The schoolmaster burst out laughing at him.

"I'm feart to speyk, sir," said Malcolm. "Whatever I say, I'm bun' to mak a fule o' mysel'! What in plain words div ye mean, sir?"

"Somebody has been accusing me of teaching heresy—in the school to my scholars, and in my own house to the fisherfolk: the presbytery has taken it up, and here is my summons to appear before them and answer to the charge."

"Guid preserve 's, sir! And is this the first ye hae h'ard o't?"

"The very first."

"An' what are ye gauin' to do?"

"Appear, of course."

"An' what 'll ye say to them?"

"I shall answer their questions."

"They 'll condemn ye!"

"I do not doubt it."

"An' what neist?"

"I shall have to leave Scotland, I suppose."

"Sir, it 's awfu'."

The horror stricken expression of Malcolm's face drew a second merry laugh from Mr Graham.

"They can't burn me," he said: "you needn't look like that."

"But there's something terrible wrang, sir, whan sic men hae pooer ower sic a man.

"They have no power but what's given them. I shall accept their decision as the decree of heaven."

"It's weel to be you, sir—'at can tak a thing sae quaiet."

"You mustn't suppose I am naturally so philosophical. It stands for five and forty years of the teaching of the Son of Man in this wonderful school of his, where the clever would be destroyed but for the stupid, where the church would tear itself to pieces but for the laws of the world, and where the wicked themselves are the greatest furtherance of godliness in the good."

"But wha ever cud hae been baze eneuch to du 't!" said Malcolm, too much astounded for his usual eager attention to the words that fell from the master.

"That I would rather not inquire," answered Mr Graham. "In the meantime it would be better if the friends would meet somewhere else, for this house is mine only in virtue of my office. Will you tell them so for me?"

"Surely, sir. But will ye no mak ane?"

"Not till this is settled. I will after, so long as I may be here."

"Gien onybody had been catecheesin' the bairns, I wad surely hae h'ard o' 't!" said Malcolm, after a pause of rumination, "Poochy wad hae tellt me. I saw him thestreen (yestereven).—Wha 'll ever say again a thing's no poassible!"

"Whatever doctrine I may have omitted to press in the school," said Mr Graham, "I have inculcated nothing at variance with the Confession of Faith or the Shorter Catechism."

"Hoo can ye say that, sir?" returned Malcolm, "whan, in as weel's oot o' the schuil, ye hae aye insistit 'at God 's a just God— abune a' thing likin' to gie fair play?"

"Well, does the Catechism say anything to the contrary?"

"No in sae mony words, doobtless; but it says a sicht o' things 'at wad mak God oot the maist oonrichteous tyrant 'at ever was."

"I 'm not sure you can show that logically," said Mr Graham. "I will think it over, however—not that I mean to take up any defence of myself. But now I have letters to write, and must ask you to leave me. Come and see me again tomorrow."

Malcolm went from him—

like one that hath been stunned, And is of sense forlorn.

Here was trouble upon trouble! But what had befallen him compared with what had come upon the schoolmaster! A man like him to be so treated! How gladly he would work for him all the rest of his days! And how welcome his grandfather would make him to his cottage! Lord Lossie would be the last to object. But he knew it was a baseless castle while he built it, for Mr Graham would assuredly provide for himself, if it were by breaking stones on the road and saying the Lord's Prayer. It all fell to pieces just as he lifted his hand to Miss Horn's knocker.

She received him with a cordiality such as even she had never shown him before. He told her what threatened Mr Graham. She heard him to the end without remark, beyond the interjection of an occasional "Eh, sirs!" then sat for a minute in troubled silence.

"There's a heap o' things an 'uman like me," she said at length, "canna un'erstan'. I didna ken whether some fowk mair nor preten' to un'erstan' them. But set Sandy Graham doon upo' ae side, an' the presbytery doon upo' the ither, an' I hae wit eneuch to ken whilk I wad tak my eternal chance wi'. Some o' the presbytery's guid eneuch men, but haena ower muckle gumption; an' some o' them has plenty o' gumption, but haena ower muckle grace, ta jeedge by the w'y 'at they glower an' rair, layin' doon the law as gien the Almichty had been driven to tak coonsel wi' them. But luik at Sandy Graham! Ye ken whether he has gumption or no; an' gien he be a stickit minister, he stack by the grace o' moadesty. But, haith, I winna peety him! for, o' a' things, to peety a guid man i' the richt gate is a fule's folly. Troth, I'm a hantle mair concernt about yersel', Ma'colm!"

Malcolm heard her without apprehension. His cup seemed full, and he never thought that cups sometimes run over. But perhaps he was so far the nearer to a truth: while the cup of blessing may and often does run over, I doubt if the cup of suffering is ever more than filled to the brim.

"Onything fresh, mem?" he asked, with the image of Mrs Stewart standing ghastly on the slopes of his imagination.

"I wadna be fit to tell ye, laddie, gien 't warna, as ye ken, 'at the Almichty 's been unco mercifu' to me i' the maitter o' feelin's. Yer freen's i' the Seaton, an' ower at Scaurnose, hae feelin's, an' that 's hoo nane o' them a' has pluck it up hert to tell ye o' the waggin' o' slanderous tongues against ye."

"What are they sayin' noo?" asked Malcolm with considerable indifference.

"Naither mair nor less than that ye 're the father o' an oonborn wean," answered Miss Horn.

"I dinna freely unnerstan' ye," returned Malcolm, for the unexpectedness of the disclosure was scarcely to be mastered at once.

I shall not put on record the plain form of honest speech whereby she made him at once comprehend the nature of the calumny. He started to his feet, and shouted "Wha daur say that?" so loud that the listening Jean almost fell down the stair.

"Wha sud say 't but the lassie hersel'?" answered Miss Horn simply. "She maun hae the best richt to say wha's wha."

"It wad better become anybody but her," said Malcolm.

"What mean ye there, laddie?" cried Miss Horn, alarmed.

"'At nane cud ken sae weel 's hersel' it was a damned lee. Wha is she?"

"Wha but Meg Partan's Lizzy!"

"Puir lassie! is that it?—Eh, but I'm sorry for her! She never said it was me. An' whaever said it, surely ye dinna believe 't o' me, mem?"

"Me believe 't! Malcolm MacPhail, wull ye daur insult a maiden wuman 'at's stude clear o' reproch till she's lang past the danger o' 't? It's been wi' unco sma' diffeeclety, I maun alloo, for I haena been led into ony temptation!"

"Eh, mem!" returned Malcolm, perceiving by the flash of her eyes and the sudden halt of her speech that she was really indignant— "I dinna ken what I hae said to anger ye!"

"Anger me! quo' he? What though I hae nae feelin's! Will he daur till imaigine 'at he wad be sittin' there, an' me haudin' him company, gien I believed him cawpable o' turnin' oot sic a meeserable, contemptible wratch! The Lord come atween me an' my wrath!"

"I beg yer pardon, mem. A body canna aye put things thegither afore he speyks. I 'm richt sair obleeged till ye for takin' my pairt."

"I tak naebody's pairt but my ain, laddie. Obleeged to me for haein' a wheen common sense—a thing 'at I was born wi'! Toots! Dinna haiver."

"Weel, mem, what wad ye hae me du? I canna sen' my auld daddie roon the toon wi' his pipes, to procleem 'at I'm no the man. I 'm thinkin' I 'll hae to lea' the place."

"Wad ye sen' yer daddy roun' wi' the pipes to say 'at ye was the man? Ye micht as weel du the tane as the tither. Mony a better man has been waur misca'd, an' gart fowk forget that ever the lee was lee'd. Na, na; never rim frae a lee. An' never say, naither, 'at ye didna du the thing, 'cept it be laid straucht to yer face. Lat a lee lie i' the dirt. Gien ye pike it up, the dirt 'll stick till ye, though ye fling the lee ower the dyke at the warl's en'. Na, na! Lat a lee lie, as ye wad the deevil's tail 'at the laird's Jock took aff wi' the edge o' 's spaud."

"A' thing 's agane me the noo!" sighed Malcolm.

"Auld Jobb ower again!" returned Miss Horn almost sarcastically. "The deil had the warst o' 't though, an' wull hae, i' the lang hinner en'. Meanwhile ye maun face him. There's nae airmour for the back aither i' the Bible or i' the Pilgrim's Progress."

"What wad ye hae me du, than, mem?"

"Du? Wha said ye was to du onything? The best duin whiles is to bide still. Lat ye the jaw (wave) gae ower ohn joukit (without ducking)."

"Gien I binna to du onything, I maist wiss I hadna kent," said Malcolm, whose honourable nature writhed under the imputed vileness.

"It's aye better to ken in what licht ye stan' wi' ither fowk. It hauds ye ohn lippent ower muckle, an' sae dune things or made remarks 'at wad be misread till ye. Ye maun haud an open ro'd, 'at the trowth whan it comes oot may have free course. The ae thing 'at spites me is, 'at the verra fowk 'at was the first to spread yer ill report, 'ill be the first to wuss ye weel whan the trowth's kent—ay, an they 'll persuaud their verra sel's 'at they stuck up for ye like born brithers."

"There maun be some jeedgement upo' leein'!"

"The warst wuss I hae agane ony sic back biter is that he may live to be affrontit at himsel'. Efter that he'll be guid eneuch company for me. Gang yer wa's, laddie; say yer prayers, an' haud up yer heid. Wha wadna raither be accused o' a' the sins o' the comman'ments nor be guilty o' ane o' them?"

Malcolm did hold up his head as he walked away.

Not a single person was in the street Far below, the sea was chafing and tossing—grey green broken into white. The horizon was formless with mist, hanging like thin wool from the heavens down to the face of the waters, against which the wind, which had shifted round considerably towards the north, and blew in quicker coming and more menacing gusts, appeared powerless. He would have gone to the sands and paced the shore till nightfall, but that he would not expose himself thus to unfriendly eyes and false judgments. He turned to the right instead, and walked along the top of the cliffs eastward. Buffeted by winds without and hurrying fancies within, he wandered on until he came near Colonsay Castle, at sight of which the desire awoke in him to look again on the scene of Lady Florimel's terror. He crossed the head of the little bay and descended into the heart of the rock. Even there the wind blew dank and howling through all the cavernous hollows. As he approached the last chamber, out of the Devil's Window flew, with clanging wing, an arrow barbed seagull, down to the grey veiled tumult below, and the joy of life for a moment seized his soul. But the next, the dismay of that which is forsaken was upon him. It was not that the once lordly structure lay abandoned to the birds and the gusts, but that she would never think of the place without an instant assay at forgetfulness. He turned and reascended, feeling like a ghost that had been wandering through the forlorn chambers of an empty skull.

