"For that maitter, Cosmo, are na we a' brithers an' sisters? A' body's brithers an' sisters wi' a' body. It's but a kin' o' a some mean pride 'at wadna be obleeged to yer ain fowk, efter ye hae dune yer best. Cosmo! ilka han'fu' o' meal gi'en i' this or ony hoose by them 'at wadna in like need accep' the same, is an affront frae brither to brither. Them 'at wadna tak, I say, has no richt to gie."

"But nobody knew the truth of where their handful of meal was going. They thought they were giving it to a poor old woman, when they were in fact giving it to men with a great house over their heads. It's a disgrace, an' hard to beir, Aggie!"

"'Deed the thing's hard upon 's a'! but whaur the disgrace is, I will not condescen' to see. Men in a muckle hoose! Twa o' them auld, an' a' three i' their beds no fit to muv! Div ye think there's ane o' them 'at gied to Grizzie,'at wad hae gi'en less—though what less nor the han'fu' o' meal, which was a' she ever got, it wad be hard to imaigine—had they kent it was for the life o' auld Glenwarlock—a name respeckit, an' mair nor respeckit, whaurever it's h'ard?—or for the life o' the yoong laird, vroucht to deith wi' labourers' wark, an' syne 'maist smoored i' storm?—or for auld Jeames Gracie,'at's led a God-fearin' life till he's 'maist ower auld to live ony langer? I say naething aboot Grizzie an' me, wha cud aye tak care o' oorsel's gien we hadna three dowie men to luik efter. We did oor best, but whan a' oor ain siller was awa' efter the lave, we cudna win awa' oorsel's to win mair. Gien you three cud hae dune for yersel's, we wad hae been sen 'in' ye hame something."

"You tell me," said Cosmo, as if in a painful dream, through which flashed lovely lights, "that you and Grizzie spent all your own money upon us, and then Grizzie went out and begged for us?"

"'Deed there's no anither word for't—nor was there ae thing ither to be dune!" Aggie drew herself up, and went on with solemnity. "Div ye think, Cosmo, whaur heid or hert or fit or han' cud du onything to waur aff want or tribble frae you or the laird,'at Grizzie or mysel' wad be wantin' that day? I beg o' yer grace ye winna lay to oor chairge what we war driven til. As Grizzie says, we war jist at ane mair wi' desperation."

Cosmo's heart was full. He dared not speak. He came to Aggie, and taking her hand, looked her in the face with eyes full of tears. She had been pale as sun-browned could be, but now she grew red as a misty dawn. Her eyes fell, and she began to pull at the hem of her apron. Grizzie's step was on the stair, and Cosmo, not quite prepared to meet her, walked out.

The morning was neither so black nor so cold as he had imagined it. He went into the garden, to the nook between the two blocks, there sat down, and tried to think. The sun was not far above the horizon, and he was in the cold shade of the kitchen-tower, but he felt nothing, and sat there motionless. The sun came southward, looked round the corner, and found him there. He brought with him a lovely fresh day. The leaves were struggling out, and the birds had begun to sing. Ah! what a day was here, had the hope of the boy been still swelling in his bosom! But the decree had gone forth! no doubt remained! no refuge of uncertainty was left! The house must follow the land! Castle Warlock and the last foothold of soil must go, that wrong should not follow ruin! Were those divine women to spend money, time, and labour, that he and his father should hold what they had no longer any right to hold? Or in beggary, were they to hide themselves in the yet lower depth of begging by proxy, in their grim stronghold, living upon unacknowledged charity, as their ancestors on plunder! He dared not tell his father what he had discovered until he had taken at least the first step towards putting an end to the whole falsehood. To delay due action was of all things what Cosmo dreaded; and as the loss mainly affected himself, the yielding of the castle must primarily be his deed and not his father's. He rose at once to do it.

The same moment the incubus of Grizzle's meal-pock was lifted from his bosom. The shame was, if shame was any, that they should have been living in such a house while the thing was done. When the house was sold, let people say what they would! In proportion as a man cares to do what he ought, he ceases to care how it may be judged. Of all things why should a true man heed the unjust judgment?

"If there be any stain upon us," he said to himself, "God will see that we have the chance of wiping it out!"

With that he got over gate and wall, and took his way along Grizzie's path, once more, for the time at least, an undisputed possession of the people.

But while he was thinking in the garden, Grizzie, who knew from Aggie that her secret was such no more, was in dire distress in the kitchen, fearing she had offended the young laird beyond remedy. In great anxiety she kept going every minute to the door, to see if he were not coming in to have his breakfast. But the first she saw of him was his back, as he leaped from the top of the wall. She ran after him to the gate.

"Sir! sir!" she cried, "come back; come back, an' I'll gang doon upo' my auld knees to beg yer pardon."

Cosmo turned the moment he heard her, and went back.

When he reached the wall, over the top of the gate he saw Grizzie on her knees upon the round paving stones of the yard, stretching up her old hands to him, as if he were some heavenly messenger just descended, whose wrath she deprecated. He jumped over wall and gate, ran to her, and lifted her to her feet, saying,

"Grizzie, wuman, what are ye aboot! Bless ye, Grizzie, I wad 'maist as sune strive wi' my ain mither whaur she shines i' glory, as wi' you!"

Grizzie's face began to work like that of a child in an agony between pride and tears, just ere he breaks into a howl. She gripped his arm hard with both hands, and at length faltered out, gathering composure as she proceeded,

"Cosmo, ye're like an angel o' God to a' 'at hae to du wi' ye! Eh, sic an accoont o' ye as I'll hae to gie to the mither o' ye whan I win to see her! For surely they'll lat me see her, though they may weel no think me guid eneuch to bide wi' her up there, for as lang as we was thegither doon here! Tell me, sir, what wad ye hae me du. But jist ae thing I maun say:—gien I hadna dune as I did du, I do not see hoo we cud hae won throu' the winter."

"Grizzie," said Cosmo, "I ken ye did a' for the best, an' maybe it was the best. The day may come, Grizzie, whan we'll gang thegither to ca' upo' them 'at pat the meal i' yer pock, an' return them thanks for their kin'ness."

"Eh, na, sir! That wad never du! What for sud they ken onything aboot it! They war jist kin'-like at lairge, an' to naebody in partic'lar, like the man wi' his sweirin'. They gae to me jist as they wad to ony unco beggar wife. It was to me they gae't, no to you. Lat it a' lie upo' me."

"That canna be, Grizzie," said Cosmo. "Ye see ye're ane o' the faimily, an' whatever ye du, I maun haud my face til."

"God bless ye, sir!" exclaimed Grizzie, and turned towards the house, entirely relieved and satisfied.

"But eh, sir!" she cried, turning again, "ye haena broken yer fast the day!"

"I'll be back in a feow minutes, an' mak a brakfast o' 't by or'nar'," answered Cosmo, and hastened away up the hill.



CHAPTER LI.

IT IS NAUGHT, SAITH THE BUYER.

When Cosmo reached the gate of his lordship's policy, he found it closed, and although he rang the bell, and called lustily to the gate-keeper, no one appeared. He put a hand on the top of the gate, and lightly vaulted over it. But just as he lighted, who should come round a bend in the drive a few yards off, but Lord Lick-my-loof himself, out for his morning walk! His irritable cantankerous nature would have been annoyed at sight of anyone treating his gate with such disrespect, but when he saw who it was that thus made nothing of it—clearing it with as much contempt as a lawyer would a quibble not his own—his displeasure grew to indignation and anger.

