When Peter, who unable to sit longer inactive had gone to the stable, re-entered, foiled in the attempt to occupy himself, and sat down by his wife, she began to talk about the funeral preparations, and the persons to be invited. But such sorrow overtook him afresh, that even his wife, herself inconsolable over her loss, was surprised at the depth of his grief for one who was no relative. It seemed to him indelicate, almost heartless of her to talk so soon of burying the dear one but just gone from their sight: it was unnecessary dispatch, and suggested a lack of reverence!

"What for sic a hurry?" he expostulated. "Isna there time eneuch to put oot o' yer sicht what ye ance lo'ed sae weel? Lat me be the nicht; the morn 'ill be here sene eneuch! Lat my sowl rest a moment wi' deith, and haud awa wi yer funeral. 'Sufficient til the day,' ye ken!"

"Eh dear, but I'm no like you, Peter! Whan the sowl's gane, I tak no content i' the presence o' the puir worthless body, luikin what it never mair can be! Na, I wad be rid o' 't, I confess!—But be it as ye wull, my ain man! It's a sair hert ye hae as weel as me i' yer body this nicht; and we maun beir ane anither's burdens! The dauty may lie as we hae laid her, the nicht throuw, and naething said: there's little to be dene for her; she's a bonny clean corp as ever was, and may weel lie a week afore we put her awa'!—There's no need for ony to watch her; tyke nor baudrins 'ill never come near her.—I hae aye won'ert what for fowk wad sit up wi the deid: yet I min' me weel they aye did i' the auld time."

In this she showed, however, and in this alone, that the girl she lamented was not her own daughter; for when the other Isy died, her body was never for a moment left with the eternal spaces, as if she might wake, and be terrified to find herself alone. Then, as if God had forgotten them, they went to bed without saying their usual prayers together: I fancy the visit of her son had been to Marion like the chill of a wandering iceberg.

In the morning the farmer, up first as usual, went into the death-chamber and sat down by the side of the bed, reproaching himself that he had forgotten "worship" the night before.

And as he sat looking at the white face, he became aware of what might be a little tinge of colour—the faintest possible—upon the lips. He knew it must be a fancy, or at best an accident without significance—for he had heard of such a thing! Still, even if his eyes were deceiving him, he must shrink from hiding away such death out of sight! The merest counterfeit of life was too sacred for burial! Just such might the little daughter of Jairus have looked when the Lord took her by the hand ere she arose!

Thus feeling, and thus seeming to see on the lips of the girl a doubtful tinge of the light of life, it was no wonder that Peter could not entertain the thought of her immediate burial. They must at least wait some sign, some unmistakable proof even, of change begun!

Instead, therefore, of going into the yard to set in motion the needful preparations for the harvest at hand, he sat on with the dead: he could not leave her until his wife should come to take his place and keep her company! He brought a bible from the next room, sat down again, and waited beside her. In doubtful, timid, tremulous hope, not worthy of the name of hope—a mere sense of a scarcely possible possibility, he waited what he would not consent to believe he waited for. He would not deceive himself; he would give his wife no hint, but wait to see how she saw! He would put to her no leading question even, but watch for any start or touch of surprise she might betray!

By and by Marion appeared, gazed a moment on the dead, looked pitifully in her husband's face, and went out again.

"She sees naething!" said Peter to himself. "I s' awa' to my wark!—Still I winna hae her laid aside afore I'm a wheen surer o' what she is—leevin sowl or deid clod!"

With a sad sense of vanished self-delusion, he rose and went out. As he passed through the kitchen, his wife followed him to the door. "Ye'll see and sen' a message to the vricht (carpenter) the day?" she whispered.

"I'm no likly to forget!" he answered; "but there's nae hurry, seem there's no life concernt!"

"Na, nane; the mair's the pity!" she answered; and Peter knew, with a glad relief, that his wife was coming to herself from the terrible blow.

She sent the cowboy to the Cormacks' cottage, to tell Eppie to come to her.

The old woman came, heard what details there were to the sad story, shook her head mournfully, and found nothing to say; but together they set about preparing the body for burial. That done, the mind of Mrs. Blatherwick was at ease, and she sat expecting the visit of the carpenter. But the carpenter did not come.

On the Thursday morning the soutar came to inquire after his friends at Stanecross, and the gudewife gave him a message to Willie Wabster, the vricht, to see about the coffin.

But the soutar, catching sight of the farmer in the yard, went and had a talk with him; and the result was that he took no message to the carpenter; and when Peter went in to his dinner, he still said there was no hurry: why should she be so anxious to heap earth over the dead? For still he saw, or fancied he saw, the same possible colour on Isy's cheek—like the faintest sunset-red, or that in the heart of the palest blush-rose, which is either glow or pallor as you choose to think it. So the first week of Isy's death passed, and still she lay in state, ready for the grave, but unburied.

Not a few of the neighbours came to see her, and were admitted where she lay; and some of them warned Marion that, when the change came, it would come suddenly; but still Peter would not hear of her being buried "with that colour on her cheek!" And Marion had come to see, or to imagine with her husband that she saw the colour. So, each in turn, they kept watching her: who could tell but the Lord might be going to work a miracle for them, and was not in the meantime only trying them, to see how long their patience and hope would endure!

The report spread through the neighbourhood, and reached Tiltowie, where it speedily pervaded street and lane:—"The lass at Stanecross, she's lyin deid, and luikin as alive as ever she was!" From street and lane the people went crowding to see the strange sight, and would have overrun the house, but had a reception by no means cordial: the farmer set men at every door, and would admit no one. Angry and ashamed, they all turned and went— except a few of the more inquisitive, who continued lurking about in the hope of hearing something to carry home and enlarge upon.

As to the minister, he insisted upon disbelieving the whole thing, and yet was made not a little uncomfortable by the rumour. Such a foe to superstition that in his mind he silently questioned the truth of all records of miracles, to whomsoever attributed, he was yet haunted by a fear which he dared not formulate. Of course, whatever might take place, it could be no miracle, but the mere natural effect of natural causes! none the less, however, did he dread what might happen: he feared Isy herself, and what she might disclose! For a time he did not dare again go near the place. The girl might be in a trance! she might revive suddenly, and call out his name! She might even reveal all! She had always been a strange girl! What if, indeed, she were even being now kept alive to tell the truth, and disgrace him before all the world! Horrible as was the thought, might it not be well, in view of the possibility of her revival, that he should be present to hear anything she might say, and take precaution against it? He resolved, therefore, to go to Stonecross, and make inquiry after her, heartily hoping to find her undoubtedly and irrecoverably dead.

In the meantime, Peter had been growing more and more expectant, and had nearly forgotten all about the coffin, when a fresh rumour came to the ears of William Webster, the coffin-maker, that the young woman at Stonecross was indeed and unmistakably gone; whereupon he, having lost patience over the uncertainty that had been crippling his operations, questioned no more what he had so long expected, set himself at once to his supposed task, and finished what he had already begun and indeed half ended. The same night that the minister was on his way to the farm, he passed Webster and his man carrying the coffin home through the darkness: he descried what it was, and his heart gave a throb of satisfaction. The men reaching Stonecross in the pitch-blackness of a gathering storm, they stupidly set up their burden on end by the first door, and went on to the other, where they made a vain effort to convey to the deaf Eppie a knowledge of what they had done. She making them no intelligible reply, there they left the coffin leaning up against the wall; and, eager to get home ere the storm broke upon them, set off at what speed was possible to them on the rough and dark road to Tiltowie, now in their turn meeting and passing the minister on his way.

By the time James arrived at Stonecross, it was too dark for him to see the ghastly sentinel standing at the nearer door. He walked into the parlour; and there met his father coming from the little chamber where his wife was seated.

"Isna this a most amazin thing, and houpfu' as it's amazing?" cried his father. "What can there be to come oot o' 't? Eh, but the w'ys o' the Almichty are truly no to be mizzered by mortal line! The lass maun surely be intendit for marvellous things, to be dealt wi' efter sic an extra- ordnar fashion! Nicht efter nicht has the tane or the tither o' hiz twa been sittin here aside her, lattin the hairst tak its chance, and i' the daytime lea'in 'maist a' to the men, me sleepin and they at their wark; and here the bonny cratur lyin, as quaiet as gien she had never seen tribble, for thirteen days, and no change past upon her, no more than on the three holy bairns i' the fiery furnace! I'm jist in a trimle to think what's to come oot o' 't a'! God only kens! we can but sit still and wait his appearance! What think ye, Jeemie?—Whan the Lord was deid upo' the cross, they waitit but twa nichts, and there he was up afore them! here we hae waitit, close on a haill fortnicht—and naething even to pruv that she's deid! still less ony sign that ever she'll speyk word til's again!—What think ye o' 't, man?"

"Gien ever she returns to life, I greatly doobt she'll ever bring back her senses wi' her!" said the mother, joining them from the inner chamber.

"Hoot, ye min' the tale o' the lady—Lady Fanshawe, I believe they ca'd her? She cam til hersel a' richt i' the en'!" said Peter.

"I don't remember the story," said James. "Such old world tales are little to be heeded."

"I min' naething aboot it but jist that muckle," said his father. "And I can think o' naething but that bonny lassie lyin there afore me naither deid nor alive! I jist won'er, Jeames, that ye're no as concernt, and as fillt wi' doobt and even dreid anent it as I am mysel!"

"We're all in the hands of the God who created life and death," returned James, in a pious tone.

The father held his peace.

"And He'll bring licht oot o' the vera dark o' the grave!" said the mother.

Her faith, or at least her hope, once set agoing, went farther than her husband's, and she had a greater power of waiting than he. James had sorely tried both her patience and her hope, and not even now had she given him up.

"Ye'll bide and share oor watch this ae nicht, Jeames?" said Peter. "It's an elrische kin o' a thing to wauk up i' the mirk mids, wi' a deid corp aside ye!—No 'at even yet I gie her up for deid! but I canna help feelin some eerie like—no to say fleyt! Bide, man, and see the nicht oot wi' 's, and gie yer mither and me some hert o' grace."

