the tears which were falling fast on the bright hair of the little sleeper. Mrs Hume made no sign that she saw them, but she prayed silently for the sorrowful woman who all the long winter had kept her sorrow to herself.

"Say nothing, Robin," said she, when they rose to go out together. "She will be the better for her tears, or rather for that which made them flow."

To herself Robin's mother said:

"She will surely speak now, and open her heart to comfort."

She had a while to wait for that, but a change came over Allison as the summer days went on. She was restless sometimes, and anxious and afraid. She had an air of expectation as though she were waiting for something, and sometimes she had the look of one eager to be up and away.

One night when Mrs Hume went up to see her little daughter in her bed, she found Allison writing. She said nothing to her and did not seem to see, and waited in expectation of hearing more. But she never did.

For Allison's courage failed her and the letter was never sent. It was written to Dr Fleming, who had been kind to her in the infirmary, and it told him of her brother who was in prison, and asked him to visit him and to be kind to him, as he had been to her. But after it was written she was afraid to send it.

No. She must wait and have patience. Willie must go away alone over the sea, as they had agreed together in the only letters that had passed between them since he was a prisoner. Mr Hadden would befriend him as he had promised, and she would follow him when the right time came.

"But it is ill waiting," said Allison to herself. "It is ill waiting."

In those days many a word came to her as she sat in the kirk or in the parlour at worship-time, which set her thinking. Some of them strengthened her courage and gave her hope, and some of them made her afraid. For she said to herself:

"Are these good words for me?"

They we're for the minister and for the minister's wife, doubtless, every promise of them all, and for many more who heard them spoken. But were they for her?

"For," said she, "'if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear my prayer.' And I'm no' sure of myself. 'Love your enemies,' the Book says, and I doubt there's hatred in my heart to one man.

"Or maybe it is only fear of him and anger. I think if I could only get well away from him, and safe from the dread of him, I would hate him no longer. I would pity him. I pity him now, even. For he has spoiled his own life as well as mine, and what with anger and shame, and the pity of some folk and the scorn of others, he must be an unhappy man. Yes, I am sorry for him. For the fault was partly mine. I should have stood fast whatever befell. And how is it all to end?"



CHAPTER TWELVE.

"A man may choose to begin love, but not to end it."

The spring passed quickly and summer came on, and then something happened which made a little stir of pleasure in the manse, and in the pleasure Allison shared, because of little Marjorie. Mrs Esselmont came home.

Mrs Esselmont had been, in former days, one of the great ladies of the shire, and, with a difference, she was one of its great ladies still. Marjorie had been "kirstened after her," as they used to call it in that country. The child was "Marjorie Esselmont Hume," and she was right proud of her name.

But Mrs Esselmont did not come back this time to Esselmont House, which had been the home of the Esselmonts for many a year and day. Her husband was dead and her sons also, and the great house, and the wide lands which lay about it, had passed to another Esselmont, a stranger, though of the same blood. She came back, as indeed she had gone away, a sorrowful woman, for she had just parted from her youngest and dearest daughter, who was going, as was her duty, to Canada with her soldier husband.

The acquaintance of Mrs Esselmont and the minister had commenced soon after the coming of Mr Hume—then little more than a lad—a "missioner" to Nethermuir. At the bedside of one whom the lady had long befriended, they met by chance—if one may so speak of a meeting which was the beginning of so much to them both. The poor woman in whom both were interested was drawing nigh to the end of all trouble, and these two did not meet again for years.

The next meeting was in no sense by chance. In a time of great sorrow Mrs Esselmont came to the minister for help, because she remembered how his words, spoken in God's name, had brought peace to one who had sinned and suffered, and who was sore afraid as the end drew near. And that was the beginning of a lasting friendship between them.

They had not met often during the last few years. Mrs Esselmont had lived much in England with her daughters, and had only once returned to her own house during the summer. Now she said she must look upon Firhill as her permanent home, and she did not speak very cheerfully when she said it.

For though she was a good woman, she was not of a cheerful nature, and she had had many a trouble in the course of her life. Some of them had been troubles to which, at the time, it seemed wrong for her to submit, but which it was in vain, and worse than in vain, to resent. They were troubles which could only be ignored as far as the world was concerned, but which, she told herself, could never be forgotten or forgiven. They were all over now, buried in graves, forgiven and forgotten. But the scars were there still of wounds which had hurt sorely and healed slowly, and now she was looking sadly forward to a solitary old age.

She had been long away, but Marjorie had not been allowed to forget her. Gifts and kind wishes had come often to the child from her friend, and her name had often been named in the household. But her coming was a shock to Marjorie. What she had imagined of the writer of the letters which she had heard read, and of the giver of the gifts which she had received, no one could say. But the first glimpse which she got of the tall form, shrouded in trailing, black garments, and of the pale face, encircled by the border of the widow's cap, and shaded by the heavy widow's veil, struck her with something like terror, which must have ended in tears and sobs and painful excitement, if her mother had not seen the danger in time and carried her away.

"Poor darling! I fear she is no stronger as time goes on," said the lady gently.