"I beg your pardon, my lord," said Cosmo, taking the first word that apology might be immediate, "I could make no one hear me, and therefore took the liberty of describing a parabola over your gate."

"A verra ill fashiont parabola in my judgment, Mr. Warlock! I fear you have been learning of late to think too little of the rights of property."

"If I had put my foot on your new paint, my lord, I should have been to blame; but I vaulted clean over, and touched nothing more than if the gate had been opened to me."

"I'll have an iron gate!"

"Not on my account, my lord, I hope; for I have come to ask you to put it out of my power to offend any more, by enabling me to leave Glenwarlock."

"Well?" returned his lordship, and waited.

"I find myself compelled at last," said Cosmo, not without some tremor in his voice, which he did his best to quench, "to give you the refusal, according to your request, of the remainder of my father's property."

"House and all?"

"Everything except the furniture."

"Which I do not want."

A silence followed.

"May I ask if your lordship is prepared to make me an offer?—or will you call on my father when you have made up your mind?"

"I will give two hundred pounds for the lot."

"Two hundred pounds!" repeated Cosmo, who had not expected a large offer, but was unprepared for one so small; "why, my lord, the bare building material would be worth more than that!"

"Not to take it down. I might as well blast it fresh from the quarry. I know the sort of thing those walls of yours are! Vitrified with age, by George! But I don't want to build, and standing the place is of no use to me. I should but let it crumble away at its leisure!"

Cosmo's dream rose again before his mind's eye; but it was no more with pain; for if the dear old place was to pass from their hands, what other end could be desired for it!

"But the sum you mention, my lord, would not, after paying the little we owe, leave us enough to take us from the place!"

"That I should be sorry for; but as to paying, many a better man has never done that. You have my offer: take it or leave it. You'll not get half as much if it come to the hammer. To whom else would it be worth anything, bedded in my property? If I say I don't want it, see if anybody will!"

Cosmo's heart sank afresh. He dared not part with the place off hand on such terms, but must consult his father: his power of action was for the time exhausted; he could do no more alone—not even to spare his father.

"I must speak to the laird," he said. "I doubt if he will accept your offer."

"As he pleases. But I do not promise to let the offer stand. I make it now—not to-morrow, or an hour hence."

"I must run the risk," answered Cosmo. "Will you allow me to jump the gate?"

But his lordship had a key, and preferred opening it.

When Cosmo reached his father's room, he found him not yet thinking of getting up, and sat down and told him all—to what straits they were reduced; what Grizzie had felt herself compelled to do in his illness; how his mind and heart and conscience had been exercised concerning the castle; how all his life, for so it seemed now, the love of it had held him to the dust; where and on what errand he had been that morning, with the result of his interview with Lord Lick-my-loof. He had fought hard, he said, and through the grace of God had overcome his weakness—so far at least that it should no more influence his action; but now he could go no further without his father. He was equal to no more.

"I would not willingly be left out of your troubles, my son," said the old man, cheerfully. "Leave me alone a little. There is one, you know, who is nearer to each of us than we are to each other: I must talk to him—your father and my father, in whom you and I are brothers."

Cosmo bowed in reverence, and withdrew.

After the space of nearly half an hour, he heard the signal with which his father was in the habit of calling him, and hastened to him.

The laird held out his old hand to him.

"Come, my son," he said, "and let us talk together as two of the heirs of all things. It's unco easy for me to regaird wi' equanimity the loss o' a place I am on the point o' leavin' for the hame o' a' hames—the dwellin' o' a' the loves, withoot the dim memory or foresicht o' which—I'm thinkin' they maun be aboot the same thing—we could never hae lo'ed this auld place as we du, an' whaur, ance I'm in, a'thing doon here maun dwindle ootworthied by reason o' the glory that excelleth—I dinna mean the glory o' pearls an' gowd, or even o' licht, but the glory o' love an' trowth. But gien I've ever had onything to ca' an ambition, Cosmo, it has been that my son should be ane o' the wise, wi' faith to believe what his father had learned afore him, an' sae start farther on upo' the narrow way than his father had startit. My ambition has been that my endeavours and my experience should in such measure avail for my boy, as that he should begin to make his own endeavours and gather his own experience a little nearer that perfection o' life efer which oor divine nature groans an' cries, even while unable to know what it wants. Blessed be the voice that tells us we maun forsake all, and take up ovir cross, and follow him, losing our life that we may find it! For whaur wad he hae us follow him but til his ain hame, to the verra bosom o' his God an' oor God, there to be ane wi' the Love essential!"

Such a son as Cosmo could not listen to such a father saying such things, and not drop the world as if it were no better than the burnt out cinder of the moon.

"When men desire great things, then is God ready to hear them," he said; "and so it is, I think, father, that he has granted your desires for me: I desire nothing but to fulfil my calling."

"Then ye can pairt wi' the auld hoose ohn grutten?"

"As easy, father, as wi' a piece whan I wasna hungry. I do not say that another mood may not come, for you know the flesh lusteth against the spirit as well as the spirit against the flesh; but in my present mood of light and peace, I rejoice to part with the house as a victory of the spirit. Shall I go to his lordship at once and accept his offer? I am ready."

"Do, my son. I think I have not long to live, and the money, though little, is large in this, that it will enable me to pay the last of my debts, and die in the knowledge that I leave you a free man. You will easily provide for yourself when I am gone, and I know you will not forget Grizzie. For Jeames Gracie, he maun hae his share o' the siller because o' the croft: we maun calculate it fairly. He'll no want muckle mair i' this warl'. Aggie 'ill be as safe's an angel ony gait. An', Cosmo, whatever God may mean to du wi' you i' this warl', ye'll hae an abundant entrance ministered to ye intil the kingdom' o' oor Lord an' Saviour. Wha daur luik for a better fate nor that o' the Lord himsel'! But there was them 'at by faith obtained kingdoms, as weel as them wha by faith were sawn asunder: they war baith martyrdoms; an' whatever God sen's, we s' tak."

"Then you accept the two hundred for croft and all, father?"

"Dinna ettle at a penny more; he micht gang back upo' 't. Regaird it as his final offer."

Cosmo rose and went, strong-hearted, and without a single thought that pulled back from the sacrifice. There was even a certain pleasure in doing the thing just because in another and lower mood it would have torn his heart: the spirit was rejoicing against the flesh. To be rid of the castle would be to feel, far off, as the young man would have felt had he given all to the poor and followed the master. With the strength of a young giant he strode along.

When he reached the gate, there was my lord leaning over it.

"I thought you would be back soon! I knew the old cock would have more sense than the young one; and I didn't want my gate scrambled over again," he said, but without moving to open it.

"My father will take your lordship's offer," said Cosmo.

"I was on the point of making a fool of myself, and adding another fifty to be certain of getting rid of you; but I came to the conclusion it was a piece of cowardice, and that, as I had so long stood the dirty hovel at my gate because I couldn't help it, I might just as well let you find your own way out of the parish."

"I am sure from your lordship's point of view you were right," said Cosmo. "We shall content ourselves, anyhow, with the two hundred."