James had little inclination to add another to the party, and began to murmur something about his housekeeper. But his mother cut him short with the indignant remark—

"Hoot, what's she?—Naething to you or ony o' 's! Lat her sit up for ye, gien she likes! Lat her sit, I say, and never waste thoucht upo' the queyn!"

James had not a word to answer. Greatly as he shrank from the ordeal, he must encounter it without show of reluctance! He dared not even propose to sit in the kitchen and smoke. With better courage than will, he consented to share their vigil. "And then," he reflected, "if she should come to herself, there would be the advantage he had foreseen and even half desired!"

His mother went to prepare supper for them. His father rose, and saying he would have a look at the night, went toward the door; for even his strange situation could not entirely smother the anxiety of the husbandman. But James glided past him to the door, determined not to be left alone with that thing in the chamber.

But in the meantime the wind had been rising, and the coffin had been tilting and resettling on its narrower end. At last, James opening the door, the gruesome thing fell forward just as he crossed the threshold, knocked him down, and settled on the top of him. His father, close behind him, tumbled over the obstruction, divined, in the light of a lamp in the passage, what the prostrate thing was, and scrambling to his feet with the only oath he had, I fully believe, ever uttered, cried: "Damn that fule, Willie Wabster! Had he naething better to dee nor sen' to the hoose coffins naebody wantit—and syne set them doon like rotten-traps (rat-traps) to whomel puir Jeemie!" He lifted the thing from off the minister, who rose not much hurt, but both amazed and offended at the mishap, and went to his mother in the kitchen.

"Dinna say muckle to yer mither, Jeames laad," said his father as he went; "that is, dinna explain preceesely hoo the ill-faured thing happent. I'll hae amen's (amends, vengeance) upon him!" So saying, he took the offensive vehicle, awkward burden as it was, in his two arms, and carrying it to the back of the cornyard, shoved it over the low wall into the dry ditch at its foot, where he heaped dirty straw from the stable over it.

"It'll be lang," he vowed to himsel, "or Willie Wabster hear the last o' this!—and langer yet or he see the glint o' the siller he thoucht he was yirnin by 't!—It's come and cairry 't hame himsel he sall, the muckle idiot! He may turn 't intil a breid-kist, or what he likes, the gomf!"

"Fain wud I screw the reid heid o' 'im intil that same kist, and hand him there, short o' smorin!" he muttered as he went back to the house.—"Faith, I could 'maist beery him ootricht!" he concluded, with a grim smile.

Ere he re-entered the house, however, he walked a little way up the hill, to cast over the vault above him a farmer's look of inquiry as to the coming night, and then went in, shaking his head at what the clouds boded.

Marion had brought their simple supper into the parlour, and was sitting there with James, waiting for him. When they had ended their meal, and Eppie had removed the remnants, the husband and wife went into the adjoining chamber and sat down by the bedside, where James presently joined them with a book in his hand. Eppie, having rested the fire in the kitchen, came into the parlour, and sat on the edge of a chair just inside the door.

Peter had said nothing about the night, and indeed, in his wrath with the carpenter, had hardly noted how imminent was the storm; but the air had grown very sultry, and the night was black as pitch, for a solid mass of cloud had blotted out the stars: it was plain that, long before morning, a terrible storm must break. But midnight came and went, and all was very still.

Suddenly the storm was upon them, with a forked, vibrating flash of angry light that seemed to sting their eyeballs, and was replaced by a darkness that seemed to crush them like a ponderous weight. Then all at once the weight itself seemed torn and shattered into sound—into heaps of bursting, roaring, tumultuous billows. Another flash, yet another and another followed, each with its crashing uproar of celestial avalanches. At the first flash Peter had risen and gone to the larger window of the parlour, to discover, if possible, in what direction the storm was travelling. Marion, feeling as if suddenly unroofed, followed him, and James was left alone with the dead. He sat, not daring to move; but when the third flash came, it flickered and played so long about the dead face, that it seemed for minutes vividly visible, and his gaze was fixed on it, fascinated. The same moment, without a single preparatory movement, Isy was on her feet, erect on the bed.

A great cry reached the ears of the father and mother. They hurried into the chamber: James lay motionless and senseless on the floor: a man's nerve is not necessarily proportioned to the hardness of his heart! The verity of the thing had overwhelmed him.

Isobel had fallen, and lay gasping and sighing on the bed. She knew nothing of what had happened to her; she did not yet know herself—did not know that her faithless lover lay on the floor by her bedside.

When the mother entered, she saw nothing—only heard Isy's breathing. But when her husband came with a candle, and she saw her son on the floor, she forgot Isy; all her care was for James. She dropped on her knees beside him, raised his head, held it to her bosom, and lamented over him as if he were dead. She even felt annoyed with the poor girl's moaning, as she struggled to get back to life. Why should she whose history was such, be the cause of mishap to her reverend and honoured son? Was she worth one of his little fingers! Let her moan and groan and sigh away there—what did it matter! she could well enough wait a bit! She would see to her presently, when her precious son was better!

Very different was the effect upon Peter when he saw Isy coming to herself. It was a miracle indeed! It could be nothing less! White as was her face, there was in it an unmistakable look of reviving life! When she opened her eyes and saw her master bending over her, she greeted him with a faint smile, closed her eyes again, and lay still. James also soon began to show signs of recovery, and his father turned to him.

With the old sullen look of his boyhood, he glanced up at his mother, still overwhelming him with caresses and tears.

"Let me up," he said querulously, and began to wipe his face. "I feel so strange! What can have made me turn so sick all at once?"

"Isy's come to life again!" said his mother, with modified show of pleasure.

"Oh!" he returned.

"Ye're surely no sorry for that!" rejoined his mother, with a reaction of disappointment at his lack of sympathy, and rose as she said it.

"I'm pleased to hear it—why not?" he answered. "But she gave me a terrible start! You see, I never expected it, as you did!"

"Weel, ye are hertless, Jeernie!" exclaimed his father. "Hae ye nae spark o' fellow-feelin wi' yer ain mither, whan the lass comes to life 'at she's been fourteen days murnin for deid? But losh! she's aff again!—deid or in a dwaum, I kenna!—Is't possible she's gaein to slip frae oor hand yet?"

James turned his head aside, and murmured something inaudibly.

But Isy had only fainted. After some eager ministrations on the part of Peter, she came to herself once more, and lay panting, her forehead wet as with the dew of death.

The farmer ran out to a loft in the yard, and calling the herd-boy, a clever lad, told him to rise and ride for the doctor as fast as the mare could lay feet to the road.

"Tell him," he said, "that Isy has come to life, and he maun munt and ride like the vera mischeef, or she'll be deid again afore he wins til her. Gien ye canna get the tae doctor, awa wi' ye to the tither, and dinna ley him till ye see him i' the saiddle and startit. Syne ye can ease the mere, and come hame at yer leisur; he'll be here lang afore ye!—Tell him I'll pey him ony fee he likes, be't what it may, and never compleen!—Awa' wi' ye like the vera deevil!"

"I didna think ye kenned hoo he rade," answered the boy pawkily, as he shot to the stable. "Weel," he added, "ye maunna gley asklent at the mere whan she comes hame some saipy-like!"

When he returned on the mare's back, the farmer was waiting for him with the whisky-bottle in his hand.

"Na, na!" he said, seeing the lad eye the bottle, "it's no for you! ye want a' the sma' wit ye ever hed: it's no you 'at has to gallop; ye hae but to stick on!—Hae, Susy!"

He poured half a tumblerful into a soup-plate, and held it out to the mare, who, never snuffing at it, licked it up greedily, and immediately started of herself at a good pace.

Peter carried the bottle to the chamber, and got Isy to swallow a little, after which she began to recover again. Nor did Marion forget to administer a share to James, who was not a little in want of it.

When, within an hour, the doctor arrived full of amazed incredulity, he found Isy in a troubled sleep, and James gone to bed.



CHAPTER XXIII

The next day, Isy, although very weak, was greatly better. She was, however, too ill to get up; and Marion seemed now in her element, with two invalids, both dear to her, to look after. She hardly knew for which to be more grateful—her son, given helpless into her hands, unable to repel the love she lavished upon him; or the girl whom God had taken from the very throat of the swallowing grave. But her heart, at first bubbling over with gladness, soon grew calmer, when she came to perceive how very ill James was. And before long she began to fear she must part with her child, whose lack of love hitherto made the threatened separation the more frightful to her. She turned even from the thought of Isy's restoration, as if that were itself an added wrong. From the occasional involuntary association of the two in her thought, she would turn away with a sort of meek loathing. To hold her James for one moment in the same thought with any girl less spotless than he, was to disgrace herself!

James was indeed not only very ill, but growing slowly worse; for he lay struggling at last in the Backbite of Conscience, who had him in her unrelaxing jaws, and was worrying him well. Whence the holy dog came we know, but how he got a hold of him to begin his saving torment, who shall understand but the maker of men and of their secret, inexorable friend! Every beginning is infinitesimal, and wrapt in the mystery of creation.

Its results only, not its modes of operation or their stages, I may venture attempting to convey. It was the wind blowing where it listed, doing everything and explaining nothing. That wind from the timeless and spaceless and formless region of God's feeling and God's thought, blew open the eyes of this man's mind so that he saw, and became aware that he saw. It blew away the long-gathered vapours of his self-satisfaction and conceit; it blew wide the windows of his soul, that the sweet odour of his father's and mother's thoughts concerning him might enter; and when it entered, he knew it for what it was; it blew back to him his own judgments of them and their doings, and he saw those judgments side by side with his new insights into their real thoughts and feelings; it blew away the desert sands of his own moral dulness, indifference, and selfishness, that had so long hidden beneath them the watersprings of his own heart, existent by and for love and its gladness; it cleared all his conscious being, made him understand that he had never hitherto loved his mother or his father, or any neighbour; that he had never loved God one genuine atom, never loved the Lord Christ, his Master, or cared in the least that he had died for him; had never at any moment loved Isy—least of all when to himself he pleaded in his own excuse that he had loved her. That blowing wind, which he could not see, neither knew whence it came, and yet less whither it was going, began to blow together his soul and those of his parents; the love in his father and in his mother drew him; the memories of his childhood drew him; for the heart of God himself was drawing him, as it had been from the first, only now first he began to feel its drawing; and as he yielded to that drawing and went nearer, God drew ever more and more strongly; until at last—I know not, I say, how God did it, or whereby he made the soul of James Blatherwick different from what it had been—but at last it grew capable of loving, and did love: first, he yielded to love because he could not help it; then he willed to love because he could love; then, become conscious of the power, he loved the more, and so went on to love more and more. And thus did James become what he had to become —or perish.