"Yes, we think her a little stronger. Indeed we think there is a decided change for the better since spring opened. She is able to stand now, and even to walk a little in the garden. But she is very frail still, our poor little girl," said the mother with a sigh.

"What has helped her, do you think?"

"Nature, it must be, and Allison Bain. The doctor has done nothing for her for more than a year, but even he acknowledges that there is a change for the better, though he does not give us much reason to hope that she will ever be very strong."

"It is God's will," said Mrs Esselmont with a sigh.

"We can only wait and see what God will send her. As it is, she is a blessing in the house."

"Yes. Still with your large family and your many cares, she must be a constant anxiety to you both night and day."

"Well, we get used with even care and anxiety. And she is a happy little creature naturally. Allison has helped us greatly with her. She is very kind and sensible in all her ways of doing for her."

"And who is Allison?"

It was on Mrs Hume's lips to say, "We do not know who she is," but she did not say it.

"She came to fill Kirstin's place. Poor Kirstin was called home to nurse her mother, who is lingering still, though she was supposed to be dying when her daughter was sent for."

And then Mrs Hume went on to speak of something else.

Allison was "coming to herself," growing "like other folk," only bonnier and better than most. There was no need to call attention to her as in any way different from the rest. Allison had been good to Marjorie, and Marjorie was fond of Allison. That was all that need be said even to Mrs Esselmont. But the lady and Allison were good friends before all was done.

For many of Mrs Esselmont's lonely days were brightened by the visits of the child Marjorie. And though the pony carriage was sometimes sent for her, and though she enjoyed greatly the honour and glory of driving away from the door in the sight of all the bairns who gathered in the street to see, she owned that she felt safer and more at her ease in the arms of "her own Allie," and so when it was possible, it was in Allison's arms that she was brought home.

If there had been nothing else to commend her to the pleased notice of Mrs Esselmont, Allison's devotion to the child must have done so. And this stately young woman, with her soft voice, and her silence, and her beautiful, sorrowful eyes, was worth observing for her own sake. But Allison was as silent with her as with the rest of her little world, though her smile grew brighter and more responsive as the days went on.

Mrs Esselmont's house stood on the hillside, facing the west. Behind it rose the seven dark firs which had given to the place its name. The tall firs and the hilltop hid from the house the sunshine of the early morning, but they stood a welcome shelter between it and the bleak east wind which came from the sea when the dreary time of the year had come.

The house was built of dull grey stone, with no attempt at ornament of any kind visible upon it. All its beauty was due to the ivy, which grew close and thick over the two ends, covering the high gables, and even the chimneys, and creeping more loosely about the windows in the front. Without the ivy and the two laburnums, which were scattering their golden blossoms over the grass when Allison saw it first, the place would have looked gloomy and sad.

But when one had fairly passed up the avenue, or rather the lane, lying between a hedge of hawthorn on one side and the rough stone dike which marked the bounds of the nearest neighbour on the other, and entered at the gate which opened on the lawn, it was not the dull grey house which one noticed first, but the garden.

"The lovely, lovely garden!" Marjorie always called it. She had not seen many gardens, nor had Allison, and the wealth of blossoms which covered every spot where the green grass was not growing, was wonderful in their eyes.

The place was kept in order by an old man, who had long been gardener at Esselmont House, and it was as well kept in the absence of the mistress as when she was there to see it. The garden was full of roses, and of the common sweet-smelling flowers, for which there seems little room in fine gardens nowadays, and it was tended by one who loved flowers for their own sake.

It was shut in and sheltered by a high stone wall on the east, and by a hawthorn hedge on the north, but the walls on the other sides were low; and sitting beneath the laburnums near the house, on the upper edge of the sloping lawn, one could see the fields, and the hills, and a farmhouse or two, and the windings of the burn which nearly made an island of the town. From the end of the west wall, where it touched the hawthorn hedge, one could see the town itself. The manse and the kirk could be distinguished, but not very clearly. Seen from the hill the place looked only an irregular group of little grey houses, for the green of the narrow gardens behind was mostly hidden, and even the trees along the lanes seemed small in the distance. But Marjorie liked to look down over it now and then, to make sure that all was safe there when she was away.

It was a strange experience for her to be for hours away from her own home, and even out of the town.

Poor little Marjorie had passed more time on her couch in her mother's parlour, during her life of eleven years, than in all other places put together. She was happy in the change, and enjoyed greatly the sight of something new, and there were many beautiful things for her to see in Mrs Esselmont's house. But she needed "to get used with it," and just at first a day at a time was quite enough for her strength. The day was not allowed to be very long, and the pleasure of getting home again was almost as great as the pleasure of getting away had been. But the best of all was, that the child was getting a little stronger.

There was much besides this to make it a good and happy summer at the manse. The younger lads were busy at school under a new master, who seemed to be in a fair way to make scholars of them all, Robin was full of delight at the thought that at last he was to go to college, and he fully intended to distinguish himself there. He said "at last," though he was only a month or two past sixteen, and had all his life before him.

"Ay, ye hae a' ye're life afore ye, in which to serve the Lord or the Deevil," Saunners Crombie took the opportunity to say to him, one night after the evening meeting, when he first heard that the lad was to go away.