"It is not meet to take the children's meat and cast it to dogs."

"Dogs"—they heard the Rabbi appropriate his name—"outside . . . the covenant."

"And she said, Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table."

"Lord, I believe . . . help Thou mine . . . unbelief."

He then fell into an agony of soul, during which Carmichael could hear: "Though . . . He slay . . . me . . . yet will I trust . . . trust . . . in Him." He drew two or three long breaths and was still. After a little he was heard again with a new note—"He that believeth . . . in Him . . . shall not be confounded," and again "A bruised reed . . . shall He not . . ." Then he opened his eyes and raised his head—but he saw neither Kate nor Carmichael, for the Rabbi had done with earthly friends and earthly trials—and he, who had walked in darkness and seen no light, said in a clear voice full of joy, "My Lord, and my God."

It was Kate that closed his eyes and laid the old scholar's head on the pillow, and then she left the room, casting one swift glance of pity at Carmichael, who was weeping bitterly and crying between the sobs, "Rabbi, Rabbi."



CHAPTER XXII.

WITHOUT FEAR AND WITHOUT REPROACH.

Doctor Davidson allowed himself, in later years, the pleasant luxury of an after luncheon nap, and then it was his habit—weather permitting—to go out and meet Posty, who adhered so closely to his time-table—notwithstanding certain wayside rests—that the Doctor's dog knew his hour of arrival, and saw that his master was on the road in time. It was a fine April morning when the news of the great disaster came, and the Doctor felt the stirring of spring in his blood. On the first hint from Skye he sprang from his chair, declaring it was a sin to be in the house on such a day, and went out in such haste that he had to return for his hat. As he went up the walk, the Doctor plucked some early lilies and placed them in his coat; he threw so many stones that Skye forgot his habit of body and ecclesiastical position; and he was altogether so youthful and frolicsome that John was seriously alarmed, and afterwards remarked to Rebecca that he was not unprepared for calamity.

"The best o's tempts Providence at a time, and when a man like the Doctor tries tae rin aifter his dog jidgment canna be far off. A 'm no sayin'," John concluded, with characteristic modesty, "that onybody cud tell what was coming, but a' jaloused there wud be tribble."

The Doctor met Posty in the avenue, the finest bit on our main road, where the road has wide margins of grass on either side, and the two rows of tall ancient trees arch their branches overhead. Some day in the past it had been part of the approach to the house of Tochty, and under this long green arch the Jacobite cavaliers rode away after black John Carnegie's burial. No one could stand beneath those stately trees without thinking of the former days, when men fought not for money and an easy life, but for loyalty and love, and in this place the minister of Drumtochty received his evil tidings like a brave gentleman who does not lose heart while honour is left. During his years in the Glen he had carried himself well, with dignity and charity, in peace and kindliness, so that now when he is dead and gone—the last of his family—he still remains to many of us a type of the country clergyman that is no longer found in Scotland, but is greatly missed. It seemed, however, to many of us—I have heard both Drumsheugh and Burnbrae say this, each in his own way—that it needed adversity to bring out the greatness of the Doctor, just as frost gives the last touch of ripeness to certain fruits.

"Fower letters the day, Doctor, ane frae Dunleith, ane frae Glasgie, another frae Edinburgh, and the fourth no clean stampit, so a' can say naethin' aboot it. Twa circulars an' the Caledonian maks up the hale hypothic."

Posty buckled and adjusted his bag, and made as though he was going, but he loitered to give opportunity fur any questions the Doctor might wish to ask on foreign affairs. For Posty was not merely the carrier of letters to the Glen, but a scout who was sent down to collect information regarding the affairs of the outer world. He was an introduction to and running commentary on the weekly paper. By-and-by, when the labour of the day was done, and the Glen was full of sweet, soft light from the sides of Ben Urtach, a farmer would make for his favourite seat beside the white rose-tree in the garden, and take his first dip into the Muirtown Advertiser. It was a full and satisfying paper, with its agricultural advertisements, its roups, reported with an accuracy of detail that condescended on a solitary stirk, its local intelligence, its facetious anecdotes. Through this familiar country the good man found his own way at a rate which allowed him to complete the survey in six days. Foreign telegrams, however, and political intelligence, as well as the turmoil of the great cities, were strange to him, and here he greatly valued Posty's laconic hints, who, visiting the frontier, was supposed to be in communication with those centres. "Posty says that the Afghans are no makin' muckle o' the war," and Hillocks would sally forth to enjoy Sir Frederick Roberts' great march, line by line, afterwards enlarging thereon with much unction, and laying up a store of allusion that would last for many days.

Persons raised to the height of a daily newspaper like the minister might be supposed independent of Posty's precis, but even Doctor Davidson, with that day's Caledonian in his hand, still availed himself of the spoken word.

"Well, Posty, any news this morning?"

"Naethin', Doctor, worth mentionin', except the failure o' a company Glasgie wy; it's been rotten, a' wes hearin', for a while, an' noo it's fair stramash. They say it 'll no be lichtsome for weedows an' mony decent fouk in Scotland."

"That's bad news, Posty. There 's too many of those swindling concerns in the country. People ought to take care where they place their savings, and keep to old-established institutions. We 're pretty hard-headed up here, and I 'll wager that nobody in the Glen has lost a penny in any of those new-fangled companies."

"The auld fouk in Drumtochty pit their siller in a pock and hode it ablow their beds, an', ma certes, that bank didna break;" and Posty went along the avenue, his very back suggestive of a past, cautious, unenterprising, safe and honest.

The Doctor glanced at the envelopes and thrust the letters into his pocket. His good nature was touched at the thought of another financial disaster, by which many hard-working people would lose their little savings, and all the more that he had some of his private means invested in a Glasgow bank—one of those tried and powerful institutions which was indifferent to every crisis in trade. Already he anticipated an appeal, and considered what he would give, for it did not matter whether it was a coalpit explosion in Lanarkshire or a loss of fishing-boats in the Moray Firth, if widows needed help the Doctor's guinea was on its way within four-and-twenty hours. Some forms of religious philanthropy had very little hold on the Doctor's sympathy—one of the religious prints mentioned him freely as a Unitarian, because he had spoken unkindly of the Jewish mission—but in the matter of widows and orphans he was a specialist.

"Widows, Posty said; poor things! and very likely bairns. Well, well, we 'll see what can be done out of Daisy's fund."

Very unlikely people have their whims, and it was his humour to assign one fourth of his income to his little sister, who was to have kept house for him, and "never to leave you, Sandie," and out of this fund the Doctor did his public charities. "In memory of a little maid," appeared in various subscription lists; but the reference thereof was only known after the Doctor's death.