But for this liberty, he had to pass through wild regions of torment and horror; he had to become all but mad, and know it; his body, and his soul as well, had to be parched with fever, thirst, and fear; he had to sleep and dream lovely dreams of coolness and peace and courage; then wake and know that all his life he had been dead, and now first was alive; that love, new-born, was driving out the gibbering phantoms; that now indeed it was good to be, and know others alive about him; that now life was possible, because life was to love, and love was to live. What love was, or how it was, he could not tell; he knew only that it was the will and the joy of the Father and the Son.

Long ere he arrived at this, however, the falsehood and utter meanness of his behaviour to Isy had become plain to him, bringing with it such an overpowering self-contempt and self-loathing, that he was tempted even to self-destruction to escape the knowledge that he was himself the very man who had been such, and had done such things. "To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself!" he might have said with Macbeth. But he must live on, for how otherwise could he make any atonement? And with the thought of reparation, and possible forgiveness and reconcilement, his old love for Isy rushed in like a flood, grown infinitely nobler, and was uplifted at last into a genuine self-abandoning devotion. But until this final change arrived, his occasional paroxysms of remorse touched almost on madness, and for some time it seemed doubtful whether his mind must not retain a permanent tinge of insanity. He conceived a huge disgust of his office and all its requirements; and sometimes bitterly blamed his parents for not interfering with his choice of a profession that was certain to be his ruin.

One day, having had no delirium for some hours, he suddenly called out as they stood by his bed—

"Oh, mother! oh, father! why did you tempt me to such hypocrisy? Why did you not bring me up to walk at the plough-tail? Then I should never have had to encounter the damnable snares of the pulpit! It was that which ruined me—the notion that I must take the minister for my pattern, and live up to my idea of him, before even I had begun to cherish anything real in me! It was the road royal to hypocrisy! Without that rootless, worthless, devilish fancy, I might have been no worse than other people! Now I am lost! Now I shall never get back to bare honesty, not to say innocence! They are both gone for ever!"

The poor mother could only imagine it his humility that made him accuse himself of hypocrisy, and that because he had not fulfilled to the uttermost the smallest duty of his great office.

"Jamie, dear," she cried, laying her cheek to his, "ye maun cast yer care upo' Him that careth for ye! He kens ye hae dene yer best—or if no yer vera best—for wha daur say that?—ye hae at least dene what ye could!"

"Na, na!" he answered, resuming the speech of his boyhood—a far better sign of him than his mother understood, "I ken ower muckle, and that muckle ower weel, to lay sic a flattering unction to my sowl! It's jist as black as the fell mirk! 'Ah, limed soul, that, struggling to be free, art more engaged!'"

"Hoots, ye're dreamin, laddie! Ye never was engaged to onybody—at least that ever I h'ard tell o'! But, ony gait, fash na ye aboot that! Gien it be onything o' sic a natur that's troublin ye, yer father and me we s' get ye clear o' 't!"

"Ay, there ye're at it again! It was you 'at laid the bird-lime! Ye aye tuik pairt, mither, wi' the muckle deil that wad na rist till he had my sowl in his deepest pit!"

"The Lord kens his ain: he'll see that they come throuw unscaumit!"

"The Lord disna mak ony hypocreet o' purpose doobtless; but gien a man sin efter he has ance come to the knowledge o' the trowth, there remaineth for him—ye ken the lave o' 't as weel as I dee mysel, mother! My only houp lies in a doobt—a doobt, that is, whether I had ever come til a knowledge o' the trowth—or hae yet!—Maybe no!"

"Laddie, ye're no i' yer richt min'. It's fearsome to hearken til ye!"

"It'll be waur to hear me roarin wi' the rich man i' the lowes o' hell!"

"Peter! Peter!" cried Marion, driven almost to distraction, "here's yer ain son, puir fallow, blasphemin like ane o' the condemned! He jist gars me creep!"

Receiving no answer, for her husband was nowhere near at the moment, she called aloud in her desperation—

"Isy! Isy! come and see gien ye can dee onything to quaiet this ill bairn."

Isy heard, and sprang from her bed.

"Comin, mistress!" she answered; "comin this moment."

They had not met since her resurrection, as Peter always called it.

"Isy! Isy!" cried James, the moment he heard her approaching, "come and hand the deil aff o' me!"

He had risen to his elbow, and was looking eagerly toward the door.

She entered. James threw wide his arms, and with glowing eyes clasped her to his bosom. She made no resistance: his mother would lay it all to the fever! He broke into wild words of love, repentance, and devotion.

"Never heed him a hair, mem; he's clean aff o' his heid!" she said in a low voice, making no attempt to free herself from his embrace, but treating him like a delirious child. "There maun be something aboot me, mem, that quaiets him a bit! It's the brain, ye ken, mem! it's the het brain! We maunna contre him! he maun hae his ain w'y for a wee!"

But such was James's behaviour to Isy that it was impossible for the mother not to perceive that, incredible as it might seem, this must be far from the first time they had met; and presently she fell to examining her memory whether she herself might not have seen Isy before ever she came to Stonecross; but she could find no answer to her inquiry, press the question as she might. By and by, her husband came in to have his dinner, and finding herself compelled, much against her will, to leave the two together, she sent up Eppie to take Isy's place, with the message that she was to go down at once. Isy obeyed, and went to the kitchen; but, perturbed and trembling, dropped on the first chair she came to. The farmer, already seated at the table, looked up, and anxiously regarding her, said—

"Bairn, ye're no fit to be aboot! Ye maun caw canny, or ye'll be ower the burn yet or ever ye're safe upo' this side o' 't! Preserve's a'! ir we to lowse ye twise in ae month?"

"Jist answer me ae queston, Isy, and I'll speir nae mair," said Marion.

"Na, na, never a queston!" interposed Peter;—"no ane afore even the shaidow o' deith has left the hoose!—Draw ye up to the table, my bonny bairn: this isna a time for ceremony, and there's sma' room for that ony day!"

Finding, however, that she sat motionless, and looked far more death-like than while in her trance, he got up, and insisted on her swallowing a little whisky; when she revived, and glad to put herself under his nearer protection, took the chair he had placed for her beside him, and made a futile attempt at eating. "It's sma' won'er the puir thing hasna muckle eppiteet," remarked Mrs. Blatherwick, "considerin the w'y yon ravin laddie up the stair has been cairryin on til her!"

"What! Hoo's that?" questioned her husband with a start.

"But ye're no to mak onything o' that, Isy!" added her mistress.

"Never a particle, mem!" returned Isy. "I ken weel it stan's for naething but the heat o' the burnin brain! I'm richt glaid though, that the sicht o' me did seem to comfort him a wee!"

"Weel, I'm no sae sure!" answered Marion. "But we'll say nae mair anent that the noo! The guidman says no; and his word's law i' this hoose."

Isy resumed her pretence of breakfast. Presently Eppie came down, and going to her master, said—

"Here's An'ra, sir, come to speir efter the yoong minister and Isy: am I to gar him come in?"

"Ay, and gie him his brakfast," shouted the farmer.

The old woman set a chair for her son by the door, and proceeded to attend to him. James was left alone.

Silence again fell, and the appearance of eating was resumed, Peter being the only one that made a reality of it. Marion was occupied with many thinkings, specially a growing doubt and soreness about Isy. The hussy had a secret! She had known something all the time, and had been taking advantage of her unsuspiciousness! It would be a fine thing for her, indeed, to get hold of the minister! but she would see him dead first! It was too bad of the Robertsons, whom she had known so long and trusted so much! They knew what they were doing when they passed their trash upon her! She began to distrust ministers! What right had they to pluck brands from the burning at the expense o' dacent fowk! It was to do evil that good might come! She would say that to their faces! Thus she sat thinking and glooming.

A cry of misery came from the room above. Isy started to her feet. But Marion was up before her.

"Sit doon this minute," she commanded.

Isy hesitated.

"Sit doon this moment, I tell ye!" repeated Marion imperiously. "Ye hae no business there! I'm gaein til 'im mysel!" And with the word she left the room.

Peter laid down his spoon, then half rose, staring bewildered, and followed his wife from the room.

"Oh my baby! my baby!" cried Isy, finding herself alone. "If only I had you to take my part! It was God gave you to me, or how could I love you so? And the mistress winna believe that even I had a bairnie! Noo she'll be sayin I killt my bonny wee man! And yet, even for his sake, I never ance wisht ye hadna been born! And noo, whan the father o' 'im's ill, and cryin oot for me, they winna lat me near 'im!"

The last words left her lips in a wailing shriek.

Then first she saw that her master had reentered. Wiping her eyes hurriedly, she turned to him with a pitiful, apologetic smile.

"Dinna be sair vext wi' me, sir: I canna help bein glaid that I had him, and to tyne him has gien me an unco sair hert!"

She stopped, terrified: how much had he heard? she could not tell what she might not have said! But the farmer had resumed his breakfast, and went on eating as if she had not spoken. He had heard nearly all she said, and now sat brooding on her words.

Isy was silent, saying in her heart—"If only he loved me, I should be content, and desire no more! I would never even want him to say it! I would be so good to him, and so silent, that he could not help loving me a little!"