"Indeed you will not! Did I not tell you I would not be bound by the offer? I have changed my mind, and mean to wait for the sale."

"I beg your pardon. I did not quite understand your lordship."

"You do now, I trust!"

"Perfectly, my lord," replied Cosmo, and turning away left his lordship grinning over the gate. But he had a curious look, almost as if he were a little ashamed of himself—as if he had only been teasing the young fellow, and thought perhaps he had gone too far. For Cosmo, in such peace was his heart, that he was not even angry with the man.

On his way home, the hope awoke, and began once more to whisper itself, that they might not be able to sell the place at all; that some other way would be provided for their leaving it; and that, when he was an old man, he would be allowed to return to die in it. But up started his conscience, jealously watchful lest hope should undermine submission, or weaken resolve. God MIGHT indeed intend they should not be driven from the old house! but he kept Abraham going from place to place, and never let him own a foot of land, except so much as was needful to bury his dead. And there was our Lord: he had not a place to lay his head, and had to go out of doors to pray to his father in secret! The only things to be anxious about were, that God's will should be done, and that it should not be modified by any want of faith or obedience or submission on his part. Then it would be God's, very own will that was done, and not something composite, in part rendered necessary by his opposition. If God's pure will was done, he must equally rejoice whether that will took or gave the castle!

And so he returned to his father.

When he told him the result of his visit, the laird expressed no surprise.

"He maketh the wrath o' man to praise him," he said. "This will be for our good."

The whole day after, there was not between them another allusion to the matter. Cosmo read to his father a ballad he had just written. The old man was pleased with it; for what most would have counted a great defect in Cosmo's imagination was none to him—this namely, that he never could get room for it in this world; to his way of feeling, the end of things never came here; what end, or seeming end came, was not worth setting before his art as a goal for which to make; in its very nature it was no finis at all, only the merest close of a chapter.

This was the ballad, in great part the result of a certain talk with Mr. Simon.

The miser he lay on his lonely bed, Life's candle was burning dim, His heart in his iron chest was hid, Under heaps of gold and a well locked lid, And whether it were alive or dead, It never troubled him.

Slowly out of his body he crept, Said he, "I am all the same! Only I want my heart in my breast; I will go and fetch it out of the chest." Swift to the place of his gold he stept— He was dead but had no shame!

He opened the lid—oh, hell and night! For a ghost can see no gold; Empty and swept—not a coin was there! His heart lay alone in the chest so bare! He felt with his hands, but they had no might To finger or clasp or hold!

At his heart in the bottom he made a clutch— A heart or a puff-ball of sin? Eaten with moths, and fretted with rust, He grasped but a handful of dry-rotted dust: It was a horrible thing to touch, But he hid it his breast within.

And now there are some that see him sit In the charnel house alone, Counting what seems to him shining gold, Heap upon heap, a sum ne'er told: Alas, the dead, how they lack of wit! They are not even bits of bone!

Another miser has got his chest, And his painfully hoarded store; Like ferrets his hands go in and out, Burrowing, tossing the gold about; And his heart too is out of his breast, Hid in the yellow ore.

Which is the better—the ghost that sits Counting shadowy coin all day, Or the man that puts his hope and trust In a thing whose value is only his lust? Nothing he has when out he flits But a heart all eaten away.

That night, as he lay thinking, Cosmo resolved to set out on the morrow for the city, on foot, and begging his way if necessary. There he would acquaint Mr. Burns with the straits they were in, and require of him his best advice how to make a living for himself and his father and Grizzie. As for James and Agnes, they might stay at the castle, where he would do his best to help them. As soon as his father had had his breakfast, he would let him know his resolve, and with his assent, would depart at once. His spirits rose as he brooded. What a happy thing it was that Lord Lick-my-loof had not accepted their offer! all the time they saw themselves in a poor lodging in a noisy street, they would know they had their own strong silent castle waiting to receive them, as soon as they should be able to return to it! Then the words came to him: "Here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come."

The special discipline for some people would seem to be that they shall never settle down, or feel as if they were at home, until they are at home in very fact.

"Anyhow," said Cosmo to himself, "such a castle we have!"

To be lord of space, a man must be free of all bonds to place. To be heir of all things, his heart must have no THINGS in it. He must be like him who makes things, not like one who would put everything in his pocket. He must stand on the upper, not the lower side of them. He must be as the man who makes poems, not the man who gathers books of verse. God, having made a sunset, lets it pass, and makes such a sunset no more. He has no picture-gallery, no library. What if in heaven men shall be so busy growing, that they have not time to write or to read!

How blessed Cosmo would live, with his father and Grizzle and his books, in the great city—in some such place as he had occupied when at the university! The one sad thing was that he could not be with his father all day; but so much the happier would be the home-coming at night! Thus imagining, he fell fast asleep.

He dreamed that he had a barrow of oranges, with which he had been going about the streets all day, trying in vain to sell them. He was now returning home, the barrow piled, as when he set out in the morning, with the golden fruit. He consoled himself however with the thought, that his father was fond of oranges, and now might have as many as he pleased. But as he wheeled the barrow along, it seemed to grow heavier and heavier, and he feared his strength was failing him, and he would never get back to his father. Heavier and heavier it grew, until at last, although he had it on the pavement—for it was now the dead of the night—he could but just push it along. At last he reached the door, and having laboriously wheeled it into a shed, proceeded to pick from it a few of the best oranges to take up to his father. But when he came to lift one from the heap, lo, it was a lump of gold! He tried another and another: every one of them was a lump of solid gold. It was a dream-version of the golden horse. Then all at once he said to himself, nor knew why, "My father is dead!" and woke in misery. It was many moments before he quite persuaded himself that he had but dreamed. He rose, went to his father's bed-side, found him sleeping peacefully, and lay down comforted, nor that night dreamed any more.

"What," he said to himself, "would money be to me without my father!"

Some of us shrink from making plans because experience has shown us how seldom they are realized. Not the less are the plans we do make just as subject to overthrow as the plans of the most prolific and minute of projectors. It was long since Cosmo had made any, and the resolve with which he now fell asleep was as modest as wise man could well cherish; the morning nevertheless went differently from his intent and expectation.



CHAPTER LII.

AN OLD STORY.

He was roused before sunrise by his father's cough. After a bad fit, he was very weary and restless. Now, in such a condition, Cosmo could almost always put him to sleep by reading to him, and he therefore got a short story, and began to read. At first it had the desired effect, but in a little while he woke, and asked him to go on. The story was of a king's ship so disguising herself that a pirate took her for a merchant-man; and Cosmo, to whom it naturally recalled the Old Captain, made some remark about him.

"You mustn't believe," said his father, "all they told you when a boy about that uncle of ours. No doubt he was a rough sailor fellow, but I do not believe there was any ground for calling him a pirate. I don't suppose he was anything worse than a privateer, which, God knows, is bad enough. I fancy, however, for the most of his sea-life he was captain of an East Indiaman, probably trading on his own account at the same time. That he made money I do not doubt, but very likely he lost it all before he came home, and was too cunning, in view of his probable reception, to confess it."

"I remember your once telling me an amusing story of an adventure—let me see—yes, that was in an East Indiaman: was he the captain of that one?"

"No—a very different man—a cousin of your mother's that was. I was thinking of it a minute ago; it has certain points, if not of resemblance, then of contrast with the story you have just been reading."