"The Western Counties Bank did not open its doors yesterday, and it was officially announced at the head-office, Glasgow, that the bank had stopped. It is impossible as yet to forecast the debts, but they are known to be enormous, and as the bank is not limited, it is feared that the consequences to the shareholders will be very serious. This failure was quite unexpected, the Western Counties Bank having been looked on as a prosperous and stable concern."

He read the paragraph twice word by word—it did not take long—he folded the paper carefully and put it in his pocket, and he stood in the spot for five minutes to take in the meaning in its length and breadth. A pleasant spring sun was shining upon him through a break in the leafy arch, a handful of primroses were blooming at his feet, a lark was singing in the neighbouring field. Sometimes the Doctor used to speculate how he would have liked being a poor man, and he concluded that he would have disliked it very much. He had never been rich, and he was not given to extravagance, but he was accustomed to easy circumstances, and he pitied some of his old friends who had seen it their duty to secede at the Disruption, and had to practise many little economies, who travelled third class and had to walk from the station, and could not offer their friends a glass of wine. This was the way he must live now, and Daisy's fund would have to be closed, which seemed to him the sweetest pleasure of his life.

"And Jack! Would to God I had never mentioned this wretched bank to him. Poor Jack, with the few hundreds he had saved for Kit!"

For some five minutes more the Doctor stood in the place; then he straightened himself as one who, come what may, would play the man, and when he passed Janet's cottage, on his way to the Lodge, that honest admirer of able-bodied, good-looking men came out and followed him with her eyes for the sight of his firm unbroken carriage.

"Miss Kate will be grieving very much about Doctor Saunderson's death," Donald explained at the Lodge, "and she went down this forenoon with the General to put flowers on his grave; but they will be coming back every minute," and the Doctor met them at the Beeches.



"May I have as fair hands to decorate my grave, Miss Catherine Carnegie," and the Doctor bowed gallantly; "but of one thing I am sure, I have done nothing to deserve it. Saunderson was a scholar of the ancient kind, and a very fine spirit."

"Don't you think," said Kate, "that he was . . . like A Kempis, I mean, and George Herbert, a kind of . . . saint?"

"Altogether one, I should say. I don't think he would have known port wine from sherry, or an entree from a mutton chop; beside a man like that what worldly fellows you and I are, Jack, and mine is the greater shame."

"I'll have no comparisons, Padre"—Kate was a little puzzled by the tone in the Doctor's voice; "he was so good that I loved him; but there are some points in the General and you, quite nice points, and for the sake of them you shall have afternoon tea in my room," where the Doctor and the General fell on former days and were wonderful company.

"It's not really about the road I wish to talk to you," and the Doctor closed the door of the General's den, "but about . . . a terrible calamity that has befallen you and me, Jack, and I am to blame."

"What is it?" and Carnegie sat erect; "does it touch our name or . . . Kate?"

"Neither, thank God," said Davidson.

"Then it cannot be so very bad. Let us have it at once," and the General lighted a cheroot.

"Our bank has failed, and we shall have to give up everything to pay the debt, and . . . Jack, it was I advised you to buy the shares." The Doctor rose and went to the window.

"For God's sake don't do that, Sandie. Why, man, you gave me the best advice you knew, and there 's an end of it. It's the fortune of war, and we must take it without whining. I know whom you are thinking about, and I am . . . a bit sorry for Kate, for she ought to have lots of things—more dresses and trinkets, you know. But Davidson, she 'll be the bravest of the three."

"You are right there, Jack. Kate is of the true grit, but . . . Tochty Lodge."

"Yes, it will hit us pretty hard to see the old place sold, if it comes to that, when I hoped to end my days here . . . but, man, it's our fate. Bit by bit we 've lost Drumtochty, till there were just the woods and the two farms left, and soon we 'll be out of the place—nothing left but our graves.

"Sandie, this is bad form, and . . . you 'll not hear this talk again; we 'll get a billet somewhere, and wherever it be, there 'll be a bed and a crust for you, old man;" and at the door the two held one another's hands for a second; that was all.

"So this was what you two conspirators were talking about downstairs, as if I could not be trusted. Did you think that I would faint, or perhaps weep? The padre deserves a good scolding, and as for you—" Then Kate went over and cast an arm round her father's neck, whose face was quivering.

"It is rather a disappointment to leave the Lodge when we were getting it to our mind; but we 'll have a jolly little home somewhere, and I 'll get a chance of earning something. Dancing now—I think that I might be able to teach some girls how to waltz. Then my French is really intelligible, and most colloquial; besides revolver shooting. Dad, we are on our way to a fortune, and at the worst you 'll have your curry and cheroots, and I 'll have a well-fitting dress. Voila, mon pere."

When the two Drumtochty men arrived next forenoon at the hall in Glasgow, where the shareholders had been summoned to receive particulars of their ruin, the dreary place was filled with a crowd representative of every class in the community except the highest, whose wealth is in land, and the lowest, whose possessions are on their backs. There were city merchants, who could not conceal their chagrin that they had been befooled; countrymen, who seemed utterly dazed, as if the course of the seasons had been reversed; prosperous tradesmen, who were aggressive in appearance and wanted to take it out of somebody; widows, who could hardly restrain their tears, seeing before them nothing but starvation; clergymen, who were thinking of their boys taken from school and college. For a while the victims were silent, and watched with hungry eyes the platform door, and there was an eager rustle when some clerk came out and laid a bundle of papers on the table. This incident seemed to excite the meeting and set tongues loose. People began to talk to their neighbours explaining how they came to be connected with the bank, as if this were now a crime. One had inherited the shares and had never had resolution to sell them; another had been deceived by a friend and bought them; a third had taken over two shares for a bad debt. A minister thought that he must have been summoned by mistake, for he was simply a trustee on an estate which had shares, but he was plainly nervous about his position. An Ayrshire Bailie had only had his shares for six months, and he put it, to his circle, with municipal eloquence, whether he could be held responsible for frauds of years' standing. No one argued with him, and indeed you might say anything you pleased, for each was so much taken up with his own case that he only listened to you that he might establish a claim in turn on your attention. Here and there a noisy and confident personage got a larger audience by professing to have private information. A second-rate stockbroker assured quite a congregation that the assets of the bank included an estate in Australia, which would more than pay the whole debt, and advised them to see that it was not flung away; and a Government pensioner mentioned casually in his neighbourhood, on the authority of one of the managers, that there was not that day a solvent bank in Scotland. The different conversations rise to a babel, various speakers enforce their views on the floor with umbrellas, one enthusiast exhorts his brother unfortunates from a chair, when suddenly there is a hush, and then in a painful silence the shareholders hang on the lips of the accountant, from whom they learn that things could not be worse, that the richest shareholder may be ruined, and that ordinary people will lose their last penny.