I wonder whether she would have been as hopeful had she known how his mother had loved him, and how vainly she had looked for any love in return! And when Isy vowed in her heart never to let James know that she had borne him a son, she did not perceive that thus she would withhold the most potent of influences for his repentance and restoration to God and his parents. She did not see James again that night; and before she fell asleep at last in the small hours of the morning, she had made up her mind that, ere the same morning grew clear upon the moor, she would, as the only thing left her to do for him, be far away from Stonecross. She would go back to Deemouth, and again seek work at the paper-mills!



CHAPTER XXIV

She woke in the first of the gray dawn, while the house was in utter stillness, and rising at once, rose and dressed herself with soundless haste. It was hard indeed to go and leave James thus in danger, but she had no choice! She held her breath and listened, but all was still. She opened her door softly; not a sound reached her ear as she crept down the stair. She had neither to unlock nor unbolt the door to leave the house, for it was never made fast. A dread sense of the old wandering desolation came back upon her as she stepped across the threshold, and now she had no baby to comfort her! She was leaving a mouldy peace and a withered love behind her, and had once more to encounter the rough coarse world! She feared the moor she had to cross, and the old dreams she must there encounter; and as she held on her way through them, she felt, in her new loneliness, and the slow-breaking dawn, as if she were lying again in her trance, partly conscious, but quite unable to move, thinking she was dead, and waiting to be buried. Then suddenly she knew where she was, and that God was not gone, but her own Maker was with her, and would not forsake her.

Of the roads that led from the farm she knew only that by which Mr. Robertson had brought her, and that would guide her to the village where they had left the coach: there she was sure to find some way of returning to Deemouth! Feeble after her prolonged inaction, and the crowd of emotions succeeding her recovery, she found the road very weary, and long ere she reached Tiltowie, she felt all but worn out. At the only house she had come to on the way, she stopped and asked for some water. The woman, the only person she had seen, for it was still early morning, and the road was a lonely one, perceived that she looked ill, and gave her milk instead. In the strength of that milk she reached the end of her first day's journey; and for many days she had not to take a second.

Now Isy had once seen the soutar at the farm, and going about her work had heard scraps of his conversation with the mistress, when she had been greatly struck by certain things he said, and had often since wished for the opportunity of a talk with him. That same morning then, going along a narrow lane, and hearing a cobbler's hammer, she glanced through a window close to the path, and at once recognized the soutar. He looked up as she obscured his light, and could scarce believe his eyes when, so early in the day, he saw before him Mistress Blatherwick's maid, concerning whom there had been such a talk and such a marvelling for weeks. She looked ill, and he was amazed to see her about so soon, and so far from home. She smiled to him feebly, and passed from his range with a respectful nod. He sprang to his feet, bolted out, and overtook her at once.

"I'm jist gaein to drop my wark, mem, and hae my brakfast: wull ye no come in and share wi' an auld man and a yoong lass? Ye hae come a gey bit, and luik some fatiguit!"

"Thank ye kindly, sir," returned Isy. "I am a bit tired!—But I won'er ye kenned me!"

"Weel, I canna jist say I ken ye by the name fowk ca' ye; and still less div I ken ye by the name the Lord ca's ye; but nowther maitters muckle to her that kens He has a name growin for her—or raither, a name she's growin til! Eh, what a day will that be whan ilk habitant o' the holy city 'ill tramp the streets o' 't weel kenned and weel kennin!"

"Ay, sir! I 'maist un'erstan' ye ootricht, for I h'ard ye ance sayin something like that to the mistress, the nicht ye broucht hame the maister's shune to Stanecross. And, eh, I'm richt glaid to see ye again!"

They were already in the house, for she had followed him in almost mechanically; and the soutar was setting for her the only chair there was, when the cry of a child reached their ears. The girl started to her feet. A rosy flush of delight overspread her countenance; she fell a-trembling from head to foot, and it seemed uncertain whether she would succeed in running to the cry, or must fall to the floor.

"Ay," exclaimed the soutar, with one of his sudden flashes of unquestioning insight, "by the luik o' ye, ye ken that for the cry o' yer ain bairn, my bonny lass! Ye'll hae been missin him, sair, I doobt!—There! sit ye doon, and I'll hae him i' yer airms afore ae meenut!"

She obeyed him and sat down, but kept her eyes fixed on the door, wildly expectant. The soutar made haste, and ran to fetch the child. When he returned with him in his arms, he found her sitting bolt upright, with her hands already apart, held out to receive him, and her eyes alive as he had never seen eyes before.

"My Jamie! my ain bairn!" she cried, seizing him to her bosom with a grasp that, trembling, yet seemed to cling to him desperately, and a look almost of defiance, as if she dared the world to take him from her again. "O my God!" she cried, in an agony of thankfulness, "I ken ye noo! I ken ye noo! Never mair wull I doobt ye, my God!—Lost and found!—Lost for a wee, and found again for ever!"

Then she caught sight of Maggie, who had entered behind her father, and stood staring at her motionless,—with a look of gladness indeed, but not all of gladness.

"I ken fine," Isy broke out, with a trembling, yet eager, apologetic voice, "ye're grudgin me ilka luik at him! I ken't by mysel! Ye're thinkin him mair yours nor mine! And weel ye may, for it's you that's been motherin him ever since I lost my wits! It's true I ran awa' and left him; but ever sin' syne, I hae soucht him carefully wi' tears! And ye maunna beir me ony ill will—for there!" she added, holding him out to Maggie! "I haena kissed him yet!—no ance!—But ye wull lat me kiss him afore ye tak him awa'?—my ain bairnie, whause vera comin I had prepared shame for!—Oh my God!—But he kens naething aboot it, and winna ken for years to come! And nane but his ain mammie maun brak the dreid trowth til him!—and by that time he'll lo'e her weel eneuch to be able to bide it! I thank God that I haena had to shue the birds and the beasts aff o' his bonny wee body! It micht hae been, but for you, my bonnie lass!—and for you, sir!" she went on, turning to the soutar.

Maggie caught the child from her offering arms, and held up his little face for his mother to kiss; and so held him until, for the moment, Isy's mother-greed was satisfied. Then she sat down with him in her lap, and Isy stood absorbed in regarding him. At last she said, with a deep sigh—

"Noo I maun awa', and I dinna ken hoo I'm to gang! I hae found him and maun leave him!—but I houp no for vera lang!—Maybe ye'll keep him yet a whilie—say for a week mair? He's been sae lang disused til a wan'erin life, that I doobt it mayna weel agree wi' him; and I maun awa' back to Deemooth, gien I can get onybody to gie me a lift."

"Na, na; that'll never dee," returned Maggie, with a sob. "My father'll be glaid eneuch to keep him; only we hae nae richt ower him, and ye maun hae him again whan ye wull."

"Ye see I hae nae place to tak him til!" pleaded Isy.

"Gien ye dinna want him, gie him to me: I want him!" said Maggie eagerly.

"Want him!" returned Isy, bursting into tears; "I hae lived but upo the bare houp o' gettin him again! I hae grutten my een sair for the sicht o' 'im! Aften hae I waukent greetin ohn kenned for what!—and noo ye tell me I dinna want him, 'cause I hae nae spot but my breist to lay his heid upo! Eh, guid fowk, keep him till I get a place to tak him til, and syne haudna him a meenute frae me!"

All this time the soutar had been watching the two girls with a divine look in his black eyes and rugged face; now at last he opened his mouth and said:

"Them 'at haps the bairn, are aye sib (related) to the mither!—Gang ben the hoose wi' Maggie, my dear; and lay ye doon on her bed, and she'll lay the bairnie aside ye, and fess yer brakfast there til ye. Ye winna be easy to sair (satisfy), haein had sae little o' 'im for sae lang!—Lea' them there thegither, Maggie, my doo," he went on with infinite tenderness, "and come and gie me a han' as sune as ye hae maskit the tay, and gotten a lof o' white breid. I s' hae my parritch a bit later."

Maggie obeyed at once, and took Isy to the other end of the house, where the soutar had long ago given up his bed to her and the baby.

When they had all breakfasted, the soutar and Maggie in the kitchen, and Isy and the bairnie in the ben en', Maggie took her old place beside her father, and for a long time they worked without word spoken.

"I doobt, father," said Maggie at length, "I haena been atten'in til ye properly! I fear the bairnie 's been garrin me forget ye!"

"No a hair, dautie!" returned the soutar. "The needs o' the little are stude aye far afore mine, and had to be seen til first! And noo that we hae the mither o' 'im, we'll get on faumous!—Isna she a fine cratur, and richt mitherlike wi' the bairn? That was a' I was concernt aboot! We'll get her story frae her or lang, and syne we'll ken a hantle better hoo to help her on! And there can be nae fear but, atween you and me, and the Michty at the back o' 's, we s' get breid eneuch for the quaternion o' 's!"

He laughed at the odd word as it fell from his mouth and the Acts of Apostles. Maggie laughed too, and wiped her eyes.

Before long, Maggie recognized that she had never been so happy in her life. Isy told them as much as she could without breaking her resolve to keep secret a certain name; and wrote to Mr. Robertson, telling him where she was, and that she had found her baby. He came with his wife to see her, and so a friendship began between the soutar and him, which Mr. Robertson always declared one of the most fortunate things that had ever befallen him.

"That soutar-body," he would say, "kens mair aboot God and his kingdom, the hert o' 't and the w'ys o' 't, than ony man I ever h'ard tell o'—and that heumble!—jist like the son o' God himsel!"

Before many days passed, however, a great anxiety laid hold of the little household: wee Jamie was taken so ill that the doctor had to be summoned. For eight days he had much fever, and his appealing looks were pitiful to see. When first he ceased to run about, and wanted to be nursed, no one could please him but the soutar himself, and he, at once discarding his work, gave himself up to the child's service. Before long, however, he required defter handling, and then no one would do but Maggie, to whom he had been more accustomed; nor could Isy get any share in the labour of love except when he was asleep: as soon as he woke, she had to encounter the pain of hearing him cry out for Maggie, and seeing him stretch forth his hands, even from his mother's lap, to one whom he knew better than her. But Maggie was very careful over the poor mother, and would always, the minute he was securely asleep, lay him softly upon her lap. And Maggie soon got so high above her jealousy, that one of the happiest moments in her life was when first the child consented to leave her arms for those of his mother. And when he was once more able to run about, Isy took her part with Maggie in putting hand and needle to the lining of the more delicate of the soutar's shoes.