"I should like much to hear it again, when you are able to tell it."

"I have got it all in writing. It was amongst my Marion's papers. You will find, in the bureau in the book-closet, in the pigeon-hole farthest to the left, a packet tied with red tape: bring that, and I will find it for you."

Cosmo brought the bundle of papers, and his father handed him one of them, saying, "This narrative was written by a brother of your mother's. The Captain Macintosh who is the hero of the story, was a cousin of her mother, and at the time of the event related must have been somewhat advanced in years, for he had now returned to his former profession after having lost largely in an attempt to establish a brewery on the island of St. Helena!"

Cosmo unfolded the manuscript, and read as follows:

"'An incident occurring on the voyage to India when my brother went out, exhibits Captain Macintosh's character very practically, and not a little to his professional credit.

"'On a fine evening some days after rounding the cape of Good Hope, sailing with a light breeze and smooth water, a strange sail of large size hove in sight, and apparently bearing down direct upon the "Union," Captain Macintosh's ship; evidently a ship of war, but showing NO COLOURS—a very suspicious fact. All English ships at that time trading to and from India, by admiralty rules, were obliged to carry armaments proportioned to their tonnage, and crew sufficient to man and work the guns carried. The strange sail was NEARING them, or "the big stranger," as the seamen immediately named her. My brother, many years afterwards, more than once told me, that the change, or rather the TRANSFORMATION, which Captain Macintosh UNDERwent, was one of the most remarkable facts he had ever witnessed; more bordering on the MARVELLOUS, than anything else. When he had carefully and deliberately viewed the "big stranger," and deliberately laying down his glass, his eyes seemed to have catched FIRE! and his whole countenance lighted up; a new spirit seemed to possess him, while he preserved the utmost coolness: advancing deliberately to what is called the poop railing, and steadily looking forward—"Boatswain! Pipe to quarters." Muster roll called.—"Now, my men, we shall FIGHT! I know you will do it well!—Clear ship for action!" I have certainly but my brother's word and judgment upon the fact, who had never been UNDER FIRE; but his opinion was, that no British ship of war could have been more speedily, or more completely cleared for action, both in rigging, decks, and guns,—guns DOUBLE SHOTTED and run out into position. "The big stranger" was now NEARING,—no ports opened, and no colours shewn—ALL, increased cause of suspicion that there was some ill intent in the wind—and it was very evident, from the SIZE of "the big stranger "—nearly THRICE the size of the little "Union,"—that, one broad side from the former, might send the latter at once to the bottom:—the whole crew, my brother related, were in the highest spirits, more as if preparing for a DANCE, than for work of life and death. Suddenly, the captain gives the command,—"Boarders,—Prepare to board! —Lower away, boarding Boats "—and no sooner said than done. The stranger was now at musket-shot. It was worthy the courage of a Nelson or a Cochrane, to think of boarding at such odds;—a mere handful of men, to a full complement of a heavy Frigate's crew! The idea was altogether in keeping with the best naval tactics and skill. Foreseeing that one broadside from such an enemy would sink him, he must ANTICIPATE such a crisis. Boarding would at least divert the enemy from their GUNS; and he knew what British seamen could do, in clearing an enemy's decks! THERE WAS British spirit in those days. Let us hope it shall again appear, should the occasion arise. The captain himself was the first in the foremost Boarding Boat—and the first in the enemy's main chains, and to set his foot on the enemy's main deck! when a most magic-like scene saluted the Boarders; but did not YET allay suspicion:—not a single enemy on deck!—Here, a characteristic act of a British TAR—the Union's Boatswain,—must not be omitted—an old man of war's man:—no sooner had his foot touched the ENEMY'S deck, than RUSHING AFT—(or towards the ship's stern)—to the WHEEL,—the ONLY MAN ON DECK being he at the wheel,—a big, lubberly looking man,—the Union's boatswain in less than a MOMENT had his hands to the steersman's throat,—and with one FELL SHOVE, sent him spinning, heels over head—all the full length of the ship's quarter-deck, to land on the main deck;—one may suppose rather ASTONISHED! The manly boatswain himself was the only man HURT in the affair—his boarding pistol, by some untoward accident, went off,—its double shot running up his fore-arm, and lodging in the bones of his elbow. Amputation became necessary; and the dear old fellow soon afterwards died.

"'But what did all this HULLYBALOO come to? Breathe—and we shall hear! "The Big Stranger" turned out to be a large, heavy armed Portuguese Frigate!—Actually the WAR-SHIP SOLITARY of the Portuguese navy then afloat!—a fine specimen of Portuguese naval discipline, no doubt!—not a WATCH even on deck!—They had seen immediately on seeing her, that the "Union" was ENGLISH, and a merchant ship—which a practised seaman's eye can do at once; and they had quietly gone to take their SIESTA, after their country's fashion—Portugal, at that time, being one of Britain's allies, and not an enemy;—a grievous DISAPPOINTMENT to the crew of the 'Union."'

"My uncle seems to have got excited as he went on," said Cosmo, "to judge by the number of words he has underlined!"

"He enters into the spirit of the thing pretty well for a clergyman!" said the laird.



CHAPTER LIII

A SMALL DISCOVERY.

When they had had a little talk over the narrative, the laird desired Cosmo to replace the papers, and rising he went to obey. As he approached the closet, the first beams of the rising sun were shining upon the door of it. The window through which they entered was a small one, and the mornings of the year in which they so fell were not many. When he opened the door, they shot straight to the back of the closet, lighting with rare illumination the little place, commonly so dusky that in it one book could hardly be distinguished from another. It was as if a sudden angel had entered a dungeon. When the door fell to behind him, as was its custom, the place felt so dark that he seemed to have lost memory as well as sight, and not to know where he was. He set it open again, and having checked it so, proceeded to replace the papers. But the strangeness of the presence there of such a light took so great a hold on his imagination, and it was such a rare thing to see what the musty dingy little closet, which to Cosmo had always been the treasure—chamber of the house, was like, that he stood for a moment with his hand on the cover of the bureau, gazing into the light-invaded corners as if he had suddenly found himself in a department of Aladdin's cave. Old to him beyond all memory, it yet looked new and wonderful, much that had hitherto been scarcely known but to his hands now suddenly revealed in radiance to his eyes also. Amongst other facts he discovered that the bureau stood, not against a rough wall as he had imagined, but against a plain surface of wood. In mild surprise he tapped it with his knuckles, and almost started at the hollow sound it returned.

"What can there be ahin' the bureau, father?" he asked, re-entering the room.

"I dinna ken o' onything," answered the laird. "The desk stan's close again' the wa', does na't?"

"Ay, but the wa' 's timmer, an' soon's how."

"It may be but a wainscotin'; an' gien there was but an inch atween hit an' the stane, it wad soon' like that."

"I wad like to draw the desk oot a bit, an' hae a nearer luik. It fills up a' the space,'at I canna weel win at it."

"Du as ye like, laddie. The hoose is mair yours nor mine. But noo ye hae putten't i' my held, I min' my mother sayin' 'at there was ance a passage atween the twa blocks o' the hoose: could it be there? I aye thoucht it had been atween the kitchen an' the dinin' room. My father, she said, had it closed up."