When he rose on the bare top of the ruin, a heavy shower from the sea was beating slant against the worn walls and gaping clefts. Myriads of such rains had, with age long inevitableness, crumbled away the strong fortress till its threatful mass had sunk to an abject heap. Thus all devouring Death—nay, nay! it is all sheltering, all restoring mother Nature, receiving again into her mighty matrix the stuff worn out in the fashioning toil of her wasteful, greedy, and slatternly children. In her genial bosom, the exhausted gathers life, the effete becomes generant, the disintegrate returns to resting and capable form. The rolling oscillating globe dips it for an aeon in growing sea, lifts it from the sinking waters of its thousand year bath to the furnace of the sun, remodels and remoulds, turns ashes into flowers, and divides mephitis into diamonds and breath. The races of men shift and hover like shadows over her surface, while, as a woman dries her garment before the household flame, she turns it, by portions, now to and now from the sun heart of fire. Oh joy that all the hideous lacerations and vile gatherings of refuse which the worshippers of mammon disfigure the earth withal, scoring the tale of their coming dismay on the visage of their mother, shall one day lie fathoms deep under the blessed ocean, to be cleansed and remade into holy because lovely forms! May the ghosts of the men who mar the earth, turning her sweet rivers into channels of filth, and her living air into irrespirable vapours and pestilences, haunt the desolations they have made, until they loathe the work of their hands, and turn from themselves with a divine repudiation.

It was about half tide, and the sea coming up, with the wind straight from the north, when Malcolm, having descended to the shore of the little bay, and scrambled out upon the rocks, bethought him of a certain cave which he had not visited since he was a child, and climbing over the high rocks between, took shelter there from the wind. He had forgotten how beautiful it was, and stood amazed at the richness of its colour, imagining he had come upon a cave of the serpentine marble which is found on the coast; for sides and roof and rugged floor were gorgeous with bands and spots and veins of green, and rusty red. A nearer inspection, however, showed that these hues were not of the rock itself but belonged to the garden of the ocean, and when he turned to face the sea, lo! they had all but vanished, the cave shone silvery gray, with a faint moony sparkle, and out came the lovely carving of the rodent waves. All about, its sides were fretted in exquisite curves, and fantastic yet ever graceful knots and twists; as if a mass of gnarled and contorted roots, first washed of every roughness by some ethereal solvent, leaving only the soft lines of yet grotesque volutions, had been transformed into mingled silver and stone. Like a soldier crab that had found a shell to his mind, he gazed through the yawning mouth of the cavern at the turmoil of the rising tide, as it rushed straight towards him through a low jagged channel in the rocks. But straight with the tide came the wind, blowing right into the cave; and finding it keener than pleasant, he turned and went farther in. After a steep ascent some little way, the cavern took a sharp turn to one side, where not a breath of wind, not a glimmer of light, reached, and there he sat down upon a stone, and fell a thinking.

He must face the lie out, and he must accept any mother God had given him: but with such a mother as Mrs Stewart, and without Mr Graham, how was he to endure the altered looks of his old friends? Faces indifferent before, had grown suddenly dear to him; and opinions he would have thought valueless once, had become golden in his eyes. Had he been such as to deserve their reproaches, he would doubtless have steeled himself to despise them; but his innocence bound him to the very people who judged him guilty. And there was that awful certainty slowly but steadily drawing nearer—that period of vacant anguish, in which Lady Florimel must vanish from his sight, and the splendour of his life go with her, to return no more.

But not even yet did he cherish any fancy of coming nearer to her than the idea of absolute service authorized. As often as the fancy had, compelled by the lady herself, crossed the horizon of his thoughts, a repellent influence from the same source had been at hand to sweep it afar into its antenatal chaos. But his love rose ever from the earth to which the blow had hurled it, purified again, once more all devotion and no desire, careless of recognition beyond the acceptance of its offered service, and content that the be all should be the end all.

The cave seemed the friendliest place he had yet found. Earth herself had received him into her dark bosom, where no eye could discover him, and no voice reach him but that of the ocean, as it tossed and wallowed in the palm of God's hand. He heard its roar on the rocks around him; and the air was filled with a loud noise of broken waters, while every now and then the wind rushed with a howl into the cave, as if searching for him in its crannies; the wild raving soothed him, and he felt as if he would gladly sit there, in the dark torn with tumultuous noises, until his fate had unfolded itself.

The noises thickened around him as the tide rose; but so gradually that, although at length he could not have heard his own voice, he was unaware of the magnitude to which the mighty uproar had enlarged itself. Suddenly, something smote the rock as with the hammer of Thor, and, as suddenly, the air around him grew stifling hot. The next moment it was again cold. He started to his feet in wonder, and sought the light. As he turned the angle, the receding back of a huge green foam spotted wave, still almost touching the roof of the cavern, was sweeping out again into the tumult. It had filled the throat of it, and so compressed the air within by the force of its entrance, as to drive out for the moment a large portion of its latent heat. Looking then at his watch, Malcolm judged it must be about high tide: brooding in the darkness, he had allowed the moments to lapse unheeded, and it was now impossible to leave the cavern until the tide had fallen. He returned into its penetral, and sitting down with the patience of a fisherman, again lost himself in reverie.

The darkness kept him from perceiving how the day went, and the rapidly increasing roar of the wind made the diminishing sound of the tide's retreat less noticeable. He thought afterwards that perhaps he had fallen asleep; anyhow, when at length he looked out, the waves were gone from the rock, and the darkness was broken only by the distant gleam of their white defeat. The wind was blowing a hurricane, and even for his practised foot, it was not easy to surmount the high, abrupt spines he must cross to regain the shore. It was so dark that he could see nothing of the castle, though it was but a few yards from him; and he resolved therefore, the path along the top of the cliffs being unsafe, to make his way across the fields, and return by the high road. The consequence was, that, what with fences and ditches, the violence of the wind, and uncertainty about his direction, it was so long before he felt the hard road under his feet that with good reason he feared the house would be closed for the night ere he reached it.



CHAPTER LV: THE SAME NIGHT

When he came within sight of it, however, he perceived, by the hurried movement of lights, that instead of being folded in silence, the house was in unwonted commotion. As he hastened to the south door, the prince of the power of the air himself seemed to resist his entrance, so fiercely did the wind, eddying round the building, dispute every step he made towards it; and when at length he reached and opened it, a blast, rushing up the glen straight from the sea, burst wide the opposite one, and roared through the hall like a torrent. Lady Florimel, flitting across it at the moment, was almost blown down, and shrieked aloud for help. Malcolm was already at the north door, exerting all his strength to close it, when she spied him, and, bounding to him, with white face and dilated eyes, exclaimed—"Oh Malcolm! what a time you have been!"

"What's wrang, my leddy?" cried Malcolm with respondent terror.

"Don't you hear it?" she answered. "The wind is blowing the house down. There's just been a terrible fall, and every moment I hear it going. If my father were only come! We shall be all blown into the burn."

"Nae fear o' that, my leddy!" returned Malcolm. "The wa's o' the auld carcass are 'maist live rock, an' 'ill stan' the warst win' 'at ever blew—this side o' the tropics, ony gait. Gien 't war ance to get its nose in, I wadna say but it micht tirr (strip) the rufe, but it winna blaw 's intil the burn, my leddy. I'll jist gang and see what's the mischeef."

He was moving away, but Lady Florimel stopped him. "No, no, Malcolm!" she said. "It's very silly of me, I dare say; but I've been so frightened. They're such a set of geese—Mrs Courthope, and the butler, and all of them! Don't leave me, please."

"I maun gang and see what's amiss, my leddy," answered Malcolm; "but ye can come wi' me gien ye like. What's fa'en, div ye think?"

"Nobody knows. It fell with a noise like thunder, and shook the whole house."

"It's far ower dark to see onything frae the ootside," rejoined Malcolm, "at least afore the mune's up. It's as dark's pick. But I can sune saitisfee mysel' whether the deil 's i' the hoose or no."

He took a candle from the hall table, and went up the square staircase, followed by Florimel.

"What w'y is 't, my leddy, 'at the hoose is no lockit up, an' ilka body i' their beds?" he asked.

"My father is coming home tonight. Didn't you know? But I should have thought a storm like this enough to account for people not being in bed!"

"It's a fearfu' nicht for him to be sae far frae his! Whaur's he comin' frae! Ye never speyk to me noo, my leddy, an' naebody tell't me."

"He was to come from Fochabers tonight. Stoat took the bay mare to meet him yesterday."

"He wad never start in sic a win'! It's fit to blaw the saiddle aff o' the mear's back."

"He may have started before it came on to blow like this," said Lady Florimel.

Malcolm liked the suggestion the less because of its probability, believing, in that case, he should have arrived long ago. But he took care not to increase Florimel's alarm.

By this time Malcolm knew the whole of the accessible inside of the roof well—better far than any one else about the house. From one part to another, over the whole of it, he now led Lady Florimel. In the big shadowed glimmer of his one candle, all parts of the garret seemed to him frowning with knitted brows over resentful memories—as if the phantom forms of all the past joys and self renewing sorrows, all the sins and wrongs, all the disappointments and failures of the house, had floated up, generation after generation, into that abode of helpless brooding, and there hung hovering above the fast fleeting life below, which now, in its turn, was ever sending up like fumes from heart and brain, to crowd the dim, dreary, larva haunted, dream wallowing chaos of half obliterated thought and feeling. To Florimel it looked a dread waste, a region deserted and forgotten, mysterious with far reaching nooks of darkness, and now awful with the wind raving and howling over slates and leads so close to them on all sides,—as if a flying army of demons were tearing at the roof to get in and find covert from pursuit.

At length they approached Malcolm's own quarters, where they would have to pass the very door of the wizard's chamber to reach a short ladder-like stair that led up into the midst of naked rafters, when, coming upon a small storm window near the end of a long passage, Lady Florimel stopped and peeped out.