CHAPTER XXV

There was great concern, and not a little alarm at Stonecross because of the disappearance of Isy. But James continued so ill, that his parents were unable to take much thought about anybody else. At last, however, the fever left him, and he began to recover, but lay still and silent, seeming to take no interest in anything, and remembered nothing he had said, or even that he had seen Isy. At the same time his wakened conscience was still at work in him, and had more to do with his enfeebled condition than the prolonged fever. At length his parents were convinced that he had something on his mind that interfered with his recovery, and his mother was confident that it had to do with "that deceitful creature, Isy." To learn that she was safe, might have given Marion some satisfaction, had she not known her refuge so near the manse; and having once heard where she was, she had never asked another question about her. Her husband, however, having overheard certain of the words that fell from Isy when she thought herself alone, was intently though quietly waiting for what must follow.

"I'm misdoobtin sair, Peter," began Marion one morning, after a long talk with the cottar's wife, who had been telling her of Isy's having taken up her abode with the soutar, "I'm sair misdoobtin whether that hizzie hadna mair to dee nor we hae been jaloosin, wi Jamie's attack, than the mere scare he got. It seems to me he's lang been broodin ower something we ken noucht aboot."

"That would be nae ferlie, woman! Whan was it ever we kent onything gaein on i' that mysterious laddie! Na, but his had need be a guid conscience, for did ever onybody ken eneuch aboot it or him to say richt or wrang til 'im! But gien ye hae a thoucht he's ever wranged that lassie, I s' hae the trowth o' 't, gien it cost him a greitin! He'll never come to health o' body or min' till he's confest, and God has forgien him. He maun confess! He maun confess!"

"Hoot, Peter, dinna be sae suspicious o' yer ain. It's no like ye to be sae maisterfu' and owerbeirin. I wad na lat ae ill thoucht o' puir Jeemie inside this auld heid o' mine! It's the lassie, I'll tak my aith, it's that Isy's at the bothom o' 't!"

"Ye're some ready wi' yer aith, Mirran, to what ye ken naething aboot! I say again, gien he's dene ony wrang to that bonnie cratur—and it wudna tak ower muckle proof to convince me o' the same, he s' tak his stan', minister or no minister, upo the stele o' repentance!"

"Daur ye to speyk that gait aboot yer ain son—ay, and mine the mair gien ye disown him, Peter Bletherwick!—and the Lord's ain ordeent minister forbye!" cried Marion, driven almost to her wits' end, but more by the persistent haunting of her own suspicion, which she could not repress, than the terror of her husband's threat. "Besides, dinna ye see," she added cunningly, "that that would be to affront the lass as weel?—He wadna be the first to fa' intil the snare o' a designin wuman, and wad it be for his ain father to expose him to public contemp? Your pairt sud be to cover up his sin—gien it were a multitude, and no ae solitary bit faut!"

"Daur ye speyk o' a thing like that as a bit faut?—Ca' ye leein and hypocrisy a bit faut? I alloo the sin itsel mayna be jist damnable, but to what bouk mayna it come wi ither and waur sins upo the back o' 't?—Wi leein, and haudin aff o' himsel, a man may grow a cratur no fit to be taen up wi the taings! Eh me, but my pride i' the laddie! It 'ill be sma' pride for me gien this fearsome thing turn oot to be true!"

"And wha daur say it's true?" rejoined Marion almost fiercely.

"Nane but himsel; and gien it be sae, and he disna confess, the rod laid upon him 'ill be the rod o' iron, 'at smashes a man like a muckle crock.—I maun tak Jamie throuw han' (to task)!"

"Noo jist tak ye care, Peter, 'at ye dinna quench the smokin flax."

"I'm mair likly to get the bruised reed intil my nakit loof (palm)!" returned Peter. "But I s' say naething till he's a wee better, for we maunna drive him to despair!—Eh gien he would only repent! What is there I wadna dee to clear him—that is, to ken him innocent o' ony wrang til her! I wad dee wi thanksgivin!"

"Weel, I kenna that we're jist called upon sae far as that!" said Marion. "A lass is aye able to tak care o' hersel!"

"I wud! I wud!—God hae mercy upo' the twa o' them!"

In the afternoon James was a good deal better. When his father went in to see him, his first words were—

"I doobt, father, I'm no likly to preach ony mair: I've come to see 'at I never was fit for the wark, neither had I ever ony ca' til't."

"It may be sae, Jeemie," answered his father; "but we'll haud awa frae conclusions till ye're better, and able to jeedge wi'oot the bias o' ony thrawin distemper."

"Oh father," James went on, and to his delight Peter saw, for the first time since he was the merest child, tears running down his cheeks, now thin and wan; "Oh father, I hae been a terrible hypocreet! But my een's come open at last! I see mysel as I am!"

"Weel, there's God hard by, to tak ye by the han' like Enoch! Tell me," Peter went on, "hae ye onything upo yer min', laddie, 'at ye wud like to confess and be eased o'? There's nae papistry in confessin to yer ain auld father!"

James lay still for a few moments; then he said, almost inaudibly—

"I think I could tell my mother better nor you, father."

"It'll be a' ane whilk o' 's ye tell. The forgiein and the forgettin 'ill be ae deed—by the twa o' 's at ance! I s' gang and cry doon the stair til yer mother to come up and hear ye." For Peter knew by experience that good motions must be taken advantage of in their first ripeness. "We maunna try the speerit wi ony delays!" he added, as he went to the head of the stair, where he called aloud to his wife. Then returning to the bedside, he resumed his seat, saying, "I'll jist bide a minute till she comes."

He was loath to let in any risk between his going and her coming, for he knew how quickly minds may change; but the moment she appeared, he left the room, gently closing the door behind him.

Then the trembling, convicted soul plucked up what courage his so long stubborn and yet cringing heart was capable of, and began.

"Mother, there was a lass I cam to ken in Edinburgh, whan I was a divinity student there, and—"

"Ay, ay, I ken a' aboot it!" interrupted his mother, eager to spare him; "—an ill-faured, designin limmer, 'at micht ha kent better nor come ower the son o' a respectable wuman that gait!—Sic like, I doobtna, wad deceive the vera elec'!"

"Na, na, mother, she was nane o' that sort! She was baith bonny and guid, and pleasant to the hert as to the sicht: she wad hae saved me gien I had been true til her! She was ane o' the Lord's makin, as he has made but feow!"

"Whatfor didna she haud frae ye till ye had merried her than? Dinna tell me she didna lay hersel oot to mak a prey o' ye!"

"Mother, i' that sayin ye hae sclandert yersel!—I'll no say a word mair!"

"I'm sure neither yer father nor mysel wud hae stede i' yer gait!" said Marion, retreating from the false position she had taken.

She did not know herself, or how bitter would have been her opposition; for she had set her mind on a distinguished match for her Jamie!

"God knows how I wish I had keepit a haud o' mysel! Syne I micht hae steppit oot o' the dirt o' my hypocrisy, i'stead o' gaein ower the heid intil't! I was aye a hypocrite, but she would maybe hae fun' me oot, and garred me luik at mysel!"

He did not know the probability that, if he had not fallen, he would have but sunk the deeper in the worst bog of all, self-satisfaction, and none the less have played her false, and left her to break her heart.

If any reader of this tale should argue it better then to do wrong and repent, than to resist the devil, I warn him, that in such case he will not repent until the sorrows of death and the pains of hell itself lay hold upon him. An overtaking fault may be beaten with few stripes, but a wilful wrong shall be beaten with many stripes. The door of the latter must share, not with Judas, for he did repent, although too late, but with such as have taken from themselves the power of repentance.

"Was there no mark left o' her disgrace?" asked his mother. "Wasna there a bairn to mak it manifest?"

"Nane I ever heard tell o'."

"In that case she's no muckle the waur, and ye needna gang lamentin: she 'll no be the ane to tell! and ye maunna, for her sake! Sae tak ye comfort ower what's gane and dune wi', and canna come back, and maunna happen again.—Eh, but it's a' God's-mercy there was nae bairn!"

Thus had the mother herself become an evil councillor, crying Peace! peace! when there was no peace, and tempting her son to go on and become a devil! But one thing yet rose up for the truth in his miserable heart—his reviving and growing love for Isy. It had seemed smothered in selfishness, but was alive and operative: God knows how—perhaps through feverish, incoherent, forgotten dreams.

He had expected his mother to aid his repentance, and uphold his walk in the way of righteousness, even should the way be that of social disgrace. He knew well that reparation must go hand in hand with repentance where the All-wise was judge, and selfish Society dared not urge one despicable pretence for painting hidden shame in the hues of honour. James had been the cowering slave of a false reputation; but his illness and the assaults of his conscience had roused him, set repentance before him, brought confession within sight, and purity within reach of prayer.

"I maun gang til her," he cried, "the meenute I'm able to be up!—Whaur is she, mother?"

"Upo nae accoont see her, Jamie! It wad be but to fa' again intil her snare!" answered his mother, with decision in her look and tone. "We're to abstain frae a' appearance o' evil—as ye ken better nor I can tell ye."

"But Isy's no an appearance o' evil, mother!"

"Ye say weel there, I confess! Na, she's no an appearance; she's the vera thing! Haud frae her, as ye wad frae the ill ane himsel."

"Did she never lat on what there had been atween 's?"

"Na, never. She kenned weel what would come o' that!"

"What, mother?"

"The ootside o' the door."

"Think ye she ever tauld onybody?"

"Mony ane, I doobtna."

"Weel, I dinna believe 't, I hae nae fear but she's been dumb as deith!"