Speech again breaks forth, but now it is despairing, fierce, vindictive. One speaker storms against Government which allows public institutions to defraud the public, and refers to himself as the widow and orphan, and another assails the directorate with bitter invective as liars and thieves, and insists on knowing whether they are to be punished. The game having now been unearthed, the pack follow in full cry. The tradesman tells with much gusto how one director asked the detectives for leave to have family prayers before he was removed, and then declares his conviction that when a man takes to praying you had better look after your watch. Ayrshire wished to inform the accountant and the authorities that the directors had conveyed to their wives and friends enormous sums which ought to be seized without delay. The air grew thick with upbraidings, complaints, cries for vengeance, till the place reeked with sordid passions. Through all this ignoble storm the Drumtochty men sat silent, amazed, disgusted, till at last the Doctor rose, and such authority was in his very appearance that with his first words he obtained a hearing.

"Mr. Accountant," he said, "and gentlemen, it appears to me as if under a natural provocation and suffering we are in danger of forgetting our due dignity and self-respect. We have been, as is supposed, the subjects of fraud on the part of those whom we trusted; that is a matter which the law will decide, and, if necessary, punish. If we have been betrayed, then the directors are in worse case than the shareholders, for we are not disgraced. The duty before us is plain, and must be discharged to our utmost ability. It is to go home and gather together our last penny for the payment of our debts, in order that at any rate those who have trusted us may not be disappointed. Gentlemen, it is evident that we have lost our means; let us show to Scotland that there is something which cannot be taken from us by any fraud, and that we have retained our courage and our honour."

It was the General who led the applause so that the roof of the hall rang, but it is just to Ayrshire and the rest to say that they came to themselves—all men of the old Scottish breed—and followed close after with a mighty shout.

The sound of that speech went through Scotland and awoke the spirit of honest men in many places, so that the Doctor, travelling next day to Muirtown, third class, with the General, and wedged in among a set of cattle dealers, was so abashed by their remarks as they read the Caledonian that the General let out the secret.

"Yir hand, sir," said the chief among them, a mighty man at the Falkirk Tryst; "gin it bena a leeberty, ilka ane o's hes a sair fecht tae keep straicht in oor wy o' business, but ye 've gien 's a lift the day," and so they must needs all have a grip of the Doctor's hand, who took snuff with prodigality, while the General complained of the smoke from the engine.

Nor were their trials over, for on Muirtown platform—it being Friday—all kinds of Perthshire men were gathered, and were so proud of our Doctor that before he got shelter in the Dunleith train his hand was sore, and the men that grasped it were of all kinds, from Lord Kilspindie—who, having missed him at the Manse, had come to catch him at the station—"Best sermon you ever preached, Davidson,"—to an Athole farmer—"I am an elder in the Free Kirk, but it iss this man that will be honouring you."

It was a fine instance of the unfailing tact of Peter Bruce that, seeing the carriage out of which the two came, and taking in the situation, he made no offer of the first class, but straightway dusted out a third with his handkerchief, and escorted them to it cap in hand. Drumtochty restrained itself with an effort in foreign parts—for Kildrummie was exceptionally strong at the Junction—but it waited at the terminus till the outer world had gone up the road. Then their own folk took the two in hand, and these were the guard of honour who escorted the Minister and the General to where our Kate was waiting with the dog-cart, each carrying some morsel of luggage—Drumsheugh, Burnbrae, Hillocks, Netherton, Jamie Soutar, and Archie Moncur. Kate drove gloriously through Kildrummie as if they had come from a triumph, and let it be said to the credit of that despised town, that, the news having come, every hat was lifted, but that which lasted till they got home, and till long afterwards, was the handshake of the Drumtochty men.



CHAPTER XXIII.

MARGET HOWE'S CONFESSIONAL.

When the General and Kate were loitering over breakfast the morning after the ovation, they heard the sound of a horse's feet on the gravel, and Donald came in with more his usual importance.

"It iss a messenger from Muirtown Castle, and he iss waiting to know whether there will be any answer." And Donald put one letter before the father and another before the daughter, both showing the Hay crest. Kate's face whitened as she recognised the handwriting on her envelope, and she went over to the window seat of a turret in the corner of the room, while the General opened his letter, standing on a tiger-skin, with his back to the fireplace in the great hall. This is what he read:

MY DEAR CARNEGIE,—When men have fought together in the trenches before Sebastopol, as their ancestors have ridden side by side with Prince Charlie, I hope you will agree with me they need not stand on ceremony. If I seem guilty of any indiscretion in what I am going to say, then you will pardon me for "Auld Lang Syne."

You have one daughter and I have one son, and so I do not need to tell you that he is very dear to me, and that I have often thought of his marriage, on which not only his own happiness so much depends, but also the future of our house and name. Very likely you have had some such thoughts about Kate, with this difference, that you would rather keep so winsome a girl with you, while I want even so good a son as Hay to be married whenever he can meet with one whom he loves, and who is worthy of him.

Hay never gave me an hour's anxiety, and has no entanglements of any kind, but on the subject of marriage I could make no impression. "Time enough," he would say, or "The other person has not turned up," and I was getting uneasy, for you and I are not so young as once we were. You may fancy my satisfaction, therefore, when George came down from Drumtochty last August and told me he had found the "other person," and that she was my old friend Jack Carnegie's daughter. Of course I urged him to make sure of himself, but now he has had ample opportunities during your two visits, and he is quite determined that his wife is to be Kate or nobody.

It goes without saying that the Countess and I heartily approve Hay's choice and are charmed with Kate, who is as bonnie as she is high-spirited. She sustains the old traditions of her family, who were ever strong and true, and she has a clever tongue, which neither you nor I have, Jack, nor Hay either, good fellow though he be, and that is not a bad thing for a woman nowadays. They would make a handsome pair, as they ought, with such good-looking fathers, eh?

Well, I am coming to my point, for in those circumstances I want your help. What Miss Carnegie thinks of Hay we don't know, and unless I 'm much mistaken she will decide for herself, but is it too much to ask you—if you can—to say a word for him? You are quite right to think that no man is worthy of Kate, but she is bound to marry some day—I can't conceive how you have kept her so long—and I am certain Hay will make a good husband, and he is simply devoted to her. If she refuses him, I am afraid he will not marry, and then—well, grant I'm selfish, but it would be a calamity to us.

Don't you think that it looks like an arrangement of Providence to unite two families that have shared common dangers and common faith in the past, and to establish a Carnegie once more as lady of Drumtochty? Now that is all, and it's a long screed, but the matter lies near my heart, and we shall wait the answers from you both with anxiety.

Yours faithfully,

KILSPINDIE.