"The moon is rising," she said, and stood looking.

Malcolm glanced over her shoulder. Eastward a dim light shone up from behind the crest of a low hill. Great part of the sky was clear, but huge masses of broken cloud went sweeping across the heavens. The wind had moderated.

"Aren't we somewhere near your friend the wizard?" said Lady Florimel, with a slight tremble in the tone of mockery with which she spoke.

Malcolm answered as if he were not quite certain.

"Isn't your own room somewhere hereabouts?" asked the girl sharply.

"We'll jist gang till ae ither queer place," observed Malcolm, pretending not to have heard her, "and gien the rufe be a' richt there, I s' no bather my heid mair aboot it till the mornin'. It's but a feow steps farther, an' syne a bit stair."

A fit of her not unusual obstinacy had however seized Lady Florimel.

"I won't move a step," she said, "until you have told me where the wizard's chamber is."

"Ahint ye, my leddy, gien ye wull hae 't," answered Malcolm, not unwilling to punish her a little; "—jist at the far en' o' the transe there."

In fact the window in which she stood, lighted the whole length of the passage from which it opened.

Even as he spoke, there sounded somewhere as it were the slam of a heavy iron door, the echoes of which seemed to go searching into every cranny of the multitudinous garrets. Florimel gave a shriek, and laying hold of Malcolm, clung to him in terror. A sympathetic tremor, set in motion by her cry, went vibrating through the fisherman's powerful frame, and, almost involuntarily, he clasped her close. With wide eyes they stood staring down the long passage, of which, by the poor light they carried, they could not see a quarter of the length. Presently they heard a soft footfall along its floor, drawing slowly nearer through the darkness; and slowly out of the darkness grew the figure of a man, huge and dim, clad in a long flowing garment, and coming straight on to where they stood. They clung yet closer together. The apparition came within three yards of them, and then they recognized Lord Lossie in his dressing gown.

They started asunder. Florimel flew to her father, and Malcolm stood, expecting the last stroke of his evil fortune. The marquis looked pale, stern, and agitated. Instead of kissing his daughter on the forehead as was his custom, he put her from him with one expanded palm, but the next moment drew her to his side. Then approaching Malcolm, he lighted at his the candle he carried, which a draught had extinguished on the way.

"Go to your room, MacPhail," he said, and turned from him, his arm still round Lady Florimel.

They walked a way together down the long passage, vaguely visible in flickering fits. All at once their light vanished, and with it Malcolm's eyes seemed to have left him. But a merry laugh, the silvery thread in which was certainly Florimel's, reached his ears, and brought him to himself.



CHAPTER LVI: SOMETHING FORGOTTEN

I will not trouble my reader with the thoughts that kept rising, flickering, and fading, one after another, for two or three dismal hours, as he lay with eyes closed but sleepless. At length he opened them wide, and looked out into the room. It was a bright moonlit night; the wind had sunk to rest; all the world slept in the exhaustion of the storm; he only was awake; he could lie no longer; he would go out, and discover, if possible, the mischief the tempest had done.

He crept down the little spiral stair used only by the servants, and knowing all the mysteries of lock and bar, was presently in the open air. First he sought a view of the building against the sky, but could not see that any portion was missing. He then proceeded to walk round the house, in order to find what had fallen.

There was a certain neglected spot nearly under his own window, where a wall across an interior angle formed a little court or yard; he had once peeped in at the door of it, which was always half open, and seemed incapable of being moved in either direction, but had seen nothing except a broken pail and a pile of brushwood; the flat arch over this door was broken, and the door itself half buried in a heap of blackened stones and mortar. Here was the avalanche whose fall had so terrified the household! The formless mass had yesterday been a fair proportioned and ornate stack of chimneys.

He scrambled to the top of the heap and sitting down on a stone carved with a plaited Celtic band, yet again fell athinking. The marquis must dismiss him in the morning; would it not be better to go away now, and spare poor old Duncan a terrible fit of rage? He would suppose he had fled from the pseudo maternal net of Mrs Stewart; and not till he had found a place to which he could welcome him would he tell him the truth. But his nature recoiled both from the unmanliness of such a flight, and from the appearance of conscious wrong it must involve, and he dismissed the notion. Scheme after scheme for the future passed through his head, and still he sat on the heap in the light of the high gliding moon, like a ghost on the ruins of his earthly home, and his eyes went listlessly straying like servants without a master. Suddenly he found them occupied with a low iron studded door in the wall of the house, which he had never seen before. He descended, and found it hardly closed, for there was no notch to receive the heavy latch. Pushing. it open on great rusty hinges, he saw within what in the shadow appeared a precipitous descent His curiosity was roused; he stole back to his room and fetched his candle; and having, by the aid of his tinderbox, lighted it in the shelter of the heap, peeped again through the doorway, and saw what seemed a narrow cylindrical pit, only, far from showing a great yawning depth, it was filled with stones and rubbish nearly to the bottom of the door. The top of the door reached almost to the vaulted roof, one part of which, close to the inner side of the circular wall, was broken. Below this breach, fragments of stone projected from the wall, suggesting the remnants of a stair. With the sight came a foresight of discovery.

One foot on the end of a long stone sticking vertically from the rubbish, and another on one of the stones projecting from the wall, his head was already through the break in the roof; and in a minute more he was climbing a small, broken, but quite passable spiral staircase, almost a counterpart of that already described as going like a huge augerbore through the house from top to bottom—that indeed by which he had just descended. There was most likely more of it buried below, probably communicating with an outlet in some part of the rock towards the burn, but the portion of it which, from long neglect, had gradually given way, had fallen down the shaft, and cut off the rest with its ruins.

At the height of a storey, he came upon a built up doorway, and again, at a similar height, upon another; but the parts filled in looked almost as old as the rest of the wall. Not until he reached the top of the stair, did he find a door. It was iron studded, and heavily hinged, like that below. It opened outward—noiselessly he found, as if its hinges had been recently oiled, and admitted him to a small closet, the second door of which he opened hurriedly, with a beating heart. Yes! there was the check curtained bed! it must be the wizard's chamber! Crossing to another door, he found it both locked and further secured by a large iron bolt in a strong staple. This latter he drew back, but there was no key in the lock. With scarce a doubt remaining, he shot down the one stair and flew up the other to try the key that lay in his chest. One moment and he stood in the same room, admitted by the door next his own.

Some exposure was surely not far off! Anyhow here was room for counter plot, on the chance of baffling something underhand—villainy most likely, where Mrs Catanach was concerned!—And yet, with the control of it thus apparently given into his hands, he must depart, leaving the house at the mercy of a low woman—for the lock of the wizard's door would not exclude her long if she wished to enter and range the building! He would not go, however, without revealing all to the marquis, and would at once make some provision towards her discomfiture.

Going to the forge, and bringing thence a long bar of iron to use as a lever, he carefully drew from the door frame the staple of the bolt, and then replaced it so, that, while it looked just as before, a good push would now send it into the middle of the room. Lastly, he slid the bolt into it, after having carefully removed all traces of disturbance, left the mysterious chamber by its own stair, and once more ascending to the passage, locked the door, and retired to his room with the key.

He had now plenty to think about beyond himself! Here certainly was some small support to the legend of the wizard earl. The stair which he had discovered, had been in common use at one time; its connection with other parts of the house had been cut off with an object; and by degrees it had come to be forgotten altogether; many villainies might have been effected by means of it. Mrs Catanach must have discovered it the same night on which he found her there, had gone away by it then, and had certainly been making use of it since. When he smelt the sulphur, she must have been lighting a match.

It was now getting towards morning, and at last he was tired. He went to bed and fell asleep. When he woke, it was late, and as he dressed, he heard the noise of hoofs and wheels in the stable yard. He was sitting at breakfast in Mrs Courthope's room, when she came in full of surprise at the sudden departure of her lord and lady. The marquis had rung for his man, and Lady Florimel for her maid, as soon as it was light; orders were sent at once to the stable; four horses were put to the travelling carriage; and they were gone, Mrs Courthope could not tell whither.

Dreary as was the house without Florimel, things had turned out a shade or two better than Malcolm had expected, and he braced himself to endure his loss.



CHAPTER LVII: THE LAIRD'S QUEST

Things were going pretty well with the laird: Phemy and he drew. yet closer to each other, and as he became yet more peaceful in her company, his thoughts flowed more freely, and his utterance grew less embarrassed; until at length, in talking with her, his speech was rarely broken with even a slight impediment, and a stranger might have overheard a long conversation between them without coming to any more disparaging conclusion in regard to him than that the hunchback was peculiar in mind as well as in body. But his nocturnal excursions continuing to cause her apprehension, and his representations of the delights to be gathered from Nature while she slept, at the same time alluring her greatly, Phemy had become, both for her own pleasure and his protection, anxious in these also to be his companion.

With a vital recognition of law, and great loyalty to any utterance of either parent, she had yet been brought up in an atmosphere of such liberty, that except a thing were expressly so conditioned, or in itself appeared questionable, she never dreamed of asking permission to do it; and, accustomed as she had been to go with the laird everywhere, and to be out with him early and late, her conscience never suggested the possibility of any objection to her getting up at twelve, instead of four or five, to accompany him. It was some time, however, before the laird himself would consent; and then he would not unfrequently interpose with limitations, especially, if the night were not mild and dry, sending her always home again to bed. The mutual rule and obedience between them was something at once strange and lovely.

At midnight Phemy would enter the shop, and grope her way until she stood under the trapdoor. This was the nearest she could come to the laird's chamber, for he had not only declined having the ladder stand there for his use, but had drawn a solemn promise from the carpenter that at night it should always be left slung up to the joists. For himself he had made a rope ladder, which he could lower from beneath when he required it, invariably drew up after him, and never used for coming down.

One night Phemy made her customary signal by knocking against the trapdoor with a long slip of wood: it opened, and, as usual, the body of the laird appeared, hung for a moment in the square gap, like a huge spider, by its two hands, one on each side, then dropped straight to the floor, when, without a word, he hastened forth, and Phemy followed.