"Hoo ken ye that?—What for said she never ae word aboot ye til yer ain mither?"

"'Cause she was set on haudin her tongue. Was she to bring an owre true tale o' me to the vera hoose I was born in? As lang as I haud til my tongue, she'll never wag hers!—Eh, but she's a true ane! She's ane to lippen til!"

"Weel, I alloo, she's deen as a wuman sud—the faut bein a' her ain!"

"The faut bein' a' mine, mother, she wouldna tell what would disgrace me!"

"She micht hae kenned her secret would be safe wi' me!"

"I micht hae said the same, but for the w'y ye spak o' her this vera meenut!—Whaur is she, mother? Whaur's Isy?"

"'Deed, she's made a munelicht flittin o' 't!"

"I telled ye she would never tell upo me!—Hed she ony siller?"

"Hoo can I tell?"

"Did ye pey her ony wages?"

"She gae me no time!—But she's no likly to tell noo; for, hearin her tale, wha wad tak her in?"

"Eh, mother, but ye are hard-hertit!"

"I ken a harder, Jamie!"

"That's me!—and ye're richt, mother! But, eh, gien ye wad hae me loe ye frae this meenut to the end o' my days, be but a wee fair to Isy: I hae been a damnt scoon'rel til her!"

"Jamie; Jamie! ye're provokin the Lord to anger—sweirin like that in his vera face—and you a minister!"

"I provokit him a heap waur whan I left Isy to dree her shame! Divna ye min' hoo the apostle Peter cursed, whan he said to Simon, 'Gang to hell wi' yer siller!'"

"She's telt the soutar, onygait!"

"What! has he gotten a hand o' her?"

"Ay, has he!—And dinna ye think it'll be a' ower the toon lang or this!"

"And hoo will ye meet it, mother?"

"We maun tell yer father, and get him to quaiet the soutar!—For her, we maun jist stap her mou wi' a bunch o' bank-notts!"

"That wad jist mak it 'maist impossible for even her to forgie you or me aither ony langer!"

"And wha's she to speyk o' forgivin!"

The door opened, and Peter entered. He strode up to his wife, and stood over her like an angel of vengeance. His very lips were white with wrath.

"Efter thirty years o' merried life, noo first to ken the wife o' my boasom for a messenger o' Sawtan!" he panted. "Gang oot o' my sicht, wuman!"

She fell on her knees, and held up her two hands to him.

"Think o' Jamie, Peter!" she pleaded. "I wad tyne my sowl for Jamie!"

"Ay, and tyne his as weel!" he returned. "Tyne what's yer ain to tyne, wuman—and that's no your sowl, nor yet Jamie's! He's no yours to save, but ye're deein a' ye can to destroy him—and aiblins ye'll succeed! for ye wad sen' him straucht awa to hell for the sake o' a guid name—a lee! a hypocrisy!—Oot upo ye for a Christian mither, Mirran!—Jamie, I'm awa to the toon, upo my twa feet, for the mere's cripple: the vera deil's i' the hoose and the stable and a', it would seem!—I'm awa to fess Isy hame! And, Jamie, ye'll jist tell her afore me and yer mother, that as sene 's ye're able to crawl to the kirk wi' her, ye'll merry her afore the warl', and tak her hame to the manse wi' ye!"

"Hoot, Peter! Wad ye disgrace him afore a' the beggars o' Tiltowie?"

"Ay, and afore God, that kens a'thing ohn onybody tellt him! Han's and hert I s' be clear o' this abomination!"

"Merry a wuman 'at was ta'en wi' a wat finger!—a maiden that never said na!—Merry a lass that's nae maiden, nor ever will be!—Hoots!"

"And wha's to blame for that?"

"Hersel."

"Jeemie! Jist Jeemie!—I'm fair scunnert at ye, Mirran!—Oot o' my sicht, I tell ye!—Lord, I kenna hoo I'm to win ower 't!—No to a' eternity, I doobt!"

He turned from her with a tearing groan, and went feeling for the open door, like one struck blind.

"Oh, father, father!" cried James, "forgie my mither afore ye gang, or my hert 'ill brak. It's the awfu'est thing o' ony to see you twa striven!"

"She's no sorry, no ae bit sorry!" said Peter.

"I am, I am, Peter!" cried Marion, breaking down at once, and utterly. "Dee what ye wull, and I'll dee the same—only lat it be dene quaietly, 'ithoot din or proclamation! What for sud a'body ken a'thing! Wha has the richt to see intil ither fowk's herts and lives? The wail' could ill gang on gien that war the gait o' 't!"

"Father," said James, "I thank God that noo ye ken a'! Eh, sic a weicht as it taks aff o' me! I'll be hale and weel noo in ae day!—I think I'll gang wi' ye to Isy, mysel!—But I'm a wee bit sorry ye cam in jist that minute! I wuss ye had harkit a wee langer! For I wasna giein-in to my mother; I was but thinkin hoo to say oot what was in me, ohn vext her waur nor couldna be helpit. Believe me, father, gien ye can; though I doobt sair ye winna be able!"

"I believe ye, my bairn; and I thank God I hae that muckle pooer o' belief left in me! I confess I was in ower great a hurry, and I'm sure ye war takin the richt gait wi' yer puir mither.—Ye see she loed ye sae weel that she could think o' nae thing or body but yersel! That's the w'y o' mithers, Jamie, gien ye only kenned it! She was nigh sinnin an awfu sin for your sake, man!"

Here he turned again to his wife. "That's what comes o' lovin the praise o' men, Mirran! Easy it passes intil the fear o' men, and disregaird o' the Holy!—I s' awa doon to the soutar, and tell him the cheenge that's come ower us a': he'll no be a hair surprised!"

"I'm ready, father—or will be in ae minute!" said James, making as if to spring out of bed.

"Na, na; ye're no fit!" interposed his father. "I would hae to be takin ye upo my back afore we wis at the fut o' the brae!—Bide ye at hame, and keep yer mither company."

"Ay, bide, Jamie; and I winna come near ye," sobbed his mother.

"Onything to please ye, mother!—but I'm fitter nor my father thinks," said James as he settled down again in bed.

So Peter went, leaving mother and son silent together.

At last the mother spoke.

"It's the shame o' 't, Jamie!" she said.

"The shame was i' the thing itsel, mother, and in hidin frae that shame!" he answered. "Noo, I hae but the dregs to drink, and them I maun glog ower wi' patience, for I hae weel deserved to drink them!—But, eh, my bonnie Isy, she maun hae suffert sair!—I daur hardly think what she maun hae come throuw!"

"Her mither couldna hae broucht her up richt! The first o' the faut lay i' the upbringin!"

"There's anither whause upbringin wasna to blame: my upbringin was a' it oucht to hae been—and see hoo ill I turnt oot!"

"It wasna what it oucht! I see 't a' plain the noo! I was aye ower feart o' garrin ye hate me!—Oh, Isy, Isy, I hae dene ye wrang! I ken ye cud never hae laid yersel oot to snare him—it wasna in ye to dee 't!"

"Thank ye, mother! It was, railly and truly, a' my wyte! And noo my life sail gang to mak up til her!"

"And I maun see to the manse!" rejoined his mother. "—And first in order o' a', that Jinse o' yours 'ill hae to gang!"

"As ye like, mother. But for the manse, I maun clear oot o' that! I'll speak nae mair frae that poopit! I hae hypocreesit in 't ower lang! The vera thoucht o' 't scunners me!"

"Speyk na like that o' the poopit, Jamie, whaur sae mony holy men hae stede up and spoken the word o' God! It frichts me to hear ye! Ye'll be a burnin and a shinin licht i' that poopit for mony a lang day efter we're deid and hame!"

"The mair holy men that hae there witnessed, the less daur ony livin lee stan' there braggin and blazin i' the face o' God and man! It's shame o' mysel that gars me hate the place, mother! Ance and no more wull I stan' there, making o' 't my stele o' repentance; and syne doon the steps and awa, like Adam frae the gairden!"

"And what's to come o' Eve? Are ye gaein, like him, to say, 'The wuman thoo giedest til me—it was a' her wyte'?"

"Ye ken weel I'm takin a' the wyte upo mysel!"

"But hoo can ye tak it a', or even ony fair share o' 't, gien up there ye stan' and confess? Ye maun hae some care o' the lass—that is, gien efter and a' ye're gaein to mak o' her yer wife, as ye profess.—And what are ye gaein to turn yer han' til neist, seem ye hae a'ready laid it til the pleuch and turnt back?"

"To the pleuch again, mother—the rael pleuch this time! Frae the kirk door I'll come hame like the prodigal to my father's hoose, and say til him, 'Set me to the pleuch, father. See gien I canna be something like a son to ye, efter a''!"

So wrought in him that mighty power, mysterious in its origin as marvellous in its result, which had been at work in him all the time he lay whelmed under feverish phantasms.

His repentance was true; he had been dead, and was alive again! God and the man had met at last! As to how God turned the man's heart, Thou God, knowest. To understand that, we should have to go down below the foundations themselves, underneath creation, and there see God send out from himself man, the spirit, distinguished yet never divided from God, the spirit, for ever dependent upon and growing in Him, never completed and never ended, his origin, his very life being infinite; never outside of God, because in him only he lives and moves and grows, and has his being. Brothers, let us not linger to ask! let us obey, and, obeying, ask what we will! thus only shall we become all we are capable of being; thus only shall we learn all we are capable of knowing! The pure in heart shall see God; and to see him is to know all things.

Something like this was the meditation of the soutar, as he saw the farmer stride away into the dusk of the gathering twilight, going home with glad heart to his wife and son.

Peter had told the soutar that his son was sorely troubled because of a sin of his youth and its long concealment: now he was bent on all the reparation he could make. "Mr. Robertson," said Peter, "broucht the lass to oor hoose, never mentionin Jamie, for he didna ken they war onything til ane anither; and for her, she never said ae word aboot him to Mirran or me."

The soutar went to the door, and called Isy. She came, and stood humbly before her old master.