Said Cosmo, who had been gazing toward the closet from where he stood by the bedside,

"It seems to gang farther back nor the thickness o' the wa'!" He went and looked out of the western window, then turned again towards the closet. "I canna think," he resumed, with something like annoyance in his tone, "hoo it cud be 'at I never noticed that afore! A body wad think I had nae heid for what I prided mysel' upo'—an un'erstan'in' o' hoo things are putten thegither, specially i' the w'y o' stane an' lime! The closet rins richt intil the great blin' wa' atween the twa hooses! I thoucht that wa' had been naething but a kin' o' a curtain o' defence, but there may weel be a passage i' the thickness o' 't!"

So saying he re-entered the closet, and proceeded to move the bureau. The task was not an easy one. The bureau was large, and so nearly filled the breadth of the closet, that he could attack it nowhere but in front, and had to drag it forward, laying hold of it where he could, over a much-worn oak floor. The sun had long deserted him before he got behind it.

"I wad sair like to brak throu the buirds, father?" he said, going again to the laird.

"Onything ye like, I tell ye, laddie! I'm growin' curious mysel'," he answered.

"I'm feart for makin' ower muckle din, father."

"Nae fear, nae fear! I haena a sair heid. The Lord be praist, that's a thing I'm seldom triblet wi'. Gang an' get ye what tools ye want, an' gang at it, an' dinna spare. Gien the hole sud lat in the win', ye'll mar nae mair, I'm thinkin', nor ye'll be able to mak again. What timmer is 't o'?"

"Only deal, sae far as I can judge."

Cosmo went and fetched his tool-basket, and set to work. The partition was strong, of good sound pine, neither rotton nor worm-eaten—inch-boards matched with groove and tongue, not quite easy to break through. But having, with a centre-bit and brace, bored several holes near each other, he knocked out the pieces between, and introducing a saw, soon made an opening large enough to creep through. A cold air met him. as if from a cellar, and on the other side he seemed in another climate.

Feeling with his hands, for there was scarcely any light, he discovered that the space he had entered was not a closet, inasmuch as there was no shelf, or anything in it, whatever. It was certainly most like the end of a deserted passage. His feet told him the floor was of wood, and his hands that the walls were of rough stone without plaster, cold and damp. With outstretched arms he could easily touch both at once. Advancing thus a few paces, he struck his head against wood, felt panels, and concluded a door. There was a lock, but the handle was gone. He went back a little, and threw himself against it. Lock and hinges too gave way, and it fell right out before him. He went staggering on, and was brought up by a bed, half-falling across it. He was in the spare room, the gruesome centre of legend, the dwelling of ghostly awe. Not yet apparently had its numen forsaken it, for through him passed a thrill at the discovery. From his father's familiar room to this, was like some marvellous transition in a fairy-tale; the one was home, a place of use and daily custom; the other a hollow in the far-away past, an ancient cave of Time, full of withering history. Its windows being all to the north and long unopened, it was lustreless, dark, and musty with decay.

Cosmo stood motionless a while, gazing about him as if, from being wide awake, he suddenly found himself in a dream. Then he turned as if to see how he had got into it. There lay the door, and there was the open passage! He lifted the door: the other side of it was covered with the same paper as the wall, from which it had brought with it several ragged pieces. He went back, crept through, and rejoined his father.

In eager excitement, he told him the discovery he had made.

"I heard the noise of the falling door," said his father quietly. "I should not wonder now," he added, "if we discovered a way through to the third block."

"Oh, father," said Cosmo with a sigh, "what a comfort this door would have so often been! and now, just as we are like to leave the house forever, we first discover it!"

"How well we have got on without it!" returned his father.

"But what could have made grandfather close it up?"

"There was, I believe, some foolish ghost-story connected with it—perhaps the same old Grannie told you."

"I wonder grandmamma never spoke of it!"

"My impression is she never cared to refer to it."

"I daresay she believed it."

"Weel, I daursay! I wadna won'er!"

"What for did ye ca' 't foolish, father?"

"Jist for thouchtlessness, I doobt, But wha could hae imagined to kep a ghaist by paperin' ower a door, whan, gien there be ony trowth i' sic tales, the ghaist gangs throu a stane wa' jist as easy's open air! But surely o' a' fules a ghaist maun be the warst 'a things on aboot a place!"

"Maybe it's to haud away frae a waur. The queer thing, father, to me wad be 'at the ghist, frae bein' a fule a' his life, sud grow a wise man the minute he was deid! Michtna it be a pairt o' his punishment to be garred see hoo things gang on efter he's deid! What could be sairer, for instance, upon a miser, nor to see his heir gang to the deevil by scatterin' what he gaed to the deevil by gatherin'?"

"'Deed ye're richt eneuch, there, my son!" answered the old man. Then after a pause he resumed. "It's aye siller or banes 'at fesses them back. I can weel un'erstan' a great reluctance to tak their last leave o' the siller, but for the banes—eh, but I'll be unoo pleased to be rid o' mine!"

"But whaur banes are concernt, hasna there aye been fause play?" suggested Cosmo.

"Wad it be revenge, than, think ye?"

"It micht be: maist o' the stories o' that kin' en' wi' bringin' the murderer an' justice acquant. But the human bein' seems in a' ages to hae a grit dislike to the thoucht o' his banes bein' left lyin' aboot. I hae h'ard gran'mamma say the dirtiest servan' was aye clean twa days o' her time—the day she cam an' the day she gaed."

"Ye hae thoucht mair aboot it nor me, laddie! But what ye say wadna haud wi' the Parsees, 'at lay oot their deid to be devoored by the birds o' the air."

"They swipe up their banes at the last. An', though the livin' expose the deid, the deid mayna like it."

"I daursay. Ony gait it maun be a fine thing to lea' as little dirt as possible ahin' ye, an' tak nane wi' ye. I wad frain gang clean an' lea' clean!"

"Gien onybody gang clean an' lea' clean, father, ye wull."

"I luik to the Lord, my son.—But noo, whan a body thinks o' 't," he went on after a pause, "there wad seem something curious i' thae tales concernin' the auld captain! Sometime we'll tak Grizzie intil oor coonsel, an' see hoo mony we can gaither, an' what we can mak o' them whan we lay them a' thegither. Gien the Lord hae't in his min' to keep 's i' this place, yon passage may turn oot a great convanience."

"Ye dinna think it wad be worth while openin' 't up direc'ly?"

"I wad bide for warmer weather. I think the room's jist some caller now by rizzon o' 't."

"I'll close't up at ance," said Cosmo.

In a few minutes he had screwed a box-lid over the hole in the partition, and shut the door of the closet.

"Noo," he said, "I'll gang an' set up the door on the ither side."

Before he went however, he told his father what he had been thinking of, saying, if he approved and was well enough, he should like to go the next day.

"It's no an ill idea," said the laird; "but we'll see what the morn may be like."

When Cosmo entered the great bedroom of the house from the other side, he stood for a moment staring at the open passage and prostrate door as if he saw them for the first time, then proceeded to examine the hinges. They were broken; the half of each remained fast to the door-post, the other half to the door. New hinges were necessary; in the meantime he must prop it up. This he did; and before he left the room, as it was much in want of fresh air, he opened all the windows.

His father continuing better through that day, he went to bed early that he might start at sunrise.



CHAPTER LIV.

A GREATER DISCOVERY.