Kate's letter was much shorter, and was written in big schoolboy hand with great care.

DEAR MISS CARNEGIE,—They say that a woman always knows when a man loves her, and if so you will not be astonished at this letter. From that day I saw you in Drumtochty Kirk I have loved you, and every week I love you more. My mother is the only other woman I have ever cared for, and that is different. Will you be my wife? I often wanted to ask you when you were with us in November and last month, but my heart failed me. Can you love me a little, enough to say yes? I am not clever, and I am afraid I shall never do anything to make you proud of me, but you will have all my heart, and I 'll do my best to make you happy.

I am, yours very sincerely,

HAY.

Carnegie could see Kate's face from his place, who was looking out of the window with a kindly expression, and her father, who was of a simple mind, and knew little of women, was encouraged by such visible friendliness. He was about to go over, when her face changed. She dropped the letter on the seat, and became very thoughtful, knitting her brows and resting her chin on her hand. In a little, something stung her—like a person recalling an injury—and she flushed with anger, drumming with her fingers on the sill of the window. Then anger gave place to sadness, as if she had resolved to do something that was inevitable, but less than the best. Kate glanced in her father's direction, and read Lord Hay's letter again; then she seemed to have made up her mind.

"Father," as she joined him on the skin beneath those loyal Carnegies on the wall, "there is Lord Hay's letter, and he is a . . . worthy gentleman. Perhaps I did not give him so much encouragement as he took, but that does not matter. This is a . . . serious decision, and ought not to be made on the spur of the moment. Will you let the messenger go with a note to say that an answer will be sent on Monday? You might write to Lord Kilspindie."

She was still standing in the place when he returned, and had been studying the proud, determined face of Black John's mother, who had not spared her only son for the good cause.

"Did you ever hear of any Carnegie, dad, who married beneath her, or . . . loved one on the other side?"

"Never," said her father. "Our women all married into loyal families of their own rank, which is best for comfort; but why do you ask? Hay is a . . ."

"Yes, I know; it was only . . . curiosity made me ask, and I suppose some of our women must have made sacrifices for their . . . cause?"

"Far more than the men ever did, for, see you, a man is just shot, and all is over, and before he falls he 's had some good fighting, but his wife suffers all her days, when he is living and when he is dead. Yet our women were the first to send their men to the field. Heavens! what women do suffer—they ought to have their reward."

"They have," said Kate, with emphasis, "if they help those whom they love. . . . Father, would you be quite satisfied with Lord Hay for a son-in-law, and . . . would you let us live with you here as much as we could?"

"Kate, if you are to marry—and I knew it must come some day—I have not seen a more honest man; but you are forgetting that Tochty Lodge will soon be out of our hands; I 'll have to get a bungalow somewhere, not too far away from Muirtown, I hope."

"If I marry Lord Hay, Tochty Lodge will not be sold, and you will never be disturbed, dad. We shall not be separated more than we can help," and Kate caressed the General.

"Do you mean, lassie," said the General, with a sudden suspicion, lilting her face till he saw her eyes, "that you are going to accept Hay in order to keep the old home? You must not do this, for it would not . . . don't you see that I . . . could not accept this at your hands?"

"You cannot prevent your daughter marrying Lord Hay if your daughter so decides, but as yet she is in doubt, very great doubt, and so I am going for a long walk on the big moor, and you . . . well, why not take lunch with the Padre at the manse?"

"Hay is a straight young fellow, and Kate would supply what he wants—a dash of go, you know"—so the General was summing up the situation to his old friend; "but my girl is not to marry Hay or any other man for my sake, and that is what she thinks of doing."

"Did it ever occur to you, Carnegie, that Kate had a . . . well, kindly feeling for any other man?"

"Plenty of fellows tried their luck: first subalterns, then aides-de-camp, and at last commissioners; it was no easy affair to be her father," and Carnegie gave Davidson a comic look. "I used to scold her, but upon my word I don't know she was to blame, and I am certain she did not care for one of them; in fact, she laughed at them all till—well, in fact, I had to interfere."

"And since you came to the Lodge"—the Doctor spoke with meaning—"besides Lord Hay?"

"Why, there is just yourself"—the Doctor nodded with much appreciation—"and that Free Kirkman. . . . Davidson, do you mean that—oh, nonsense, man; she was quite angry one day when I suggested a parson. Kate has always said that was the last man she would marry."

"That is an evidence she will."

The General stared at the oracle, and went on:

"She has made his life miserable at the Lodge with her tongue; she delighted in teasing him. Your idea is quite absurd."

"Carnegie, did you ever hear the classical couplet—

"Scarting and biting Mak Scots fouk's 'ooing;"

and although I admit the description applies in the first instance to milkmaids, yet there is a fair share of national character in the Carnegies."

"Do you really think that Kate is in . . . has, well, a, eh, tenderness to Carmichael? it would never have occurred to me."

"How would you look on Carmichael as a suitor?"

"Well, if Kate is to marry—and mind you I always prepared myself for that—I would of course prefer Hay, not because he is a lord, or rich, or any snobbery of that kind—you know me better than that, Sandie—but because he 's . . . you know . . . belongs to our own set.

"Don't you think there is something in that?" and the General tried to explain his honest mind, in which lived no unworthy or uncharitable thought. "I have not one word to say against Carmichael; he 's good-looking, and monstrous clever, and he has always made himself very agreeable, very, and the people swear by him in the Glen; but . . . you must understand what I mean, Davidson," and the General was in despair.

"You mean that though he 's a first-rate young fellow for a clergyman, he does not belong to your world—has a different set of friends, has different habits of living, has a different way of thinking and speaking—is, in fact, an outsider."

"That's it—just what I was 'ettling' after—lucky fellows we Scots with such words," and the General was immensely delighted to be delivered of his idea in an inoffensive form.

"It is my own belief, Carnegie—and you can laugh at me afterwards if I be wrong—that this will be the end of it, however. Yes, putting it plainly, that Kate is in love with Carmichael, as he is certainly with her; and you will have to make the best of the situation."

"You don't like the idea any more than I do, Davidson?"

"Speaking in perfect confidence and frankness, I do not. I look at the matter this way"—the Doctor stood on the hearth-rug in a judicial attitude, pulling down his waistcoat with his two hands, his legs apart, and his eye-glass on his nose—"Carmichael has been brought up among . . . plain, respectable people, and theological books, and church courts, and Free Kirk society, all of which is excellent, but . . . secluded"—the Doctor liked the word, which gave his mind without offence—"secluded. Kate is a Carnegie, was educated in France, has travelled in India, and has lived in the most exciting circumstances. She loves soldiers, war, gaiety, sport, besides many other . . . eh, good things, and is a . . . lovely girl. Love laughs at rules, but if you ask me my candid opinion, the marriage would not be . . . in fact, congruous. If it is to be, it must be, and God bless them both, say I, and so will everybody say; but it will be an experiment, a distinct and . . . interesting experiment."