The night was very still—and rather dark, for it was cloudy about the horizon, and there was no moon. Hand in hand the two made for the shore—here very rocky—a succession of promontories with little coves between. Down into one of these they went by a winding path, and stood at the lip of the sea. A violet dimness, or, rather, a semi-transparent darkness, hung over it, through which came now and then a gleam, where the slow heave of some Triton shoulder caught a shine of the sky; a hush also, as of sleep, hung over it, which not to break, the wavelets of the rising tide carefully stilled their noises; and the dimness and the hush seemed one. They sat down on a rock that rose but a foot or two from the sand and for some moments listened in silence to the inarticulate story of the night. At length the laird turned to Phemy, and taking one of her hands in both of his, very solemnly said, as if breaking to her his life's trouble, "Phemy, I dinna ken whaur I cam frae."

"Hoot, laird! ye ken weel eneuch ye cam frae Go-od," answered Phemy, lengthening out the word with solemn utterance.

The laird did not reply, and again the night closed around them, and the sea hushed at their hearts. But a soft light air began to breathe from the south, and it waked the laird to more active thought.

"Gien he wad but come oot an' shaw himsel'!" he said. "What for disna he come oot?"

"Wha wad ye hae come oot?" asked Phemy.

"Ye ken wha, weel eneuch. They say he 's a' gait at ance: jist hearken. What for will he aye bide in, an' never come oot an' lat a puir body see him?"

The speech was broken into pauses, filled by the hush rather than noise of the tide, and the odour-like wandering of the soft air in the convolutions of their ears.

"The lown win' maun be his breath—sae quaiet!—He 's no hurryin' himsel' the nicht.—There 's never naebody rins efter him.—Eh, Phemy! I jist thoucht he was gauin' to speyk!"

This last exclamation he uttered in a whisper, as the louder gush of a larger tide pulse died away on the shore.

"Luik, Phemy, luik!" he resumed. "Luik oot yonner! Dinna ye see something 'at micht grow to something?"

His eyes were fixed on a faint spot of steely blue, out on the sea, not far from the horizon. It was hard to account for, with such a sky overheard, wherein was no lighter part to be seen that might be reflected in the water below; but neither of the beholders was troubled about its cause: there it glimmered on in the dimness of the wide night—a cold, faint splash of blue grey.

"I dinna think muckle o' that, sir," said Phemy.

"It micht be the mark o' the sole o' his fut, though," returned the laird. "He micht hae fist setten 't doon, an' the watter hae lowed (flamed) up aboot it, an' the low no be willin' to gang oot! Luik sharp, Phemy; there may come anither at the neist stride— anither fut mark. Luik ye that gait an' I'll luik this.—What for willna he come oot? The lift maun be fu' o' 'im, an' I 'm hungert for a sicht o' 'im. Gien ye see ony thing, Phemy, cry oot."

"What will I cry?" asked Phemy.

"Cry 'Father o' lichts!'" answered the laird.

"Will he hear to that—div ye think, sir?"

"Wha kens! He micht jist turn his heid; an' ae luik wad sair me for a hunner year."

"I s' cry, gien I see onything," said Phemy.

As they sat watching, by degrees the laird's thought swerved a little. His gaze had fixed on the northern horizon, where, as if on the outer threshold of some mighty door, long low clouds, with varied suggestion of recumbent animal forms, had stretched themselves, like creatures of the chase, watching for their lord to issue.

"Maybe he's no oot o' the hoose yet," he said. "Surely it canna be but he comes oot ilka nicht! He wad never hae made sic a sicht o' bonny things to lat them lie wi'oot onybody to gaither them! An' there's nae ill fowk the furth at this time o' nicht, ta mak an oogly din, or disturb him wi' the sicht o' them. He maun come oot i' the quaiet o' the nicht, or else what's 't a' for?—Ay! he keeps the nicht till himsel', an' lea's the day to hiz (us). That 'll be what the deep sleep fa's upo' men for, doobtless—to haud them oot o' his gait! Eh! I wuss he wad come oot whan I was by! I micht get a glimp o' 'm.—Maybe he wad tak the hump aff o' me, an' set things in order i' my heid, an' mak me like ither fowk. Eh me! that wad be gran'! Naebody wad daur to touch me syne. Eh! Michty! come oot! Father o' lichts! Father o' lichts!"

He went on repeating the words till, growing softer and softer, his voice died away in silence, and still as his seat of stone he sat, a new Job, on the verge of the world waters, like the old Job on his dunghill when he cried out,—

"Lo, he goeth by me, and I see him not; he passeth on also, but I perceive him not—Call thou, and I will answer; or let me speak and answer thou me.—Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat!—Behold I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him; on the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him; he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him."

At length he rose and wandered away from the shore, his head sunk upon his chest. Phemy rose also and followed him in silence. The child had little of the poetic element in her nature, but she had much of that from which everything else has to be developed— heart. When they reached the top of the brae, she joined him, and said, putting her hand in his, but not looking at, or even turning towards him, "Maybe he 'll come oot upo' ye afore ye ken some day —whan ye 're no luikin' for him."

The laird stopped, gazed at her for a moment, shook his head, and walked on.

Grassy steeps everywhere met the stones and sands of the shore, and the grass and the sand melted, as it were, and vanished each in the other. Just where they met in the next hollow, stood a small building of stone with a tiled roof. It was now strangely visible through the darkness, for from every crevice a fire illumined smoke was pouring. But the companions were not alarmed or even surprised. They bent their way towards it without hastening a step, and coming to a fence that enclosed a space around it, opened a little gate, and passed through. A sleepy watchman challenged them. "It 's me," said the laird.

"A fine nicht, laird," returned the voice, and said no more.

The building was divided into several compartments, each with a separate entrance. On the ground in each burned four or five little wood fires, and the place was filled with smoke and glow. The smoke escaped partly by openings above the doors, but mostly by the crannies of the tiled roof. Ere it reached these, however, it had to pass through a great multitude of pendent herrings. Hung up by the gills, layer above layer, nearly to the roof, their last tails came down as low as the laird's head. From beneath nothing was to be seen but a firmament of herring tails. These fish were the last of the season, and were thus undergoing the process of kippering. It was a new venture in the place, and its success as yet a question.

The laird went into one of the compartments, and searching about a little amongst the multitude within his reach, took down a plump one, then cleared away the blazing wood from the top of one of the fires, and laid his choice upon the glowing embers beneath.

"What are ye duin' there, laird?" cried Phemy from without, whose nostrils the resulting odour had quickly reached. "The fish is no yours."

"Ye dinna think I wad tak it wantin' leave, Phemy!" returned the laird. "Mony a supper hae I made this w'y, an' mony anither I houp to mak. It'll no be this sizzon though, for this lot's the last o' them. They're fine aitin', but I'm some feart they winna keep."

"Wha gae ye leave, sir?" persisted Phemy showing herself the indivertible guardian of his morals as well as of his freedom.

"Ow, Mr Runcie himsel', of coorse!" answered the laird. "Wull I pit ane on to you?"

"Did ye speir leave for me tu?" asked the righteous maiden.

"Ow, na; but I'll tell him the neist time I see him."

"I 'm nae for ony," said Phemy.

The fish wanted little cooking. The laird turned it, and after another half minute of the fire, took it up by the tail, sat down on a stone beside the door, spread a piece of paper on his knees, laid the fish upon it, pulled a lump of bread from his pocket, and proceeded to make his supper. Ere he began, however, he gazed all around with a look which Phemy interpreted as a renewed search for the Father of lights, whom he would fain thank for his gifts. When he had finished, he threw the remnants into one of the fires, then went down to the sea, and there washed his face and hands in a rock pool, after which they set off again, straying yet further along the coast.

One of the peculiarities in the friendship of the strange couple was that, although so closely attached, they should maintain such a large amount of mutual independence. They never quarrelled, but would flatly disagree, with never an attempt at compromise; the whole space between midnight and morning would sometimes glide by without a word spoken between them; and the one or the other would often be lingering far behind. As, however, the ultimate goal of the night's wandering was always understood between them, there was little danger of their losing each other.

On the present occasion, the laird, still full of his quest, was the one who lingered. Every few minutes he would stop and stare, now all around the horizon, now up to the zenith, now over the wastes of sky—for, any moment, from any spot in heaven, earth, or sea, the Father of lights might show foot, or hand, or face. He had at length seated himself on a lichen covered stone with his head buried in his hands, as if, wearied with vain search for him outside he would now look within and see if God might not be there, when suddenly a sharp exclamation from Phemy reached him. He listened.

"Rin! rin! rin!" she cried—the last word prolonged into a scream.

While it yet rang in his ears, the laird was halfway down the steep. In the open country he had not a chance; but, knowing every cranny in the rocks large enough to hide him, with anything like a start near enough to the shore for his short lived speed, he was all but certain to evade his pursuers, especially in such a dark night as this.

He was not in the least anxious about Phemy, never imagining she might be less sacred in other eyes than in his, and knowing neither that her last cry of loving solitude had gathered intensity from a cruel grasp, nor that while he fled in safety, she remained a captive.

Trembling and panting like a hare just escaped from the hounds, he squeezed himself into a cleft, where he sat half covered with water until the morning began to break. Then he drew himself out and crept along the shore, from point to point, with keen circumspection, until he was right under the village and within hearing of its inhabitants, when he ascended hurriedly, and ran home. But having reached his burrow, pulled down his rope ladder, and ascended, he found, with trebled dismay, that his loft had been invaded during the night. Several of the hooked cords had been cut away, on one or two were shreds of clothing, and on the window sill was a drop of blood.

He threw himself on the mound for a moment, then started to his feet, caught up his plaid, tumbled from the loft, and fled from Scaurnose as if a visible pestilence had been behind him.