In the middle of the night he was wakened by a loud noise. Its nature he had been too sound asleep to recognize; he only knew it had waked him. He sprang out of bed, was glad to find his father undisturbed, and stood for a few moments wondering. All at once he remembered that he had left the windows of the best bedroom open; the wind had risen, and was now blowing what sailors would call a gale: probably something had been blown down! He would go and see. Taking a scrap of candle, all he had, he crept down the stair and out to the great door.

As he approached that of the room he sought, the faint horror he felt of it when a boy suddenly returned upon him as fresh as ever, and for a moment he hesitated, almost doubting whether he were not dreaming: was he actually there in the middle of the night? But, with an effort he dismissed the folly, was himself again, entering the room, if not with indifference yet with composure. There was just light enough to see the curtains of the terrible bed waving wide in the stream of wind that followed the opening of the door. He shut the windows, lighted his candle, and then saw the door he had set up so carefully flat on the floor: the chair he had put against it for a buttress, he thought, had not proved high enough, and it had fallen down over the top of it. He placed his candle beside it, and proceeded once more to raise it. But, casting his eyes up to mark the direction, he caught a sight which made him lay it down again and rise without it. The candle on the floor shone halfway into the passage, lighting up a part of one wall of it, and showing plainly the rough gray stones of which it was built. Something in the shapes and arrangement of the stones drew and fixed Cosmo's attention. He took the candle, examined the wall, came from the passage with his eyes shining, and his lips firmly closed, left the room, and went up a story higher to that over it, still called his. There he took from his old secretary the unintelligible drawing hid in the handle of the bamboo, and with beating heart unfolded it. Certainly its lines did, more or less, correspond with the shapes of those stones! He must bring them face to face!

Down the stair he went again. It was the dead of the night, but every remnant of childhood's awe was gone in the excitement of the hoped discovery. He stood once more in the passage, the candle in one hand, the paper in the other, and his eyes going and coming steadily between it and the wall, as if reading the rough stones by some hieroglyphic key. The lines on the paper and the joints of the stones corresponded with almost absolute accuracy.

But another thing had caught his eye—a thing yet more promising, though he delayed examining it until fully satisfied of the correspondence he sought to establish: on one of the stones, one remarkable neither by position nor shape, he spied what seemed the rude drawing of a horse, but as it was higher than his head, and the candle cast up shadows from the rough surfaces, he could not see it well. Now he got a chair, and, standing on it, saw that it was plainly enough a horse, like one a child might have made who, with a gift for drawing, had had no instruction. It was scratched on the stone. Beneath it, legible enough to one who knew them so well, were the lines—

catch your Nag, & pull his Tail in his hind Hele caw a Nail rug his Lugs frae ane anither stand up, & ca' the King yer Brither

How these directions were to be followed with such a horse astheoneon the flat before him would be scanned! Probably the wall must be broken into at that spot. In the meantime he would set up the door again, and go to bed.

For he was alarmed at the turmoil the sight of these signs caused in him. He dreaded POSSESSION by any spirit but the one. Whatever he did now he must do calmly. Therefore to bed he went. But before he gave himself up to sleep, he prayed God to watch him, lest the commotion in his heart and the giddiness of hope should make something rise that would come between him and the light eternal. The man in whom any earthly hope dims the heavenly presence and weakens the mastery of himself, is on the by-way through the meadow to the castle of Giant Despair.

In the morning he rose early, and went to see what might be attempted for the removing of the stone. He found it, as he had feared, so close-jointed with its neighbours that none of his tools would serve. He went to Grizzie and got from her a thin old knife; but the mortar had got so hard since those noises the servants used to hear in the old captain's room, that he could not make much impression upon it, and the job was likely to be a long one. He said to himself it might be the breaking through of the wall of his father's prison and his own, and wrought eagerly.

As soon as his father had had his breakfast, he told him what he had discovered during the dark hours. The laird listened with the light of a smile, not the smile itself, upon his face, and made no answer; but Cosmo could see by the all but imperceptible motion of his lips that he was praying.

"I wish I were able to help you," he said at length.

"There is na room for mair nor ane at a time, father," answered Cosmo; "an' I houp to get the stane oot afore I'm tired. You can be Moses praying, while I am Joshua fighting."

"An' prayin' again' waur enemies nor ever Joshua warstled wi'," returned his father; "for whan I think o' the rebound o' the spirit, even in this my auld age, that cudna but follow the mere liftin' o' the weicht o' debt, I feel as gien my sowl wad be tum'led aboot like a bledder, an' its auld wings tak to lang slow flaggin' strokes i' the ower thin aether o' joy. The great God protec' 's frae his ain gifts! Wi'oot him they're ten times waur nor ony wiles o' the deevil's ain. But I'll pray, Cosmo; I'll pray."

The real might of temptation is in the lower and seemingly nearer loveliness as against the higher and seemingly farther.

Cosmo went back to his work. But he got tired of the old knife—it was not tool enough, and had to fashion on the grindstone a screw-driver to a special implement. With that he got on better.

The stone,—whether by the old captain's own' hands, his ghost best knew—was both well fitted and fixed, but after Cosmo had worked at it for about three hours his tool suddenly went through. It was then easy to knock away from the edge gained, and on the first attempt to prize it out, it yielded so far that he got a hold with his fingers, and the rest was soon done. It disclosed a cavity in the wall, but the light was not enough to let him see into it, and he went to get a candle.

Now Grizzie had a curious dislike to any admission of the poverty of the house even to those most interested, and having but one small candle-end left, was unwilling both to yield it, and to confess it her last.

"Them 'at burns daylicht, sune they'll hae nae licht!" she said. "What wad ye want wi' a can'le? I'll haud a fir-can'le to ye, gien ye like."

"Grizzie," repeated Cosmo, "I want a can'le."

She went grumbling, and brought him the miserable end.

"Hoot, Grizzie!" he expostulated, "dinna be sae near. Ye wadna, gien ye kenned what I was aboot."

"Eh! what are ye aboot, sir?"

"I'm no gaein' to tell ye yet. Ye maun hae patience, an' I maun hae a can'le."

"Ye maun tak what's offert ye."

"Grizzie, I'm in earnest."

"'Deed an' sae am I! Ye s' hae nae mair nor that—no gien it was to scrape the girnel—an' that's dune lang syne, an' twise ower!"

"Grizzie, I'm feart ye'll anger me."

"Ye s' get nae mair!"

Cosmo burst out laughing.

"Grizzie," he said, "I dinna believe ye nae an' inch mair can'le i' the hoose!"

"It needs na a Warlock to tell that! Gien I had it, what for sud na ye hae't 'at has the best richt?"

Cosmo took his candle, and was as sparing of it as Grizzie herself could have wished.



CHAPTER LV.

A GREAT DISCOVERY.