"Kate is not to marry any one for my sake, to save Tochty, but I do wish she had fancied Lord Hay," said the General, ruefully.

"The Free Kirk folk in the depths of their hearts consider me a worldly old clergyman, and perhaps I am, for, Jack, I would dearly like to see our Kate Viscountess Hay, and to think that one day, when we three old fellows are gone, she would be Countess of Kilspindie." That was the first conference of the day on Kate's love affairs, and this is how it ended.

Meanwhile the young woman herself had gone up the road to the high Glen and made her way over dykes and through fields to Whinny Knowe, which she had often visited since the August Sacrament. Whinny came out from the kitchen door in corduroy trousers, much stained with soil, and grey shirt—wiping his mouth with the back of his hand after a hearty dinner—and went to the barn for his midday sleep before he went again to the sowing. Marget met her at the garden gate, dressed in her week-day clothes and fresh from a morning's churning, but ever refined and spiritual, as one whose soul is shining through the veil of common circumstances.

"It's a benison tae see ye on this bricht day, Miss Carnegie, an' ye 'll come tae the garden-seat, for the spring flooers are bloomin' bonnie and sweet the noo, an' fillin' 's a' wi' hope.

"Gin there be ony sun shinin'," as she spread a plaid, "the heat fa's here, an' save when the snow is heavy on the Glen, there 's aye some blossoms here tae mind us o' oor Father's love an' the world that isna seen."

"Marget," began Kate, not with a blush, but rather a richening of colour, "you have been awfully good to me, and have helped me in lots of ways, far more than you could dream of. Do you know you 've made me almost good at times, with just enough badness to keep me still myself, as when I flounced out from the Free Kirk."



Marget only smiled deprecation and affection, for her heart went out to this motherless, undisciplined girl, whom she respected, like a true Scot, because, although Kate had made her a friend, she was still a Carnegie; whom she loved, because, although Kate might be very provoking, she was honest to the core.

"To-day," Kate resumed, after a pause, and speaking with an unusual nervousness, "I want your advice on a serious matter, which I must decide, and which . . . concerns other people as well as myself. In fact, I would like to ask a question," and she paused to frame her case.

It was a just testimony to Marget Howe that Kate never thought of pledging her to secrecy, for there are people whom to suspect of dishonour is a sin.

"Suppose that a man . . . loved a woman, and that he was honourable, brave, gentle, true, in fact . . . a gentleman, and made her a proposal of marriage."

Marget was looking before her with calm, attentive face, never once glancing at Kate to supplement what was told.

"If . . . the girl accepted him, she would have a high position, and be rich, so that she could . . . save her . . . family from ruin, and keep . . . them in the house they loved."

Marget listened with earnest intelligence.

"She respects this man, and is grateful to him. She is certain that he would be . . . kind to her, and give her everything she wanted. And she thinks that he . . . would be happy."

Marget waited for the end.

"But she does not love him—that is all."

As the tale was being told in, brief, clear, slow sentences, Marget's eyes became luminous, and her lips opened as one ready to speak from an inner knowledge.

"Ye hev let me see a piece o' life, an' it is sacred, for naethin' on earth is sae near God as luve, an' a 'll no deny that ma woman's heart is wi' that honest gentleman, an' a' the mair gin he dinna win his prize.

"But a man often comes tae his heicht through disappointment, and a woman, she hes tae learn that there is that which she hes the richt tae give for gratitude or friendship's sake, and that which can only be bestowed by the hand o' luve.

"It will maybe help ye gin a' tell ye anither tale, an' though it be o' humble life, yet oor hearts are the same in the castle and the cottar's hoose, wi' the same cup o' sorrow tae drink an' the same croon o' joy tae wear, an' the same dividin' o' roads for oor trial.

"There wes a man showed a wumman muckle kindness, and to her fouk also, an' he wes simple an' honest, an' for what he hed done an' because there wes nae evil in him she married him."

"And what has happened?" Kate, being half Highland, had less patience than Marget.

"He hes been a gude man tae her through the dark an' through the licht, an' she hes tried tae repay him as a puir imperfect wumman can, an' her hert is warm to him, but there hes aye been ae thing wantin'—an' it hes been that wife's cross a' her life—there wes nae ither man, but her husband wesna, isna, canna be her ain a'thegither an' for ever—for the want o' luve—that luve o' luve that maks marriage."

Her voice was laden with feeling, and it was plain that she had given of her own and deepest for the guiding of another.

"Marget, I can never be grateful enough to you for what you have shown me this day." As she passed Whinny with his bag of seed, he apologised for his wife.

"A 'm dootin', Miss Carnegie, the gude-wife hes keepit ye ower lang in the gairden haiverin' awa' aboot the flooers an' her ither trokes. But she 's michty prood for a' that aboot yir comin' up tae veesit us."

Such was the second conference on Kate's affairs on that day.

No place could be more thoroughly cleansed from vulgar curiosity than our Glen, or have a finer contempt for "clatters," but the atmosphere was electrical in the diffusion of information. What happened at Burnbrae was known at the foot of Glen Urtach by evening, and the visit of spiritual consolation which Milton, in the days of his Pharisaism, paid to Jamie Soutar on his deathbed was the joy of every fireside in Drumtochty within twenty-four hours. Perhaps it was not, therefore, remarkable that the arrival of Lord Kilspindie's groom at Tochty Lodge post haste with two letters on Saturday morning—one for the General from his Lordship, and one from his son for Miss Kate—should have been rightly interpreted, and the news spread with such rapidity that Hillocks—a man not distinguished above his fellows for tact—was able to inform Carmichael in the early afternoon that the marriage between the young lord and the "Miss" at Tochty was now practically arranged.

"It's been aff and on a' winter, an' the second veesit tae the Castle settled it, but a 'm hearin' it wes the loss o' the Lodge brocht the fast offer this mornin'. She 's an able wumman, an' cairried her gear tae the best market. Ma certes," and Hillocks contemplated Kate's achievement with sympathetic admiration, "but she 'll set her place weel, an' haud her ain wi' the Duchess o' Athole."

Carmichael ought perhaps to have taken his beating like a man, and said nothing to any one, but instead thereof he betook himself for consolation to Marget, a better counsellor in a crisis than Janet, with all her Celtic wiles, and Marget set him in the very seat where Kate had put her case.