CHAPTER LVIII: MALCOLM AND MRS STEWART

When her parents discovered that Phemy was not in her garret, it occasioned them no anxiety. When they had also discovered that neither was the laird in his loft, and were naturally seized with the dread that some evil had befallen him, his hitherto invariable habit having been to house himself with the first gleam of returning day, they supposed that Phemy, finding he had not returned, had set out to look for him. As the day wore on, however, without her appearing, they began to be a little uneasy about her as well. Still the two might be together, and the explanation of their absence a very simple and satisfactory one; for a time therefore they refused to admit importunate disquiet. But before night, anxiety, like the slow but persistent waters of a flood, had insinuated itself through their whole being—nor theirs alone, but had so mastered and possessed the whole village that at length all employment was deserted, and every person capable joined in a search along the coast, fearing to find their bodies at the foot of some cliff. The report spread to the neighbouring villages. In Portlossie Duncan went round with his pipes, arousing attention by a brief blast, and then crying the loss at every corner. As soon as Malcolm heard of it, he hurried to find Joseph, but the only explanation of their absence he was prepared to suggest was one that had already occurred to almost everybody—that the laird, namely, had been captured by the emissaries of his mother, and that, to provide against a rescue, they had carried off his companion with him—on which supposition, there was every probability that, within a few days at farthest, Phemy would be restored unhurt.

"There can be little doobt they hae gotten a grip o' 'm at last, puir fallow!" said Joseph. "But whatever 's come till him, we canna sit doon an' ait oor mait ohn kent hoo Phemy 's farin, puir wee lamb! Ye maun jist haud awa' ower to Kirkbyres, Ma'colm, an' get word o' yer mither, an' see gien onything can be made oot o' her."

The proposal fell on Malcolm like a great billow.

"Blue Peter," he said, looking him in the face, "I took it as a mark o' yer freen'ship 'at ye never spak the word to me. What richt has ony man to ca' that wuman my mither? I hae never allooed it!"

"I 'm thinkin'," returned Joseph, the more easily nettled that his horizon also was full of trouble, "your word upo' the maitter winna gang sae far 's John o' Groat's. Ye 'll no be suppeent for your witness upo' the pint."

"I wad as sune gang a mile intill the mou' o' hell, as gang to Kirkbyres!" said Malcolm.

"I hae my answer," said Peter, and turned away.

"But I s' gang," Malcolm went on. "The thing 'at maun be can be. —Only I tell ye this, Peter," he added, "gien ever ye say sic a word 's yon i' my hearin' again, that is, afore the wuman has priven hersel' what she says, I s' gang by ye ever efter ohn spoken, for I'll ken ''at ye want nae mair o' me."

Joseph, who had been standing with his back to his friend, turned and held out his hand. Malcolm took it.

"Ae question afore I gang, Peter," he said. "What for didna ye tell me what fowk was sayin' aboot me—anent Lizzy Findlay?"

"'Cause I didna believe a word o' 't, an' I wasna gaein' to add to yer troubles."

"Lizzy never mootit sic a thing?"

"Never."

"I was sure o' that!—Noo I 'll awa' to Kirkbyres—God help me! I wad raither face Sawtan an' his muckle tyke.—But dinna ye expec' ony news. Gien yon ane kens, she's a' the surer no to tell. Only ye sanna say I didna du my best for ye."

It was the hardest trial of the will Malcolm had yet had to encounter. Trials of submission he had had, and tolerably severe ones: but to go and do what the whole feeling recoils from is to be weighed only against abstinence from what the whole feeling urges towards. He walked determinedly home. Stoat saddled a horse for him while he changed his dress, and once more he set out for Kirkbyres.

Had Malcolm been at the time capable of attempting an analysis of his feeling towards Mrs Stewart, he would have found it very difficult to effect. Satisfied as he was of the untruthful—even cruel nature of the woman who claimed him, and conscious of a strong repugnance to any nearer approach between them, he was yet aware of a certain indescribable fascination in her. This, however, only caused him to recoil from her the more—partly from dread lest it might spring from the relation asserted, and partly that, whatever might be its root, it wrought upon him in a manner he scarcely disliked the less that it certainly had nothing to do with the filial. But his feelings were too many and too active to admit of the analysis of any one of them, and ere he reached the house his mood had grown fierce.

He was shown into a room where the fire had not been many minutes lighted. It had long narrow windows, over which the ivy had grown so thick, that he was in it some moments ere he saw through the dusk that it was a library—not half the size of that at Lossie House, but far more ancient, and, although evidently neglected, more study-like.

A few minutes passed, then the door softly opened, and Mrs Stewart glided swiftly across the floor with outstretched arms.

"At last!" she said, and would have clasped him to her bosom.

But Malcolm stepped back.

"Na, na, mem!" he said; "it taks twa to that!"

"Malcolm!" she exclaimed, her voice trembling with emotion—of some kind.

"Ye may ca' me your son, mem, but I ken nae gr'un' yet for ca'in' you my—"

He could not say the word.

"That is very true, Malcolm," she returned gently; "but this interview is not of my seeking. I wish to precipitate nothing. So long as there is a single link, or half a link even, missing from the chain of which one end hangs at my heart—"

She paused, with her hand on her bosom, apparently to suppress rising emotion. Had she had the sentence ready for use?

"I will not subject myself," she went on, "to such treatment as it seems I must look for from you. It is hard to lose a son but it is harder yet to find him again after he has utterly ceased to be one."

Here she put her handkerchief to her eyes.

"Till the matter is settled, however," she resumed, "let us be friends—or at least not enemies.—What did you come for now? Not to insult me surely. Is there anything I can do for you?"

Malcolm felt the dignity of her behaviour, but not the less, after his own straightforward manner, answered her question to the point.

"I cam aboot naething concernin' mysel', mem, I cam to see whether ye kent onything aboot Phemy Mair."

"Is it a wo?—I don't even know who she is.—You don't mean the young woman that—?—Why do you come to me about her? Who is she?"

Malcolm hesitated a moment: if she really did not know what he meant, was there any risk in telling her? But he saw none.

"Wha is she, mem!" he returned. "I whiles think she maun be the laird's guid angel, though in shape she's but a wee bit lassie. She maks up for a heap to the laird.—Him an' her, mem, they 've disappeart thegither, naebody kens whaur."

Mrs Stewart laughed a low unpleasant laugh, but made no other reply. Malcolm went on.

"An' it's no to be wonnert at gien fowk wull hae 't 'at ye maun ken something aboot it, mem."

"I know nothing whatever," she returned emphatically. "Believe me or not, as you please," she added, with heightened colour. "If I did know anything," she went on, with apparent truthfulness, "I don't know that I should feel bound to tell it. As it is, however, I can only say I know nothing of either of them. That I do say most solemnly."

Malcolm turned,—satisfied at least that he could learn no more.

"You are not going to leave me so!" the lady said, and her face grew "sad as sad could be."

"There's naething mair atween 's, mem," answered Malcolm, without turning even his face.

"You will be sorry for treating me so some day."

"Weel than, mem, I will be; but that day's no the day (today)."

"Think what you could do for your poor witless brother, if—"

"Mem," interrupted Malcolm, turning right round and drawing himself up in anger, "priv' 'at I 'm your son, an' that meenute I speir at you wha was my father."

Mrs Stewart changed colour—neither with the blush of innocence nor with the pallor of guilt, but with the gray of mingled rage and hatred. She took a step forward with the quick movement of a snake about to strike, but stopped midway, and stood looking at him with glittering eyes, teeth clenched, and lips half open.

Malcolm returned her gaze for a moment or two.

"Ye never was the mither, whaever was the father o' me!" he said, and walked out of the room.

He had scarcely reached the door, when he heard a heavy fall, and looking round saw the lady lying motionless on the floor. Thoroughly on his guard, however, and fearful both of her hatred and her blandishments, he only made the more haste down stairs, where he found a maid, and sent her to attend to her mistress. In a minute he was mounted and trotting fast home, considerably happier than before, inasmuch as he was now almost beyond doubt convinced that Mrs Stewart was not his mother.



CHAPTER LIX: AN HONEST PLOT

Ever since the visit of condolence with which the narrative of these events opened, there had been a coolness between Mrs Mellis and Miss Horn. Mr Mellis's shop was directly opposite Miss Horn's house, and his wife's parlour was over the shop, looking into the street; hence the two neighbours could not but see each other pretty often; beyond a stiff nod, however, no sign of smouldering friendship had as yet broken out. Miss Horn was consequently a good deal surprised when, having gone into the shop to buy some trifle, Mr Mellis informed her, in all but a whisper, that his wife was very anxious to see her alone for a moment, and begged her to have the goodness to step up to the parlour. His customer gave a small snort, betraying her first impulse to resentment, but her nobler nature, which was never far from the surface, constrained her compliance.

Mrs Mellis rose hurriedly when the plumb line figure of her neighbour appeared, ushered in by her husband, and received her with a somewhat embarrassed empressement, arising from the consciousness of goodwill disturbed by the fear of imputed meddlesomeness. She knew the inward justice of Miss Horn, however, and relied upon that, even while she encouraged herself by waking up the ever present conviction of her own superiority in the petite morale of social intercourse. Her general tendency indeed was to look down upon Miss Horn: is it not usually the less that looks down on the greater? I had almost said it must be, for that the less only can look down but that would not hold absolutely in the kingdoms of this world, while in the kingdom of heaven it is all looking up.

"Sit ye doon, Miss Horn," she said; "it 's a lang time sin we had a news thegither."

Miss Horn seated herself with a begrudged acquiescence.

Had Mrs Mellis been more of a tactician, she would have dug a few approaches ere she opened fire upon the fortress of her companion's fair hearing: but instead of that, she at once discharged the imprudent question—"Was ye at hame last nicht, mem, atween the hoors o' aucht an' nine?"—a shot which instantly awoke in reply the whole battery of Miss Horn's indignation.

"Wha am I, to be speirt sic a queston! Wha but yersel' wad hae daurt it, Mistress Mellis?"

"Huly (softly), huly, Miss Horn!" expostulated her questioner. "I hae nae wuss to pry intill ony secrets o' yours, or—"

"Secrets!" shouted Miss Horn!

But her consciousness of good intent, and all but assurance of final victory, upheld Mrs Mellis.

"—or Jean's aither," she went on, apparently regardless; "but I wad fain be sure ye kent a' aboot yer ain hoose 'at a body micht chance to see frae the croon o' the caus'ay (middle of the street)."

"The parlour blind 's gane up crookit sin' ever that thoomb fingert cratur, Watty Witherspail, made a new roller till 't. Gien 't be that ye mean, Mistress Mellis,—"

"Hoots!" returned the other. "—Hoo far can ye lippen to that Jean o' yours, mem?"

"Nae farer nor the len'th o' my nose, an' the breid o' my twa een," was the scornful answer.