The instant the rays of the candle-end were thrown into the cavity, he saw what, expectant as he was, made him utter a cry. He seemed to be looking through a small window into a toy-stable—a large one for a toy. Immediately before him was a stall, in which stood ahorse, with his tail towards the window. He put in his hand and felt it over. For a toy it would have been of the largest size below a rocking horse. It was covered with a hairy skin. So far all was satisfactory, but alas! more stones must be removed ere it could be taken from its prison stall, where, like the horses of Charlemagne, it had been buried so many years. He extinguished the precious candle-end, and set to work once more with a will and what light the day afforded. Nor was the task much easier than before. Every one of the stones was partly imbedded in the solid of the wall, projecting but a portion of its bulk over the hollow of the stable. The old captain must indeed have worked hard! for assuredly he was not the man to call for help where he desired secrecy—though doubtless it was his sudden death, and the nature of it, which prevented him from making disclosure concerning the matter before he left the world: the rime, the drawing, the scratches on the stone, all indicated the intention. Cosmo took pleasure in thinking that, if indeed his ghost did "walk," as Grannie and others had affirmed, it must be more from desire to reveal where his money was hid, than from any gloating over the imagined possession of it.

But it was now dinner-time, and he must rest, for he was tired as well as hungry—and no wonder, the work having been so awkward as well as continuous! He locked the door of the room, went first to tell his father what he had further found, and then made haste over his meal, for the night was coming, and there were no candles. Persistently he laboured; "the toil-drops fell from his brow like rain;" and at last he laid hold of the patient animal by the hind legs, with purpose to draw it gently from the stall. A little way it came, then no farther, and he had to light the candle. Peeping into the stall he perceived a chain stretching from its head to where the manger might be. This he dared not try to break, lest he might injure the mechanism he hoped to find in it. But clearly the horse could not have been so fastened as the stall then stood. The stall must have been completed after the horse was thus secured. More than ever he now needed a candle—and indeed one held for him; but he was not prepared either to take Grizzie into his confidence, or to hurt her by perferring Agnes. He therefore examined the two stones forming the sides of the stall, and led by the appearance of one of them, proceeded to attempt its removal almost in the dark, compelled indeed now and then to feel for the proper spot where to set his tool before he struck it. For some time he seemed to make, little or no progress; but who would be discouraged with the end in sight!

The stone at length moved, and in a minute he had it out. For the last time he lighted his candle, and there was just enough of it left to show him how the chain was fastened. With a pair of pincers he detached it from the wall—and I may mention that his life after he wore it at his watch.

And now he had the horse in his arms and would have borne it straight to his father, in whose presence it must be searched, but that, unwilling to carry it through the kitchen, he must first go to the other end of the passage and open that way.

The laird was seated by the fire when Cosmo went through, and returning with the horse, placed it on a chair beside him. They looked it all over, wondering whether the old captain could have made it himself, and Cosmo thought his father prolonged the inquiry from a wish to still his son's impatience. But at length he said,

"Noo, Cosmo, i' the name o' God, the giver o' ilka guid an' perfec' gift, see gien ye can win at the entrails o' the animal. It cannabe fu' o' men like the Trojan horse, or they maun be enchantit sma', like the deevils whan they war ower mony for the cooncil ha'; but what's intil 't may carry a heap waur danger to you an' me nor ony nummer o' airmit men!"

"Ye min' the rime, father?" asked Cosmo.

"No sae weel as the twenty-third psalm," replied the laird with a smile.

"Weel, the first line o' 't is,'Catch yer naig, an' pu' his tail.' Wi' muckle diffeeclety we hae catcht him, an' noo for the tail o' 'im!—There! that's dune!—though there's no muckle to shaw for 't. The neist direction is—'In his hin' heel caw a nail:' we s' turn up a' his fower feet thegither,'cause they're cooperant; an' noo lat 's see the proper spot whaur to caw the said nail!"

The horse's shoes were large, and the hole where a nail was missing had not to be sought. Cosmo took a fine bradawl, and pushed it gently into the hoof. A loud, whirring noise followed, but with no visible result.

"The next direction," said Cosmo, "is—'Rug his lugs frae ane anither.' Noo, father, God be wi' 's! an' gien it please him we be dis-ap'intit, may he gie 's grace to beir 't as he wad hae 's beir 't.'

"I pray the same," said the laird.

Cosmo pulled the two ears of the animal in opposite directions. The back began to open, slowly, as if through the long years the cleft had begun to grow together. He sprang from his seat. The laird looked after him with a gentle surprise. But it was not to rush from the room, nor yet to perform a frantic dance with the horse for a partner.

One of the windows looked westward into the court, and at this season of the year, the setting sun looked in at that window. He was looking in now; his rays made a glowing pool of light in the middle of the ancient carpet. Beside this pool Cosmo dropped on the floor like a child with his toy, and pulled lustily at its ears. All at once into the pool of light began to tumble a cataract as of shattered rainbows, only brighter, flashing all the colours visible to human eye. It ceased. Cosmo turned the horse upside down, and a few stray drops followed. He shook it, and tapped it, like Grizzie when she emptied the basin of meal into the porridge-pot, then flung it from him. But the cataract had not vanished. There it lay heaped and spread, a storm of conflicting yet harmonious hues, with a foamy spray of spiky flashes, and spots that ate into the eyes with their fierce colour. In every direction shot the rays from it, blinding; for it was a mound of stones of all the shapes into which diamonds are fashioned. It makes my heart beat but to imagine the glorious show of deep-hued burning, flashing, stinging light! The heaviest of its hues was borne light as those of a foam-bubble on the strength of its triumphing radiance. There pulsed the mystic glowing red, heart and lord of colour; there the jubilant yellow, light-glorified to ethereal gold; there the loveliest blue, the truth unfathomable, profounder yet than the human red; there the green, that haunts the brain with Nature's soundless secrets! all together striving, yet atoning, fighting and fleeing and following, parting and blending, with illimitable play of infinite force and endlessly delicate gradation. Scattered here and there were a few of all the coloured gems—sapphires, emeralds, and rubies; but they were scarce of note in the mass of ever new-born, ever dying colour that gushed from the fountains of the light-dividing diamonds.

Cosmo rose, left the glory where it lay, and returning to his father, sat down beside him. For a few moments they regarded in silence the shining mound, where, like an altar of sacrifice, it smoked with light and colour. The eyes of the old man as he looked seemed at once to sparkle with pleasure, and quail with some kind of fear. He turned to Cosmo and said,

"Cosmo, are they what they luik?"

"What luik they, father?" asked Cosmo.

"Bonny bits o' glaiss they luik," answered the old man. "But," he went on, "I canna but believe them something better, they come til's in sic a time o' sair need. But, be they this or be they that, the Lord's wull be done—noo an' for ever, be it, I say, what it like!"

"I wuss it, father!" rejoined Cosmo. "But I ken something aboot sic-like things, frae bein' sae muckle in Mr. Burns's shop, an' hauding a heap o' conference wi' im about them; an' I tell ye, sir, they're maistly a' di'mon's; an' the nummer o' thoosan' poun' they maun be worth gien they be worth a saxpence, I daurna guess!"

"They'll be eneuch to pey oor debts ony gait, ye think, Cosmo?"

"Ay, that wull they—an' mony a hun'er times ower. They're maistly a guid size, an' no a feow o' them lairge."

"Cosmo, we're ower lang ohn thankit. Come here, my son; gang down upo' yer knees, an lat's say to the Lord what we're thinkin'."

Cosmo obeyed, and knelt at his father's knee, and his father laid his hand upon his head that so they might pray more in one.