"Weel, Isy," said the farmer kindly, "ye gied 's a clever slip yon morning and a gey fricht forbye! What possessed ye, lass, to dee sic a thing?"

She stood distressed, and made no answer.

"Hoot, lassie, tell me!" insisted Peter; "I haena been an ill maister til ye, have I?"

"Sir, ye hae been like the maister o' a' til me! But I canna—that is, I maunna—or raither, I'm determined no to explain the thing til onybody."

"Thoucht ye my wife was feart the minister micht fa' in love wi ye?"

"Weel, sir, there micht hae been something like that intil 't! But I wantit sair to win at my bairn again; for i' that trance I lay in sae lang, I saw or h'ard something I took for an intimation that he was alive, and no that far awa.—And—wad ye believe't, sir?—i' this vera hoose I fand him, and here I hae him, and I'm jist as happy the noo as I was meeserable afore! Is 't ill o' me at I canna be sorry ony mair?"

"Na, na," interposed the soutar: "whan the Lord wad lift the burden, it wad be baith senseless and thankless to grup at it! In His name lat it gang, lass!"

"And noo," said Mr. Blatherwick, again taking up his probe, "ye hae but ae thing left to confess—and that's wha's the father o' 'im!"

"Na, I canna dee that, sir; it's enough that I have disgracet myself! You wouldn't have me disgrace another as well! What good would that be?"

"It wad help ye beir the disgrace."

"Na, no a hair, sir; he cudna stan' the disgrace half sae weel 's me! I reckon the man the waiker vessel, sir; the woman has her bairn to fend for, and that taks her aff o' the shame!"

"Ye dinna tell me he gies ye noucht to mainteen the cratur upo?"

"I tell ye naething, sir. He never even kenned there was a bairn!"

"Hoot, toot! ye canna be sae semple! It's no poassible ye never loot him ken!"

"'Deed no; I was ower sair ashamit! Ye see it was a' my wyte!—and it was naebody's business! My auntie said gien I wouldna tell, I micht put the door atween 's; and I took her at her word; for I kenned weel she couldna keep a secret, and I wasna gaein to hae his name mixed up wi' a lass like mysel! And, sir, ye maunna try to gar me tell, for I hae no richt, and surely ye canna hae the hert to gar me!—But that ye sanna, ony gait!"

"I dinna blame ye, Isy! but there's jist ae thing I'm determined upo—and that is that the rascal sail merry ye!"

Isy's face flushed; she was taken too much at unawares to hide her pleasure at such a word from his mouth. But the flush faded, and presently Mr. Blatherwick saw that she was fighting with herself, and getting the better of that self. The shadow of a pawky smile flitted across her face as she answered—

"Surely ye wouldna merry me upon a rascal, sir! Ill as I hae behaved til ye, I can hardly hae deservit that at yer han'!"

"That's what he'll hae to dee though—jist merry ye aff han'! I s' gar him."

"I winna hae him garred! It's me that has the richt ower him, and no anither, man nor wuman! He sanna be garred! What wad ye hae o' me—thinkin I would tak a man 'at was garred! Na, na; there s' be nae garrin!—And ye canna gar him merry me gien I winna hae him! The day's by for that!—A garred man! My certy!—Na, I thank ye!"

"Weel, my bonny leddy," said Peter, "gien I had a prence to my son,— providit he was worth yer takin—I wad say to ye, 'Hae, my leddy!'"

"And I would say to you, sir, 'No—gien he bena willin,'" answered Isy, and ran from the room.

"Weel, what think ye o' the lass by this time, Mr. Bletherwick?" said the soutar, with a flash in his eye.

"I think jist what I thoucht afore," answered Peter: "she's ane amo' a million!"

"I'm no that sure aboot the proportion!" returned MacLear. "I doobt ye micht come upo twa afore ye wan throw the million!—A million's a heap o' women!"

"All I care to say is, that gien Jeemie binna ready to lea' father and mother and kirk and steeple, and cleave to that wuman and her only, he's no a mere gomeril, but jist a meeserable, wickit fule! and I s' never speyk word til 'im again, wi my wull, gien I live to the age o' auld Methuselah!"

"Tak tent what ye say, or mint at sayin, to persuaud him:—Isy 'ill be upo ye!" said the soutar laughing. "—But hearken to me, Mr. Bletherwick, and sayna a word to the minister aboot the bairnie."

"Na, na; it'll be best to lat him fin' that oot for himsel.—And noo I maun be gaein, for I hae my wallet fu'!"

He strode to the door, holding his head high, and with never a word more, went out. The soutar closed the door and returned to his work, saying aloud as he went, "Lord, lat me ever and aye see thy face, and noucht mair will I desire—excep that the haill warl, O Lord, may behold it likewise. The prayers o' the soutar are endit!"

Peter Blatherwick went home joyous at heart. His son was his son, and no villain!—only a poor creature, as is every man until he turns to the Lord, and leaves behind him every ambition, and all care about the judgment of men. He rejoiced that the girl he and Marion had befriended would be a strength to his son: she whom his wife would have rejected had proved herself indeed right noble! And he praised the father of men, that the very backslidings of those he loved had brought about their repentance and uplifting.

"Here I am!" he cried as he entered the house. "I hae seen the lassie ance mair, and she's better and bonnier nor ever!"

"Ow ay; ye're jist like a' the men I ever cam across!" rejoined Marion smiling; "—easy taen wi' the skin-side!"

"Doobtless: the Makker has taen a heap o' pains wi the skin!—Ony gait, yon lassie's ane amang ten thoosan! Jeemie sud be on his k-nees til her this vera moment—no sitting there glowerin as gien his twa een war twa bullets —fired aff, but never won oot o' their barrels!"

"Hoot! wad ye hae him gang on his k-nees til ony but the Ane!"

"Aye wad I—til ony ane that's nearer His likness nor himsel—and that ane's oor Isy!—I wadna won'er, Jeemie, gien ye war fit for a drive the morn! In that case, I s' caw ye doon to the toon, and lat ye say yer ain say til her."

James did not sleep much that night, and nevertheless was greatly better the next day—indeed almost well.

Before noon they were at the soutar's door. The soutar opened it himself, and took the minister straight to the ben-end of the house, where Isy sat alone. She rose, and with downcast eyes went to meet him.

"Isy," he faltered, "can ye forgie me? And wull ye merry me as sene's ever we can be cried?—I'm as ashamed o' mysel as even ye would hae me!"

"Ye haena sae muckle to be ashamet o' as I hae, sir: it was a' my wyte!"

"And syne no to haud my face til't!—Isy, I hae been a scoonrel til ye! I'm that disgustit at mysel 'at I canna luik ye i' the face!"

"Ye didna ken whaur I was! I ran awa that naebody micht ken."

"What rizzon was there for onybody to ken? I'm sure ye never tellt!"

Isy went to the door and called Maggie. James stared after her, bewildered.

"There was this rizzon," she said, re-entering with the child, and laying him in James's arms.

He gasped with astonishment, almost consternation.

"Is this mine?" he stammered.

"Yours and mine, sir," she replied. "Wasna God a heap better til me nor I deserved?—Sic a bonnie bairn! No a mark, no a spot upon him frae heid to fut to tell that he had no business to be here!—Gie the bonnie wee man a kiss, Mr. Blatherwick. Haud him close to ye, sir, and he'll tak the pain oot o' yer heart: aften has he taen 't oot o' mine—only it aye cam again!—He's yer ain son, sir! He cam to me bringin the Lord's forgiveness, lang or ever I had the hert to speir for 't. Eh, but we maun dee oor best to mak up til God's bairn for the wrang we did him afore he was born! But he'll be like his great Father, and forgie us baith!"

As soon as Maggie had given the child to his mother, she went to her father, and sat down beside him, crying softly. He turned on his leather stool, and looked at her.

"Canna ye rejice wi' them that rejice, noo that ye hae nane to greit wi', Maggie, my doo?" he said. "Ye haena lost ane, and ye hae gaint twa! Haudna the glaidness back that's sae fain to come to the licht i' yer grudgin hert, Maggie! God himsel 's glaid, and the Shepherd's glaid, and the angels are a' makin sic a flut-flutter wi' their muckle wings 'at I can 'maist see nor hear for them!"

Maggie rose, and stood a moment wiping her eyes. The same instant the door opened, and James entered with the little one in his arms. He laid him with a smile in Maggie's.

"Thank you, sir!" said the girl humbly, and clasped the child to her bosom; nor, after that, was ever a cloud of jealousy to be seen on her face. I will not say she never longed or even wept after the little one, whom she still regarded as her very own, even when he was long gone away with his father and mother; indeed she mourned for him then like a mother from whom death has taken away her first-born and only son; neither did she see much difference between the two forms of loss; for Maggie felt in her heart that life nor death could destroy the relation that already existed between them: she could not be her father's daughter and not understand that! Therefore, like a bereaved mother, she only gave herself the more to her father.

I will not dwell on the delight of James and Isobel, thus restored to each other, the one from a sea of sadness, the other from a gulf of perdition. The one had deserved many stripes, the other but a few: needful measure had been measured to each; and repentance had brought them together.

Before James left the house, the soutar took him aside, and said—

"Daur I offer ye a word o' advice, sir?"

"'Deed that ye may!" answered the young man with humility: "and I dinna see hoo it can be possible for me to hand frae deein as ye tell me; for you and my father and Isy atween ye, hae jist saved my vera sowl!"

"Weel, what I wad beg o' ye is, that ye tak no further step o' ony consequence, afore ye see Maister Robertson, and mak him acquant wi the haill affair."

"I'm vera willin," answered James; "and I doobtna Isy 'ill be content."

"Ye may be vera certain, sir, that she'll be naething but pleased: she has a gran' opingon, and weel she may, o' Maister Robertson. Ye see, sir, I want ye to put yersels i' the han's o' a man that kens ye baith, and the half o' yer story a'ready—ane, that is, wha'll jeedge ye truly and mercifully, and no condemn ye affhan'. Syne tak his advice what ye oucht to dee neist."