Although, however, she thus manifested her resentment of Mrs Mellis's catechetical attempts in introducing her subject, Miss Horn had no desire to prevent the free outcome of her approaching communication.

"In that case, I may speyk oot," said Mrs Mellis.

"Use yer freedom."

"Weel, I will. Ye was hardly oot o' the hoose last nicht, afore —"

"Ye saw me gang oot?"

"Ay did I."

"What gart ye speir than? What for sud a body come screwin' up a straucht stair—noo the face an' noo the back o' her?"

"Weel, I nott (needed) na hae speirt. But that's naething to the p'int.—Ye hadna been gane, as I was saying', ower a five meenutes, whan in cam a licht intill the bedroom neist the parlour, an' Jean appeart wi' a can'le in her han'. There was nae licht i' this room but the licht o' the fire, an' no muckle o' that, for 'twas maistly peat, sae I saw her weel eneuch-ohn been seen mysel'. She cam straucht to the window, and drew doon the blind, but lost hersel' a bit or she wad never hae set doon her can'le whaur it cuist a shaidow o' hersel' an' her doin's upo' the blind."

"An' what was 't she was efter, the jaud?" cried Miss Horn, without any attempt to conceal her growing interest.

"She made naething o' 't, whatever it was; for doon the street cam the schuilmaister, an' chappit at the door, an gaed in an' waitit till ye came hame."

"Weel!" said Miss Horn.

But Mrs Mellis held her peace.

"Weel!!?" repeated Miss Horn.

"Weel," returned Mrs Mellis, with a curious mixture of deference and conscious sagacity in her tone, "a' 'at I tak upo' me to say is—Think ye twice afore ye lippen to that Jean o' yours."

"I lippen naething till her! I wad as sune lippen to the dottle o' a pipe amo' dry strae. What saw ye, Mistress Mellis?"

"Ye needna speyk like that," returned Mrs Mellis, for Miss Horn's tone was threatening: "I'm no Jean."

"What saw ye?" repeated Miss Horn, more gently, but not less eagerly.

"Whause is that kist o' mahogany drawers i' that bedroom, gien I may preshume ta spier?"

"Whause but mine?"

"They're no Jean's?"

"Jean's!"

"Ye micht hae latten her keep her bit duds i' them, for onything I kent!"

"Jean's duds i' my Grizel's drawers! A lik'ly thing!"

"Hm! They war puir Miss Cam'ell's, war they?"

"They war Grizell Cam'ell's drawers as lang she had use for ony; but what for ye sud say puir till her, I dinna ken, 'cep' it be 'at she's gane whaur they haena muckle 'at needs layin' in drawers. That's neither here nor there.—Div ye tell me 'at Jean was intromittin' wi thae drawers? They're a' lockit, ilk ane o' them —an' they're guid locks."

"No ower guid to hae keyes to them—are they?"

"The keyes are i' my pooch," said Miss Horn, clapping her hand to the skirt of her dress. "They're aye i' my pooch, though I haena had the feelin's to mak use o' them sin' she left me."

"Are ye sure they war there last nicht, mem?"

Miss Horn seemed struck.

"I had on my black silk last nicht." she answered vaguely, and was here silent, pondering doubtfully.

"Weel, mem, jist ye put on yer black silk again the morn's nicht, an' come ower aboot aucht o'clock; an' ye'll be able to jeedge by her ongang whan ye're no i' the hoose, gien there be onything amiss wi' Jean. There canna be muckle ill dune yet—that's a comfort!"

"What ill, by (beyond) meddlin' wi' what doesna concern her, cud the wuman du?" said Miss Horn, with attempted confidence.

"That ye sud ken best yersel', mem. But Jean's an awfu' gossip, an' a lady like yer cousin micht hae left dockiments ahint her 'at she wadna jist like to hear procleemt frae the hoose tap. No 'at she 'll ever hear onything mair, puir thing!"

"What mean ye?" cried Miss Horn, half frightened, half angry.

"Jist what I say—neither mair nor less," returned Mrs Mellis. "Miss Cam'ell may weel hae left letters for enstance, an' hoo wad they fare in Jean's han's?"

"Whan I never had the hert to open her drawers!" exclaimed Miss Horn, enraged at the very notion of the crime. "I hae nae feelin's, thank God for the furnishin' o' me!"

"I doobt Jean has her full share o' a' feelin's belangin' to fallen human natur'," said Mrs Mellis, with a slow horizontal oscillation of the head. "But ye jist come an' see wi' yer ain een, an' syne jeedge for yersel': it 's nae business o' mine."

"I'll come the nicht, Mrs Mellis. Only lat it be atween 's twa."

"I can haud my tongue, mem,—that is, frae a' but ane. Sae lang 's merried fowk sleeps in ae bed, it 's ill to haud onything till a body's sel'."

"Mr Mellis is a douce man, an' I carena what he kens." answered Miss Horn.

She descended to the shop, and having bought bulk enough to account to Jean for her lengthened stay, for she had beyond a doubt been watching the door of the shop, she crossed the street, went up to her parlour, and rang the bell. The same moment Jean's head was popped in at the door: she had her reasons for always answering the bell like a bullet.

"Mem?" said Jean.

"Jean, I'm gaein' oot the nicht. The minister oucht to be spoken till aboot the schuilmaister, honest man. Tak the lantren wi' ye to the manse aboot ten o'clock. That 'll be time eneuch."

"Verra weel, mem. But I'm thinkin' there's a mune the nicht."

"Naething but the doup o' ane, Jean. It 's no to ca' a mune. It's a mercy we hae lantrens, an' sic a sicht o' cairds (gipsies) aboot."

"Ay, lantren lats them see whaur ye are, an' haud oot o' yer gait," said Jean, who happened not to relish going out that night.

"Troth, wuman, ye 're richt there!" returned her mistress, with cheerful assent. "The mair they see o' ye, the less they 'll meddle wi' ye—caird or cadger. Haud ye the licht upo' yer ain face, lass, an' there 's feow 'll hae the hert to luik again."

"Haith, mem, there's twa sic like o' 's!" returned Jean bitterly, and bounced from the room.

"That's true tu," said her mistress—adding after the door was shut, "It's a peety we cudna haud on thegither."

"I'm gaein' noo, Jean," she called into the kitchen as she crossed the threshold at eight o'clock.

She turned towards the head of the street, in the direction of the manse; but, out of the range of Jean's vision, made a circuit, and entered Mr Mellis's house by the garden at the back.

In the parlour she found a supper prepared to celebrate the renewal of old goodwill. The clear crystal on the table; the new loaf so brown without and so white within; the rich, clear complexioned butter, undebased with a particle of salt; the self satisfied hum of the kettle in attendance for the guidman's toddy; the bright fire, the golden glow of the brass fender in its red light, and the dish of boiled potatoes set down before it, under a snowy cloth; the pink eggs, the yellow haddock, and the crimson strawberry jam; all combined their influences—each with its private pleasure wondrously heightened by the zest of a secret watch and the hope of discomfitted mischief—to draw into a friendship what had hitherto been but a somewhat insecure neighbourship. From below came the sound of the shutters which Mr Mellis was putting up a few minutes earlier than usual; and when presently they sat down to the table, and, after prologue judged suitable, proceeded to enjoy the good things before them, an outside observer would have thought they had a pleasant evening, if not Time himself, by the forelock.

But Miss Horn was uneasy. The thought of what Jean might have already discovered had haunted her all day long; for her reluctance to open her cousin's drawers had arisen mainly from the dread of finding justified a certain painful suspicion which had haunted the whole of her intercourse with Grizell Campbell—namely, that the worm of a secret had been lying at the root of her life, the cause of all her illness, and of her death at last. She had fought with, out argued, and banished the suspicion a thousand times while she was with her, but evermore it had returned; and now since her death, when again and again on the point of turning over her things, she had been always deterred by the fear, not so much of finding what would pain herself as of discovering what Grizell would not wish her to know. Never was there a greater contrast between form and reality, between person and being, between manner and nature, than existed in Margaret Horn: the shell was rough, the kernel absolute delicacy. Not for a moment had her suspicion altered her behaviour to the gentle suffering creature towards whom she had adopted the relation of an elder and stronger sister. To herself, when most satisfied of the existence of a secret, she steadily excused her cousin's withholdment of confidence, on the ground of her own lack of feelings: how could she unbosom herself to such as she! And now the thought of eyes like Jean's exploring Grizell's forsaken treasures, made her so indignant and restless that she could hardly even pretend to enjoy her friend's hospitality.

Mrs Mellis had so arranged the table and their places, that she and her guest had only to lift their eyes to see the window of their watch, while she punished her husband for the virile claim to greater freedom from curiosity by seating him with his back to it, which made him every now and then cast a fidgety look over his shoulder —not greatly to the detriment of his supper, however. Their plan was, to extinguish their own the moment Jean's light should appear, and so watch without the risk of counter discovery.

"There she comes!" cried Mrs Mellis; and her husband and Miss Horn made such haste to blow out the candle, that they knocked their heads together, blew in each other's face, and the first time missed it. Jean approached the window with hers in her hand, and pulled down the blind. But, alas, beyond the form of a close bent elbow moving now and then across a corner of the white field, no shadow appeared upon it!

Miss Horn rose.

"Sit doon, mem, sit doon; ye hae naething to gang upo' yet," exclaimed Mr Mellis, who, being a bailie, was an authority.

"I can sit nae langer, Mr Mellis," returned Miss Horn. "I hae eneuch to gang upo' as lang 's I hae my ain flure aneth my feet: the wuman has nae business there. I'll jist slip across an' gang in, as quaiet as a sowl intill a boady; but I s' warran' I s' mak a din afore I come oot again!"

With a grim diagonal nod she left the room.

Although it was now quite dark, she yet deemed it prudent to go by the garden gate into the back lane, and so cross the street lower down. Opening her own door noiselessly, thanks to Jean, who kept the lock well oiled for reasons of Mrs Catanach's, she closed it as silently, and, long boned as she was, crept up the stair like a cat. The light was shining from the room; the door was ajar. She listened at it for a moment, and could distinguish nothing; then fancying she heard the rustle of paper, could bear it no longer, pushed the door open, and entered. There stood Jean, staring at her with fear blanched face, a deep top drawer open before her, and her hands full of things she was in the act of replacing. Her terror culminated, and its spell broke in a shriek, when her mistress sprang upon her like a tigress.