"It has, I suppose, been all a dream, and now I have awaked, but it was . . . a pleasant dream, and one finds the morning light a little chill. One must just learn to forget, and be as if one had never . . . dreamed," but Carmichael looked at Marget wistfully.

"Ye canna be the same again, for a' coont, gin ony man loves a wumman wi' a leal hert, whether she answer or no, or whether she even kens, he 's been the gainer, an' the harvest will be his for ever.

"It hes seemed to me that nae luve is proved an' crooned for eternity onless the man hes forgotten himsel' an' is willin' tae live alane gin the wumman he luves sees prosperity. He only is the perfect lover, and for him God hes the best gifts.

"Yes, a 've seen it wi' ma ain eyes,"—for indeed this seemed to Carmichael an impossible height of self-abnegation,—"a man who loved an' served a wumman wi' his best an' at a great cost, an' yet for whom there cud be no reward but his ain luve." Marget's face grew so beautiful as she told of the constancy of this unknown, unrewarded lover that Carmichael left without further speech, but with a purer vision of love than had ever before visited his soul. Marget watched him go down the same path by which Kate went, and she said to herself, "Whether or no he win is in the will of God, but already luve hes given his blessin' tae man and maid."

Kate did not go to kirk on Sunday, but lived all day in the woods, and in the evening she kissed her father and laid this answer in his hands:—

DEAR LORD HAY,—You have done me the greatest honour any woman can receive at your hands, and for two days I have thought of nothing else. If it were enough that your wife should like and respect you, then I would at once accept you as my betrothed, but as it is plain to me that no woman ought to marry any one unless she also loves him, I am obliged to refuse one of the truest men I have ever met, for whom I have a very kindly place in my heart, and whose happiness I shall always desire.—Believe me, yours sincerely,

KATE CARNEGIE.

"You could do nothing else, Kit, and you have done right to close the matter . . . but I 'm sorry for Hay."



CHAPTER XXIV.

LOVE IS LORD.

It could not be said with a steady face that the proceedings of the Free Kirk Presbytery of Muirtown increased the gaiety of nations, and there might be persons—far left to themselves, of course—who would describe its members as wearisome ecclesiastics. Carmichael himself, in a mood of gay irresponsibility, had once sketched a meeting of this reverend court, in which the names were skilfully adapted, after the ancient fashion, to represent character, and the incidents, if not vero, were certainly ben trovato, and had the article ready for transmission to Ferrier's Journal. 'A Sederunt' did not, however, add to the miseries of a most courteous editor, for Jenkins, having come up for an all-night conference, and having heard the article with unfeigned delight, pointed out that, if it were accepted, which Carmichael's experience did not certify, the writer would be run down within fourteen days, and that, so unreasonable a thing is human nature, some of the Presbytery might be less than pleased with their own likenesses. "It 's in the waste-paper basket," Carmichael said next morning, which, as the author was twenty-five years of age, and not conspicuously modest, is a conclusive testimonial to the goodness of one Presbytery, and its hold on the affection of its members.

Scots take their pleasures sadly, and no one can imagine from what arid soil they may not draw their nutriment, but it was not for motions of ponderous ambiguity and pragmatical points of order, that the minister of Kincairney rose before daybreak on a winter's morning, and worked his way to the nearest station, with the stars still overhead, and the snow below his feet, so that when the clerk made a sign to the Moderator punctually at one minute past eleven to "constitute the Presbytery," he might not be missing from his place. It was the longing of a lonely man, across whose front door no visitor had come for weeks, for friendly company; of a weary minister, discouraged by narrow circumstances, monotonous routine, unexpected disappointments among his people, for a word of good cheer. A cynical stranger might discover various stupidities, peculiarities, provincialisms in the Presbytery—he knew himself who had a temper, and who was a trifle sensitive about his rights—but this middle-aged, hard-working, simple-living man saw twenty faithful brethren—the elders did not count in this connection, for they did not understand—who stood beside him on occasion at the Holy Table, and gave him advice in his perplexities, and would bury him with honest regret when he died, and fight like wild cats that his widow and children should have their due. His toilsome journey was forgotten when Doctor Dowbiggin, in an interstice of motions, came across the floor and sat down beside him, and whispered confidentially, "Well, how are things going on at Kincairney?"—Dowbiggin really deserved his leadership—or when the clerk, suddenly wheeling round in his seat, would pass his snuff-box across to him without a word, for the clerk had a way of handing his box, which, being interpreted, ran as follows:—"You suppose that I am lifted above all ordinary affairs in my clerkly isolation, and that I do not know what a solid work you are doing for God and man in the obscure parish of Kincairney, but you are wrong. You have a very warm corner in my memory, and in sign thereof accept my box." And the said minister, trudging home that evening, and being met at a certain turn of the road by his wife—sentimental at fifty, you see, after a quarter of a century's toiling and preaching—would enlarge on Doctor Dowbiggin's cordiality, and the marked courtesy of the clerk, and when they were alone in the manse, his wife would kiss him—incredible to our cynic—and say, "You see, Tom, more people than I know what a good work you are doing," and Tom would start his twenty-first lecture on the Ephesians next morning with new spirit. Such is the power of comradeship, such is the thirst for sympathy; and indeed there is no dog either so big or so little that it does not appreciate a pat, and go down the street afterwards with better heart.

The Presbytery had always a tender regard for the Free Kirk of Drumtochty, and happened to treat Carmichael with much favour. When the "call" to him was signed at once by every member of the congregation, the clerk—who had been obliged to summon Donald Menzies from Gaelic by the intimation that Drumtochty was by the law of the Church "uni-lingual, and that all proceedings must be conducted in the English language"—arose and declared that "such unanimous attention to their ecclesiastical duties was unexampled in his experience;" and when at Carmichael's ordination a certain certificate was wanting, the clerk, whose intervention was regarded with awe, proposed that the court should anticipate its arrival, dealing with the matter "proleptically," and the court saw in the very word another proof of the clerk's masterly official genius. It was he also—expressing the mind of the Presbytery—who proposed that the Court should send Carmichael as a commissioner to the General Assembly in the first year of his ministry, and took occasion to remark that Mr. Carmichael, according to "reliable information at his disposal," was rendering important service to the Free Church in his sphere at Drumtochty. Carmichael was very happy in those days, and was so petted by his ecclesiastical superiors that he never missed a meeting of court, where he either sat in a demure silence, which commended him greatly to the old men, or conversed with his friends on a back bench about general affairs.