"I will—and thank you, Mr. MacLear! Ae thing only I houp—that naither you, sir, nor he will ever seek to pursuaud me to gang on preachin. Ae thing I'm set upon, and that is, to deliver my sowl frae hypocrisy, and walk softly a' the rest o' my days! Happy man wad I hae been, had they set me frae the first to caw the pleuch, and cut the corn, and gether the stooks intil the barn—i'stead o' creepin intil a leaky boat to fish for men wi' a foul and tangled net! I'm affrontit and jist scunnert at mysel! —Eh, the presumption o' the thing! But I hae been weel and richteously punished! The Father drew his han' oot o' mine, and loot me try to gang my lane; sae doon I cam, for I was fit for naething but to fa': naething less could hae broucht me to mysel—and it took a lang time! I houp Mr. Robertson will see the thing as I dee mysel!—Wull I write and speir him oot to Stanecross to advise wi my father aboot Isy? That would bring him! There never was man readier to help!—But it's surely my pairt to gang to him, and mak my confession, and boo til his judgment!—Only I maun tell Isy first!"

Isy was not only willing, but eager that Mr. and Mrs. Robertson should know everything.

"But be sure," she added, "that you let them know you come of yourself, and I never asked you."

Peter said he could not let him go alone, but must himself go with him, for he was but weakly yet—and they must not put it off a single day, lest anything should transpire and be misrepresented.

The news which father and son carried them, filled the Robertsons with more than pleasure; and if their reception of him made James feel the repentant prodigal he was, it was by its heartiness, and their jubilation over Isy.

The next Sunday, Mr. Robertson preached in James's pulpit, and published the banns of marriage between James Blatherwick and Isobel Rose. The two following Sundays he repeated his visit to Tiltowie for the same purpose; and on the Monday married them at Stonecross. Then was also the little one baptized, by the name of Peter, in his father's arms—amid much gladness, not unmingled with shame. The soutar and his Maggie were the only friends present besides the Robertsons.

Before the gathering broke up, the farmer put the big Bible in the hands of the soutar, with the request that he would lead their prayers; and this was very nearly what he said:—"O God, to whom we belang, hert and soul, body and blude and banes, hoo great art thou, and hoo close to us, to hand the richt ower us o' sic a gran' and fair, sic a just and true ownership! We bless thee hertily, rejicin in what thoo hast made us, and still mair in what thoo art thysel! Tak to thy hert, and hand them there, these thy twa repentant sinners, and thy ain little ane and theirs, wha's innocent as thoo hast made him. Gie them sic grace to bring him up, that he be nane the waur for the wrang they did him afore he was born; and lat the knowledge o' his parents' faut haud him safe frae onything siclike! and may they baith be the better for their fa', and live a heap the mair to the glory o' their Father by cause o' that slip! And gien ever the minister should again preach thy word, may it be wi' the better comprehension, and the mair fervour; and to that en' gie him to un'erstan' the hicht and deepth and breid and len'th o' thy forgivin love. Thy name be gloryfeed! Amen!"

"Na, na, I'll never preach again!" whispered James to the soutar, as they rose from their knees.

"I winna be a'thegither sure o' that!" returned the soutar. "Doobtless ye'll dee as the Spirit shaws ye!"

James made no answer, and neither spoke again that night.

The next morning, James sent to the clerk of the synod his resignation of his parish and office.

No sooner had Marion, repentant under her husband's terrible rebuke, set herself to resist her rampant pride, than the indwelling goodness swelled up in her like a reviving spring, and she began to be herself again, her old and lovely self. Little Peter, with his beauty and his winsome ways, melted and scattered the last lingering rack of her fog-like ambition for her son. Twenty times in a morning would she drop her work to catch up and caress her grandchild, overwhelming him with endearments; while over the return of his mother, her second Isy, now her daughter indeed, she soon became jubilant.

From the first publication of the banns, she had begun cleaning and setting to rights the parlour, meaning to make it over entirely to Isy and James; but the moment Isy discovered her intent, she protested obstinately: it should not, could not, must not be! The very morning after the wedding she was down in the kitchen, and had put the water on the fire for the porridge before her husband was awake. Before her new mother was down, or her father-in-law come in from his last preparations for the harvest, it was already boiling, and the table laid for breakfast.

"I ken weel," she said to her mother, "that I hae no richt to contre ye; but ye was glaid o' my help whan first I cam to be yer servan-lass; and what for shouldna things be jist the same noo? I ken a' the w'ys o' the place, and that they'll lea' me plenty o' time for the bairnie: ye maun jist lat me step again intil my ain auld place! and gien onybody comes, it winna tak me a minute to mak mysel tidy as becomes the minister's wife!— Only he says that's to be a' ower noo, and there'll be no need!"

With that she broke into a little song, and went on with her work, singing.

At breakfast, James made request to his father that he might turn a certain unused loft into a room for Isy and himself and little Peter. His father making no objection, he set about the scheme at once, but was interrupted by the speedy advent of an exceptionally plentiful harvest.

The very day the cutting of the oats began, James appeared on the field with the other scythe-men, prepared to do his best. When his father came, however, he interfered, and compelled him to take the thing easier, because, unfit by habit and recent illness, it would be even dangerous for him to emulate the others. But what delighted his father even more than his good-will, was the way he talked with the men and women in the field: every show of superiority had vanished from his bearing and speech, and he was simply himself, behaving like the others, only with greater courtesy.

When the hour for the noonday meal arrived, Isy appeared with her mother- in-law and old Eppie, carrying their food for the labourers, and leading little Peter in her hand. For a while the whole company was enlivened by the child's merriment; after which he was laid with his bottle in the shadow of an overarching stook, and went to sleep, his mother watching him, while she took her first lesson in gathering and binding the sheaves. When he woke, his grandfather sent the whole family home for the rest of the day.

"Hoots, Isy, my dauty," he said, when she would fain have continued her work, "wad ye mak a slave-driver o' me, and bring disgrace upo the name o' father?"

Then at once she obeyed, and went with her husband, both of them tired indeed, but happier than ever in their lives before.



CHAPTER XXVI

The next morning James was in the field with the rest long before the sun was up. Day by day he grew stronger in mind and in body, until at length he was not only quite equal to the harvest-work, but capable of anything required of a farm servant.

His deliverance from the slavery of Sunday prayers and sermons, and his consequent sense of freedom and its delight, greatly favoured his growth in health and strength. Before the winter came, however, he had begun to find his heart turning toward the pulpit with a waking desire after utterance. For, almost as soon as his day's work ceased to exhaust him, he had begun to take up the study of the sayings and doings of the Lord of men, full of eagerness to verify the relation in which he stood toward him, and, through him, toward that eternal atmosphere in which he lived and moved and had his being, God himself.

One day, with a sudden questioning hunger, he rose in haste from his knees, and turned almost trembling to his Greek Testament, to find whether the words of the Master, "If any man will do the will of the Father," meant "If any man is willing to do the will of the Father;" and finding that just what they did mean, he was thenceforward so far at rest as to go on asking and hoping; nor was it then long before he began to feel he had something worth telling, and must tell it to any that would hear. And heartily he betook himself to pray for that spirit of truth which the Lord had promised to them that asked it of their Father in heaven.

He talked with his wife about what he had found; he talked with his father about it; he went to the soutar, and talked with him about it.

Now the soutar had for many years made a certain use of his Sundays, by which he now saw he might be of service to James: he went four miles into the country to a farm on the other side of Stonecross, to hold there a Sunday-school. It was the last farm for a long way in that direction: beyond it lay an unproductive region, consisting mostly of peat-mosses, and lone barren hills—where the waters above the firmament were but imperfectly divided from the waters below the firmament. For there roots of the hills coming rather close together, the waters gathered and made marshy places, with here and there a patch of ground on which crops could be raised. There were, however, many more houses, such as they were, than could have been expected from the appearance of the district. In one spot, indeed, not far from the farm I have mentioned, there was a small, thin hamlet. A long way from church or parish-school, and without any, nearer than several miles, to minister to the spiritual wants of the people, it was a rather rough and ignorant place, with a good many superstitions— none of them in their nature specially mischievous, except indeed as they blurred the idea of divine care and government—just the country for bogill-baes and brownie-baes, boodies and water-kelpies to linger and disport themselves, long after they had elsewhere disappeared!

When, therefore, the late minister came seeking his counsel, the soutar proposed, without giving any special reason for it, that he should accompany him the next Sunday afternoon, to his school at Bogiescratt; and James consenting, the soutar undertook to call for him at Stonecross on his way.

"Mr. MacLear," said James, as they walked along the rough parish road together, "I have but just arrived at a point I ought to have reached before even entertaining a thought of opening my mouth upon anything belonging to religion. Perhaps I knew some little things about religion; certainly I knew nothing of religion; least of all had I made any discovery for myself in religion; and before that, how can a man understand or know anything whatever concerning it? Even now I may be presuming, but now at last, if I may dare to say so, I do seem to have begun to recognize something of the relation between a man and the God who made him; and with the sense of that, as I ventured to hint when I saw you last Friday, there has risen in my mind a desire to communicate to my fellow-men something of what I have seen and learned. One thing I dare to hope—that, at the first temptation to show-off, I shall be made aware of my danger, and have the grace given me to pull up. And one thing I have resolved upon—that, if ever I preach again, I will never again write a sermon. I know I shall make many blunders, and do the thing very badly; but failure itself will help to save me from conceit—will keep me, I hope, from thinking of myself at all, enabling me to leave myself in God's hands, willing to fail if he please. Don't you think, Mr. MacLear, we may even now look to God for what we ought to say, as confidently as if, like the early Christians, we stood accused before the magistrates?" "I div that, Maister Jeames!" answered the soutar. "Hide yersel in God, sir, and oot o' that secret place, secret and safe, speyk—and fear naething. And never ye mint at speykin doon to your congregation. Luik them straucht i' the een, and say what at the moment ye think and feel; and dinna hesitate to gie them the best ye hae."