The watchers in the opposite house heard no cry, and only saw a heave of two intermingled black shadows across the blind, after which they neither heard nor saw anything more. The light went on burning until its final struggle with the darkness began, when it died with many a flickering throb. Unable at last to endure the suspense, now growing to fear, any longer, they stole across the street, opened the door, and went in. Over the kitchen fire, like an evil spirit of the squabby order, crouched Mrs Catanach, waiting for Jean; no one else was to be found.

About ten o'clock the same evening, as Mr Graham sat by his peat fire, some one lifted the latch of the outer door and knocked at the inner. His invitation to enter was answered by the appearance of Miss Horn, gaunt and grim as usual, but with more than the wonted fire gleaming from the shadowy cavern of her bonnet. She made no apology for the lateness of her visit, but seated herself at the other side of the deal table, and laid upon it a paper parcel, which she proceeded to open with much deliberation and suppressed plenitude. Having at length untied the string with the long fingers of a hand which, notwithstanding its evident strength, trembled so as almost to defeat the attempt, she took from the parcel a packet of old letters sealed with spangled wax, and pushed it across the table to the schoolmaster, saying—"Hae, Sandy Graham! Naebody but yersel' has a richt to say what's to be dune wi' them."

He put out his hand and took them gently, with a look of sadness but no surprise.

"Dinna think I hae been readin' them, Sandy Graham. Na, na! I wad read nae honest man's letters, be they written to wha they micht."

Mr Graham was silent.

"Ye're a guid man, Sandy Graham," Miss Horn resumed, "gien God ever took the pains to mak ane. Dinna think onything atween you an' her wad hae brocht me at this time o' nicht to disturb ye in yer ain chaumer. Na, na! Whatever was atween you twa had an honest man intill 't, an' I wad hae taen my time to gie ye back yer dockiments. But there 's some o' anither mark here."

As she spoke, she drew from the parcel a small cardboard box, broken at the sides, and tied with a bit of tape. This she undid and, turning the box upside down, tumbled its contents out on the table before him.

"What mak ye o' sic like as thae?" she said.

"Do you want me to—?" asked the schoolmaster with trembling voice.

"I jist div," she answered.

They were a number of little notes—some of them but a word or two, and signed with initials; others longer, and signed in full. Mr Graham took up one of them reluctantly, and unfolded it softly. He had hardly looked at it when he started and exclaimed, "God have mercy! What can be the date of this!"

There was no date to it. He held it in his hand for a minute, his eyes fixed on the fire, and his features almost convulsed with his efforts at composure; then laid it gently on the table, and said but without turning his eyes to Miss Horn,

"I cannot read this. You must not ask me. It refers doubtless to the time when Miss Campbell was governess to Lady Annabel. I see no end to be answered by my reading one of these letters."

"I daursay! Wha ever saw 'at wadna luik?" returned Miss Horn, with a glance keen as an eagle's into the thoughtful eyes of her friend.

"Why not do by the writer of these as you have done by me? Why not take them to him?" suggested Mr Graham.

"That wad be but thoomb fingert wark—to lat gang the en' o' yer hank!" exclaimed Miss Horn.

"I do not understand you, ma'am."

"Weel, I maun gar ye un'erstan' me. There's things whiles, Sandy Graham, 'at 's no easy to speyk aboot—but I hae nae feelin's, an' we 'll a' be deid or lang, an' that's a comfort. Man 'at ye are, ye 're the only human bein' I wad open my moo' till aboot this maitter, an' that's 'cause ye lo'e the memory o' my puir lassie, Grizell Cam'ell."

"It is not her memory, it is herself I love," said the schoolmaster with trembling voice. "Tell me what you please: you may trust me."

"Gien I needit you to tell me that, I wad trust ye as I wad the black dog wi' butter!—Hearken, Sandy Graham."

The result of her communication and their following conference was, that she returned about midnight with a journey before her, the object of which was to place the letters in the safe keeping of a lawyer friend in the neighbouring county town.

Long before she reached home, Mrs Catanach had left—not without communication with her ally, in spite of a certain precaution adopted by her mistress, the first thing the latter did when she entered being to take the key of the cellar stairs from her pocket, and release Jean, who issued crestfallen and miserable, and was sternly dismissed to bed. The next day, however, for reasons of her own, Miss Horn permitted her to resume her duties about the house without remark, as if nothing had happened serious enough to render further measures necessary.



CHAPTER LX: THE SACRAMENT

Abandoning all her remaining effects to Jean's curiosity, if indeed it were no worse demon that possessed her, Miss Horn, carrying a large reticule, betook herself to the Lossie Arms, to await the arrival of the mail coach from the west, on which she was pretty sure of a vacant seat.

It was a still, frosty, finger pinching dawn, and the rime lay thick wherever it could lie; but Miss Horn's red nose was carried in front of her in a manner that suggested nothing but defiance to the fiercest attacks of cold. Declining the offered shelter of the landlady's parlour, she planted herself on the steps of the inn, and there stood until the sound of the guard's horn came crackling through the frosty air, heralding the apparition of a flaming chariot, fit for the sun god himself, who was now lifting his red radiance above the horizon. Having none inside, the guard gallantly offered his one lady passenger a place in the heart of his vehicle, but she declined the attention—to him, on the ground of preferring the outside,—for herself, on the ground of uncertainty whether he had a right to bestow the privilege. But there was such a fire in her heart that no frost could chill her; such a bright bow in her west, that the sun now rising in the world's east was but a reflex of its splendour. True, the cloud against which it glowed was very dark with bygone wrong and suffering, but so much the more brilliant seemed the hope now arching the entrance of the future. Still, although she never felt the cold, and the journey was but of a few miles, it seemed long and wearisome to her active spirit, which would gladly have sent her tall person striding along, to relieve both by the discharge of the excessive generation of muscle working electricity.

At length the coach drove into the town, and stopped at the Duff Arms. Miss Horn descended, straightened her long back with some difficulty, shook her feet, loosened her knees, and after a douceur to the guard more liberal than was customary, in acknowledgment of the kindness she had been unable to accept, marched off with the stride of a grenadier to find her lawyer.

Their interview did not relieve her of much of the time, which now hung upon her like a cloak of lead, and the earliness of the hour would not have deterred her from at once commencing a round of visits to the friends she had in the place; but the gates of the lovely environs of Fife House stood open, and although there were no flowers now, and the trees were leafless, waiting in poverty and patience for their coming riches, they drew her with the offer of a plentiful loneliness and room. She accepted it, entered, and for two hours wandered about their woods and walks.

Entering with her the well known domain, the thought meets me: what would be the effect on us men of such a periodical alternation between nothing and abundance as these woods undergo? Perhaps in the endless variety of worlds there may be one in which that is among the means whereby its dwellers are saved from self and lifted into life; a world in which during the one half of the year they walk in state, in splendour, in bounty, and during the other are plunged in penury and labour.

Such speculations were not in Miss Horn's way; but she was better than the loftiest of speculations, and we will follow her. By and by she came out of the woods, and found herself on the banks of the Wan Water, a broad, fine river, here talking in wide rippled innocence from bank to bank, there lying silent and motionless and gloomy, as if all the secrets of the drowned since the creation of the world lay dim floating in its shadowy bosom. In great sweeps it sought the ocean, and the trees stood back from its borders, leaving a broad margin of grass between, as if the better to see it go. Just outside the grounds and before reaching the sea, it passed under a long bridge of many arches—then, trees and grass and flowers and all greenery left behind, rushed through a waste of storm heaped pebbles into the world water. Miss Horn followed it out of the grounds and on to the beach.

Here its channel was constantly changing. Even while she stood gazing at its rapid rush, its bank of pebbles and sand fell almost from under her feet. But her thoughts were so busy that she scarcely observed even what she saw, and hence it was not strange that she should be unaware of having been followed and watched all the way. Now from behind a tree, now from a corner of the mausoleum, now from behind a rock, now over the parapet of the bridge, the mad laird had watched her. From a heap of shingle on the opposite side of the Wan Water, he was watching her now. Again and again he had made a sudden movement as if to run and accost her, but had always drawn back again and concealed himself more carefully than before.

At length she turned in the direction of the town. It was a quaint old place—a royal burgh for five centuries, with streets irregular and houses of much individuality. Most of the latter were humble in appearance, bare and hard in form, and gray in hue; but there were curious corners, low archways, uncompromising gables, some with corbel steps—now and then an outside stair, a delicious little dormer window, or a gothic doorway, sometimes with a bit of carving over it.

With the bent head of the climber, Miss Horn was walking up a certain street, called from its precipitousness the Strait, that is difficult, Path—an absolute Hill of Difficulty, when she was accosted by an elderly man, who stood in the doorway of one of the houses.

"Ken ye wha 's yon watchin' ye frae the tap o' the brae, mem?" he said.

Miss Horn looked up: there was no one there.

"That 's it! he's awa' again! That's the w'y he 's been duin' this last hoor, at least, to my knowledge. I saw him watchin' ilka mov' ye made, mem, a' the time ye was doon upo' the shore—an there he is noo, or was a meenute ago, at the heid o' the brae, glowerin' the een oot o' 's heid at ye, mem!"

"Div ye ken him?" asked Miss Horn.

"No, mem—'cep' by sicht o' ee; he hasna been lang aboot the toon. Some fowk sae he's dementit; but he's unco quaiet, speyks to nobody, an' gien onybody speyk to him, jist rims. Cud he be kennin' you, no? Ye 're a stranger here, mem."

"No sic a stranger, John!" returned Miss Horn, calling the man by his name, for she recognized him as the beadle of the parish church. "What 's the body like?"

"A puir, wee, hump backit cratur, wi' the face o' a gentleman."

"I ken him weel," said Miss Horn. "He is a gentleman—gien ever God made ane. But he 's sair afflickit. Whaur does he lie at nicht —can ye tell me?"

"I ken naething aboot him, mem, by what comes o' seein' him sic like 's the day, an' ance teetin (peering) in at the door o' the kirk. I wad hae weised him till a seat, but the moment II luikit at him, awa' he ran. He 's unco cheenged though, sin' the first time I saw him."