It gave him, therefore, a shock to sit with his brethren in the month of June—when the walk through the woods had been a joy, and Muirtown lay at her fairest, and the sunshine filled the court-room, and every man had a summer air, and Doctor Dowbiggin actually wore a rose in his coat—and to discover that he himself was sick of his old friends, of his work, of his people, of himself. The reasons were obvious. Was it not a sin that thirty Christian men should be cooped up in a room passing schedules when the summer was young and fresh upon the land? Could any one of the Rabbi's boys sit in that room and see his accustomed place—a corner next the wall on a back seat—empty, and not be cast down? Besides, does not a minister's year begin in September and end in July, and before it closes is not the minister at his lowest, having given away himself for eleven months? "One begins to weary for a rest," he whispered to Kincairney, and that worthy man explained that he and his wife had been planning their triennial holiday, and hoped to have a fortnight in Carnoustie. Carmichael realised his hypocrisy in that instant, for he knew perfectly that he had lost touch with life because of a hopeless love, and a proud face he had not seen a year ago. He flung himself out of the court with such impatience that the clerk stayed his hand in the midst of the sacred words pro re nata, and Kincairney mentioned to his wife in the evening that Carmichael had never got over Doctor Saunderson's death.

Carmichael wandered up one of the meadows which are the glory of Muirtown, and sat down by the queen of Scottish rivers, which runs deep and swift, clean and bright, from Loch Tay to the sea, between wooded banks and overhanging trees, past cornfields and ancient castles; a river for him who swims, or rows, or fishes, or dreams, in which, if such were to be his fate, a man might ask to be drowned. Opposite him began the woods of Muirtown Castle, and he tried to be glad that Kate . . . Miss Carnegie would one day be their mistress: the formal announcement of her engagement, he had heard, was to be made next week, on Lord Kilspindie's birthday. A distant whistle came on the clear air from Muirtown station, where . . . and all this turmoil of hope and fear, love and despair, had been packed into a few months. There is a bend in the river where he sits, and the salmon fishers have dropped their nets, and are now dragging them to the bank. With a thrill of sympathy Carmichael watched the fish struggling in the meshes, and his heart leapt when, through some mishandling, one escaped with a flash of silver and plunged into the river. He had also been caught quite suddenly in the joyous current of his life and held in bonds. Why should he not make a bold plunge for freedom, which he could never have with the Lodge at his doors, with the Castle only twelve miles away? He had been asked in his student days to go to the north-west of Canada and take charge of a parish fifty miles square. The idea had for a little fired his imagination, and then faded before other ambitions. It revived with power on the banks of that joyful, forceful river, and he saw himself beginning life again on the open prairie lands—riding, camping, shooting, preaching—a free man and an apostle to the Scottish Dispersion.

With this bracing resolution, that seemed a call of God to deliver him from bondage, came a longing to visit Kilbogie Manse and the Rabbi's grave. It was a journey of expiation, for Carmichael followed the road the Rabbi walked with the hand of death upon him after that lamentable Presbytery, and he marked the hills where the old man must have stood and fought for breath. He could see Mains, where he had gone with Doctor Saunderson to the exposition, and he passed the spot where the Rabbi had taken farewell of George Pitillo in a figure. What learning, and simplicity, and unselfishness, and honesty, and affection were mingled in the character of the Rabbi! What skill, and courage, and tenderness, and self-sacrifice, and humility there had been also in William MacLure, who had just died! Carmichael dwelt on the likeness and unlikeness of the two men, who had each loved the highest he knew and served his generation according to the will of God, till he found himself again with the Drumtochty doctor on his heroic journeys, with the Rabbi in his long vigils. It was a singular means of grace to have known two such men in the flesh, when he was still young and impressionable. A spiritual emotion possessed Carmichael. He lifted his heart to the Eternal, and prayed that if on account of any hardship he shrank from duty he might remember MacLure, and if in any intellectual strait he was tempted to palter with truth he might see the Rabbi pursuing his solitary way. The district was full of the Rabbi, who could not have gone for ever, who might appear any moment—buried in a book and proceeding steadily in the wrong direction. The Rabbi surely was not dead, and Carmichael drifted into that dear world of romance where what we desire comes to pass, and facts count for nothing. This was how the Idyll went. From the moment of the reconciliation the Rabbi's disease began to abate in a quite unheard of fashion—love wrought a miracle—and with Kate's nursing and his he speedily recovered. Things came right between Kate and himself as they shared their task of love, and so . . . of course—it took place last month—and now he was going to carry off the Rabbi, who somehow had not come to the Presbytery, to Drumtochty, where his bride would meet them both beneath the laburnum arch at the gate. He would be cunning as he approached the door of Kilbogie Manse, and walk on the grass border lest the Rabbi, poring over some Father, should hear the crunch of the gravel—he did know his footstep—and so he would take the old man by surprise. Alas! he need not take such care, for the walk was now as the border with grass, and the gate was lying open, and the dead house stared at him with open, unconscious eyes, and knew him not. The key was in the door, and he crossed the threshold once more—no need to beware of parcels on the floor now—and turned to the familiar room. The shelves had been taken down, but he could trace their lines on the ancient discoloured paper that was now revealed for the first time; there, where a new shutter was resting against the wall, used to stand the "seat of the fathers," and exactly in the midst of that heap of straw the Rabbi had his chair. . . .

"Ye 've come tae see hoo we 're getting on wi' the repairs"—it was the joiner of Kilbogie; "it's no a licht job, for there 's nae doot the hoose hes been awfu' negleckit. The Doctor wes a terrible scholar, but he wudna hae kent that the slates were aff the roof till the drap cam intae his bed.

"Ou aye, the manse is tae be papered an' pented for the new minister; a' cud show ye the papers; juist as ye please; they're verra tasty an' showy. He's tae be married at once, a 'm hearin', an' this is tae be the drawin'-room; he wes here ten days syne—the day after he wes eleckit: they 're aye in a hurry when they 're engaged—an' seleckit a sma' room upstairs for his study; he didna think he wud need as lairge a room for bukes, an' he thocht the auld study wud dae fine for pairties.

"There 's juist ae room feenished, an' ye micht like tae see the paper on 't; it's a yellow rose on a licht blue grund; a 'm jidgin' it wes the Doctor's ain room. Weel, it's a gude lang wy tae Drumtochty, an' ye 'll no be wantin' tae pit aff time, a' daresay."

It was a terrible douche of prose, and Carmichael was still shivering when he reached the kindly shade of Tochty woods. He had seen the successful candidate at the Presbytery arranging about his "trial discourses" with the clerk—who regarded him dubiously—and he had heard some story about his being a "popular hand," and bewitching the young people with a sermon on the "good fight," with four heads "the soldier," "the battle-field," "the battle," and "the crown"—each with an illustration, an anecdote, and a verse of poetry. Carmichael recognised the type, and already saw the new minister of Kilbogie, smug and self-satisfied, handing round cream and sugar in the Rabbi's old study, while his wife, a stout young woman in gay clothing, pours tea from a pot of florid design, and bearing a blazing marriage inscription. There would be a soiree in the kirk, where the Rabbi had opened the mysteries of God, and his successor would explain how unworthy he felt to follow Doctor Saunderson, and how he was going to reorganise the congregation, and there would be many jocose allusions to his coming marriage; but Carmichael would by that time have left the district.

No one can walk a mile in Tochty woods, where there are little glades of mossy turf, and banks of violets and geraniums, and gentle creatures on ground and branch, and cool shade from the summer sun, and the sound of running water by your side, without being sweetened and comforted. Bitter thoughts and cynical criticisms, as well as vain regrets and peevish complaints, fell away from Carmichael's soul, and gave place to a gentle melancholy. He came to the heart of the wood, where was the lovers' grave, and the place seemed to invite his company. A sense of the tears of things came over him, and he sat down by the river-side to meditate. It was two hundred years and more since the lassies died, who were never wedded, and for him there was not even to be love. The ages were linked together by a long tragedy of disappointment and vanity, but the Tochty ran now as in the former days. What was any human life but a drop in the river that flowed without ceasing to the unknown sea? What could any one do but yield himself to necessity, and summon his courage to endure? Then at the singing of a bird his mood lightened and was changed, as if he had heard the Evangel. God was over all, and life was immortal, and he could not be wrong who did the will of God. After a day of conflict, peace came to his soul, and in the soft light of the setting sun he rose to go home.



"Miss Carnegie . . . I did not know you were here . . . I thought you were in London," and Carmichael stood before Kate in great confusion.

"Nor did I see you behind that tree"—Kate herself was startled. "Yes, the General and I have been visiting some old friends, and only came home an hour ago.

"Do you know"—Kate was herself again—"the first thing I do on arrival is to make a pilgrimage to this place. Half an hour here banishes the dust of a day's journey and of . . .

"Besides, I don't know whether you have heard"—Kate spoke hurriedly—"that it is now settled that I . . . we will be leaving the Lodge soon, and one wants to have as much as possible of the old place in the time remaining."

She gave him this opportunity in kindness, as it seemed, and he reproached himself because he did not offer his congratulations.

"You will, I . . . the people hope, come often here, Miss Carnegie, and not cast off Drumtochty, although the Lodge be not your home. You will always have a place in the hearts of the Glen. Marjorie will never be grateful enough for your readings," which was bravely said.

"Do you think that I can ever forget the Glen and my . . . friends here? Not while I live; the Carnegies have their own faults, but ingratitude is not one. Nor the dear Rabbi's grave." Then there was silence, which Carmichael found very trying—they had been so near that day in Kilbogie Manse, with only the Rabbi, who loved them both, between; but now, although they stood face to face, there was a gulf dividing them.

"It may not be easy for me to visit Drumtochty often, for you know there has been a change . . . in our circumstances, and one must suit oneself to it."

Carmichael flushed uneasily, and Kate supposed that he was sympathising with their losses.

"I hope to be a busy woman soon, with lots of work, and I shall use every one of my little scraps of knowledge. How do you think I shall acquit myself in my new role?"

It was a little hard on Carmichael, who was thinking of a countess, while Kate meant a governess.

"You need not ask me how I think you will do as . . . in any position, and I . . . wish you every success, and . . . (with a visible effort) happiness."

He spoke so stiffly that Kate sought about for reasons, and could only remember their quarrel and imagine he retained a grudge—which she thought was rather ungenerous.

"It occurs to me that one man ought to be thankful when we depart, for then he will be able to call Queen Mary names every Sunday without a misguided Jacobite girl dropping in to create a disturbance."

"Drumtochty will have to form its own opinion of poor Mary without my aid," and Carmichael smiled sadly in pardon of the past, "for it is likely, although no one knows this in the Glen, that I shall soon be far away."

"Leaving Drumtochty? What will Marjorie do without you, and Dr. Davidson, and . . . all the people?" Then, remembering Janet's gossip, and her voice freezing, "I suppose you have got a better or more convenient living. The Glen is certainly rather inaccessible."

"Have I done anything, Miss Carnegie, to justify you in thinking that I would leave the Glen, which has been so good to me, for . . . worldly reasons? There is enough to support an unmarried man, and I am not likely to . . . to marry," said Carmichael, bitterly; "but there are times when it is better for a man to change his whole surroundings and make a new life."

It was clear that the Bailie's daughter was a romance of Janet's Celtic imagination, and Kate's manner softened.

"The Rabbi's death and . . . your difference of opinion—something about doctrine, was n't it? we were from home—must have been a great trial, and, as there was no opportunity before, let me say how much we sympathised with you and . . . thought of you.

"Do you think, however, Mr. Carmichael"—she spoke with hesitation, but much kindness—"that you ought to fling up your work here on that account? Would not the Rabbi himself have wished you to stick to your post? . . . and all your friends would like to think you had been . . . brave."

"You are cruel, Miss Carnegie; you try me beyond what I can endure, although I shall be ashamed to-night for what I am to say. Do you not know or guess that it is your . . . on account of you, I mean, that I must leave Drumtochty?"

"On account of me?" Kate looked at him in unaffected amazement.

"Are you blind, or is it that you could not suspect me of such presumption? Had you no idea that night in Dr. Davidson's drawing-room? Have you never seen that I . . . Kate—I will say it once to your face as I say it every hour to myself—you won my heart in an instant on Muirtown Station, and will hold it till I die.

"Do not speak till I be done, and then order me from your presence as I deserve, I know that it is unworthy of a gentleman, and . . . a minister of Christ to say such things to the betrothed of another man; only one minute more"—for Kate had started as if in anger—"I know also that if I were stronger I could go on living as before, and meet you from time to time when you came from the Castle with your husband, and never allow myself to think of Lady Hay as I felt to Miss Carnegie. But I am afraid of myself, and . . . this is the last time we shall meet, Miss Carnegie. Forgive me for my love, and believe that one man will ever remember and . . . pray for you."

Carmichael bowed low, the last sunshine of the evening playing on his fair hair, and turned to go.

"One word, if you please," said Kate, and they looked into one another's eyes, the blue and brown, seeing many things that cannot be written. "You may be forgiven for . . . loving me, because you could not help that"—this with a very roguish look, our Kate all over—"and I suppose you must be forgiven for listening to foolish gossip, since people will tell lies"—this with a stamp of the foot, our Kate again—"but I shall never forgive you if you leave me, never"—this was a new Kate, like to the opening of a flower.

"Why? Tell me plainly," and in the silence Carmichael heard a trout leap in the river.

"Because I love you."

The Tochty water sang a pleasant song, and the sun set gloriously behind Ben Urtach.

THE END