Since he lost Phemy, fear had been slaying him. No one knew where he slept; but in the daytime he haunted the streets, judging them safer than the fields or woods. The moment any one accosted him, however, he fled like the wind. He had "no art to find the mind's construction in the face;" and not knowing whom to trust, he distrusted all. Humanity was good in his eyes, but there was no man. The vision of Miss Horn was like the dayspring from on high to him; with her near, the hosts of the Lord seemed to encamp around him; but the one word he had heard her utter about his back, had caused in him an invincible repugnance to appearing before her, and hence it was that at a distance he had haunted her steps without nearer approach.

There was indeed a change upon him! His clothes hung about him— not from their own ragged condition only, but also from the state of skin and bone to which he was reduced, his hump showing like a great peg over which they had been carelessly cast. Half the round of his eyes stood out from his face, whose pallor betokened the ever recurring rush of the faintly sallying troops back to the citadel of the heart. He had always been ready to run, but now he looked as if nothing but weakness and weariness kept him from running always. Miss Horn had presently an opportunity of marking the sad alteration.

For ere she reached the head of the Strait Path, she heard sounds as of boys at play, and coming out on the level of the High Street, saw a crowd, mostly of little boys, in the angle made by a garden wall with a house whose gable stood halfway across the pavement. It being Saturday, they had just left school in all the exuberance of spirits to which a half holiday gives occasion. In most of them the animal nature was, for the time at least, far wider awake than the human, and their proclivity towards the sport of the persecutor was strong. To them any living thing that looked at once odd and helpless was an outlaw—a creature to be tormented, or at best hunted beyond the visible world. A meagre cat, an overfed pet spaniel, a ditchless frog, a horse whose days hung over the verge of the knacker's yard—each was theirs in virtue of the amusement latent in it, which it was their business to draw out; but of all such property an idiot would yield the most, and a hunchback idiot, such as was the laird in their eyes, was absolutely invaluable— beyond comparison the best game in the known universe. When he left Portlossie, the laird knew pretty well what risks he ran, although he preferred even them to the dangers he hoped by his flight to avoid. It was he whom the crowd in question surrounded.

They had begun by rough teasing, to which he had responded with smiles—a result which did not at all gratify them, their chief object being to enrage him. They had therefore proceeded to small torments, and were ready to go on to worse, their object being with the laird hard to compass. Unhappily, there were amongst them two or three bigger boys.

The moment Miss Horn descried what they were about, she rushed into the midst of them, like a long bolt from a catapult, and scattering them right and left from their victim, turned and stood in front of him, regarding his persecutors with defiance in her flaming eye, and vengeance in her indignant nose. But there was about Miss Horn herself enough of the peculiar to mark her also, to the superficial observer, as the natural prey of boys; and the moment the first billow of consternation had passed and sunk, beginning to regard her as she stood, the vain imagination awoke in these young lords of misrule. They commenced their attack upon her by resuming it upon her protege. She spread out her skirts, far from voluminous, to protect him as he cowered behind them, and so long as she was successful in shielding him, her wrath smouldered—but powerfully. At length one of the bigger boys, creeping slyly up behind the front row of smaller ones, succeeded in poking a piece of iron rod past her, and drawing a cry from the laird. Out blazed the lurking flame. The boy had risen, and was now attempting to prosecute like an ape, what he had commenced like a snake. Inspired by the God of armies—the Lord of hosts, she rushed upon him, and struck him into the gutter. He fell in the very spot where he had found his weapon, and there he lay. The Christian Amazon turned to the laird; overflowing with compassion she stooped and kissed his forehead, then took him by the hand to lead him away. But most of the enemy had gathered around their fallen comrade, and seized with some anxiety as to his condition, Miss Horn approached the group: the instant she turned towards it, the laird snatched his hand from hers, darted away like a hunting spider, and shot down the Strait Path to the low street: by the time his protectress had looked over the heads of the group, seen that the young miscreant was not seriously injured, and requested him to take that for meddling with a helpless innocent, the object of her solicitude, whom she supposed standing behind her, was nowhere to be seen. Twenty voices, now obsequious, were lifted to acquaint her with the direction in which he had gone; but it was vain to attempt following him, and she pursued her way, somewhat sore at his want of faith in her, to the house of a certain relative, a dressmaker, whom she visited as often as she went to Duff Harbour.

Now Miss Forsyth was one of a small sect of worshippers which had, not many years before, built a chapel in the town—a quiet, sober, devout company, differing from their neighbours in nothing deeply touching the welfare of humanity. Their chief fault was, that, attributing to comparative trifles a hugely disproportionate value, they would tear the garment in pieces rather than yield their notion of the right way of wrapping it together.

It so happened that, the next morning, a minister famous in the community was to preach to them, on which ground Miss Forsyth persuaded her relative to stop over the Sunday, and go with her to their chapel. Bethinking herself next that her minister had no sermon to prepare, she took Miss Horn to call upon him.

Mr Bigg was one of those men whose faculty is always underestimated by their acquaintances and overestimated by their friends; to overvalue him was impossible. He was not merely of the salt of the earth, but of the leaven of the kingdom, contributing more to the true life of the world than many a thousand far more widely known and honoured. Such as this man are the chief springs of thought, feeling, inquiry, action, in their neighbourhood; they radiate help and breathe comfort; they reprove, they counsel, they sympathize; in a word, they are doorkeepers of the house of God. Constantly upon its threshold, and every moment pushing the door to peep in, they let out radiance enough to keep the hearts of men believing in the light. They make an atmosphere about them in which spiritual things can thrive, and out of their school often come men who do greater things, better they cannot do, than they.

Although a separatist as to externals, he was in heart a most catholic man—would have found himself far too catholic for the community over which he presided, had its members been capable of understanding him. Indeed, he had with many, although such was the force of his character that no one dared a word to that effect in his hearing, the reputation of being lax in his ideas of what constituted a saving faith; and most of the sect being very narrow minded, if not small hearted, in their limitations of the company fitly partaking of the last supper of our Lord—requiring proof of intellectual accord with themselves as to the how and why of many things, especially in regard of what they called the plan of salvation, he was generally judged to be misled by the deceitful kindliness of the depraved human heart in requiring as the ground of communion only such an uplook to Jesus as, when on earth, Jesus himself had responded to with healing. He was larger hearted, and therefore larger minded, than his people.

In the course of their conversation, Miss Forsyth recounted, with some humour, her visitor's prowess on behalf of the laird—much to honest Mr Bigg's delight.

"What ither cud I du?" said Miss Horn apologetically. "But I doobt I strack ower sair. Maybe ye wadna objec', sir, to gang and speir efter the laddie, an' gie him some guid advice?"

"I'll do that," returned Mr Bigg.—"Are we to have the pleasure of your company in our conventicle tomorrow?" he added, after a little pause. "Dr Blare is going to preach."

"Will ye hae me, Mr Bigg?"

"Most willingly, ma'am; and we 'll be still better pleased if you 'll sit down with us to the Lord's table afterwards."

"I gang to the perris kirk, ye ken," said Miss Horn, supposing the good man unaware of the fact.

"Oh! I know that, ma'am. But don't you think, as we shall, I trust, sit down together to his heavenly supper it would be a good preparation to sit down together, once at least, to his earthly supper first?"

"I didna ken 'at ye wad hae ony but yer ain fowk! I hae aften thoucht mysel', it was jist the ae thing ony Christian sud be ready to du wi' ony ither. Is 't a new thing wi' ye to haud open hoose this gait, sir,—gien I may tak the leeberty to speir?"

"We don't exactly keep open house. We wouldn't like to have any one with us who would count it poor fare. But still less would we like to exclude one of the Lord's friends. If that is a new thing, it ought to be an old one.—You believe in Jesus Christ—don't you, ma'am?"

"I dinna ken whether I believe in him as ye wad ca' believin' or no—there's sic a heap o' things broucht to the fore nooadays 'at I canna richtly say I un'erstan'. But as he dee'd for me, I wad dee for him. Raither nor say I didna ken him, I wad hing aside him. Peter an' a', I canna say less."

Mr Bigg's eyes began to smart, and he turned away his head.

"Gien that 'll du wi' ye," Miss Horn went on, "an' ye mean nae desertion o' the kirk o' my father an' his fathers afore him, I wad willin'ly partak wi' ye."

"You'll be welcome, Miss Horn—as welcome, as any of my own flock."

"Weel, noo, that I ca' Christian," said Miss Horn, rising. "An' 'deed I cud wuss," she added, "'at in oor ain kirk we had mair opportunity, for ance i' the twalmonth 's no verra aften to tak up the thouchts 'at belang to the holy ordnance."

The next day, after a powerful sermon from a man who, although in high esteem, was not for moral worth or heavenly insight to be compared with him whose place he took, they proceeded to the celebration of the Lord's supper, after the fashion of that portion of the church universal.

The communicants sat in several long pews facing the communion table, which was at the foot of the pulpit. After the reading of St Paul's account of the institution of the Lord's Supper, accompanied by prayers and addresses, the deacons carried the bread to the people, handing a slice to the first in each pew; each person in turn broke off a portion, and handed what remained to the next: thus they divided it among themselves.

It so happened that, in moving up to the communion seats, Miss Forsyth and Miss Horn were the last to enter one of them, and Miss Horn, very needlessly insisting on her custom of having her more capable ear towards her friend, occupied the place next the passage.

The service had hardly commenced, when she caught sight of the face of the mad laird peeping in at the door, which was in the side of the building, near where she sat. Their eyes met. With a half repentant, half apologetic look, he crept in, and, apparently to get as near his protectress as he could, sat down in the entrance of an empty pew, just opposite the one in which she was seated, on the other side of the narrow passage. His presence attracted little notice, for it was quite usual for individuals of the congregation who were not members of the church to linger on the outskirts of the company as spectators.

By the time the piece of bread reached Miss Horn from the other end, it was but a fragment. She broke it in two, and, reserving one part for herself in place of handing the remnant to the deacon who stood ready to take it, stretched her arm across the passage, and gave it to Mr Stewart, who had been watching the proceedings intently. He received it from her hand, bent his head over it devoutly, and ate it, unconscious of the scandalized looks of the deacon, who knew nothing of the miserable object thus accepting rather than claiming a share in the common hope of men.