"Lord," he said, "though naething a man can tak in his han's can ever be his ain, no bein' o' his nature, that is, made i' thy image, yet, O Lord, the thing 'at's thine, made by thee efter thy holy wull an' pleesur, man may touch an' no be defiled. Yea, he may tak pleesur baith in itsel' an' in its use, sae lang as he han'les 't i' the how o' thy han', no grippin' at it an' ca'in' 't his ain, an' lik a rouch bairn seekin' to snap it awa' 'at he may hae his fule wull o' 't. O God, they're bonny stanes an' fu' o' licht: forbid 'at their licht sud breed darkness i' the hert o' Cosmo an' me. O God, raither nor we sud du or feel ae thing i' consequence o' this they gift, that thoo wadna hae us do or feel, we wad hae thee tak again the gift; an' gien i' thy mercy, for it's a' mercy wi' thee, it sud turn oot, efter a','at they're no stanes o' thy makin', but coonterfeit o' glaiss, the produc' o' airt an' man's device, we'll lay them a' thegither, an' keep them safe, an' luik upon them as a token o' what thoo wad hae dune for 's gien it hadna been 'at we warna yet to be trustit wi' sae muckle, an' that for the safety an' clean-throuness o' oor sowls. O God, latna the sunshiny Mammon creep intil my Cosmo's hert an' mak a' mirk; latna the licht that is in him turn to darkness. God hae mercy on his wee bairns, an' no lat the play ocks he gies them tak their e'en aff o' the giein' han'! May the licht noo streamin' frae the hert o' the bonny stanes be the bodily presence o' thy speerit, as ance was the doo 'at descendit upo' the maister, an' the buss 'at burned wi' fire an' wasna consumed. Thoo art the father o' lichts, an' a' licht is thine. Garoor herts burn like them—a' licht an' nae reek! An' gien ony o' them cam in at a wrang door, may they a' gang oot at a richt ane. Thy wull be dune, which is the purifyin' fire o' a' thing, an' a' sowl! Amen."

He ceased, and was silent, praying still. Nor did Cosmo yet rise from his knees: the joy, and yet more the relief at his heart filled him afresh with fear, lest, no longer spurred by the same sense of need, he should the less run after him from whom help had come so plentifully. Alas! how is it with our hearts that in trouble they cry, and in joy forget! that we think it hard of God not to hear, and when he has answered abundantly, turn away as if we wanted him no more!

When Cosmo rose from his knees, he looked his father in the face with wet eyes.

"Oh, father!" he said, "how the fear and oppression of ages are gone like a cloud swallowed up of space. Oh, father! are not all human ills doomed thus to vanish at last in the eternal fire of the love-burning God?—An' noo, father, what 'll we du neist?" resumed Cosmo after a pause, turning his eyes again on the heap of jewels. The sunrays had now left them, and they lay cold and almost colourless, though bright still: even in the dark some of them would shine! "It pleases me, father," he went on, "to see nane o' them set. It pruvs naething, but maks 't jist a wheen mair likly he got them first han' like. Eh, the queer things! sae hard, an' yet 'maist bodiless! naething but skinfu's o' licht!"

"Hooever they war gotten," rejoined the laird, there can be no question but the only w'y o' cleansin' them is to put them to the best use we possibly can."

"An' what wad ye ca' the best use, father?"

"Whatever maks o' a man a neebour. A true life efter God's notion is the sairest bash to Sawtan. To gie yer siller to ither fowk to spread is to jink the wark laid oot for ye. I' the meantime hadna ye better beery yer deid again? They maun lie i' the dark, like human sowls, till they're broucht to du the deeds o' licht."

"Dinna ye think," said Cosmo, "I micht set oot the morn efter a', though on a different eeran', an' gang straucht to Mr. Burns? He'll sune put's i' the w'y to turn them til accoont. They're o' sma' avail as they lie there."

"Ye canna du better, my son," answered the old man.

So Cosmo gathered the gems together into the horse, lifting them in handfuls. But, peeping first into the hollow of the animal, to make sure he had found all that was in it, he caught sight of a bit of paper that had got stuck, and found it a Bank of England note for five hundred pounds. This in itself would have been riches an hour ago—now it was only a convenience.

"It's queer to think," said Cosmo, "'at though we hae a' this siller, I maun tramp it the morn like ony caird. Wha is there in Muir o' Warlock could change't, an' wha wad I gang til wi' 't gien he could?"

His father replied with a smile,

"It brings to my min' the words o' the apostle—'Noo I say, that the heir, sae lang as he's but a bairn, differeth naething frae a servan', though he be lord o' a'.' Eh, Cosmo, but the word admits o' curious illustration!"

Cosmo set the horse, as soon as he had done giving him his supper of diamonds, again in his old stall, and replaced the stones that had shut him in as well as he could. Then he wedged up the door, and having nothing to make paste, glued the paper again to the wall which it had carried with it. He next sought the kitchen and Grizzie.



CHAPTER LVI

MR. BURNS.

"Grizzie," he said, "I'm gaein' a lang tramp the morn, an' I'll need a great poochfu' o' cakes."

"Eh, sirs! An' what's takin' ye frae hame this time, sir?" returned Grizzie.

"I'm no gaein' to tell ye the nicht, Grizzie. It's my turn to hae a secret noo! But ye ken weel it's lang sin' there's been onything to be gotten by bidin' at hame."

"Eh, but, sir! ye're never gaein' to lea' the laird! Bide an' dee wi' him, sir."

"God bless ye, Grizzie! Hae ye ony baubees?"

"Ay; what for no! I hae sax shillin's, fower pennies, an' a baubeefardin'!" answered Grizzie, in the tone of a millionaire.

"Weel, ye maun jist len' me half a croon o' 't."

"Half a croon!" echoed Grizzie, staggered at the largeness of the demand. 'Haith, sir, ye're no blate (BASHFUL)!"

"I dinna think it's ower muckle," said Cosmo, "seein' I hae to tramp five an' thirty mile the morn. But bake ye plenty o' breid, an' that'll haud doon the expence. Only, gien he can help it, a body sudna be wantin' a baubee in 's pooch. Gien ye had nane to gie me, I wad set oot bare. But jist as ye like, Grizzie! I cud beg to be sure—noo ye hae shawn the gait," he added, taking the old woman by the arm with a laugh, that she might not be hurt, "but whan ye ken ye sudna speir, an' whan ye hae, ye hae no richt to beg."

"Weel, I'll gie ye auchteen pence, an' considerin' a' 'at 's to be dune wi' what's left, ye'll hae to grant it 's no an oonfair portion."

"Weel, weel, Grizzie! I'm thinkin' I'll hae to be content."

"'Deed, an' ye wull, sir! Ye s' hae nae mair."

That night the old laird slept soundly, but Cosmo, ever on the brink of unconsciousness, was blown back by a fresh gust of gladness. The morning came golden and brave, and his father was well enough to admit of his leaving him. So he set out, and in the strength of his relief walked all the way without spending a half-penny of Grizzie's eighteen pence: two days before, he would consult his friend how to avoid the bitterest dregs of poverty; now he must find from him how to make his riches best available!

He did not tell Mr. Burns, however, what his final object was—only begged him, for the sake of friendship and old times, to go with him for a day or two to his father's.

"But, Mr. Warlock," objected the jeweller, "that would be taking the play, and we've got to be diligent in business."

"The thing I want you for is business," replied Cosmo.

"But what's to be done with the shop? I have no assistant I can trust."

"Then shut it up, and give your men a holiday. You can put up a notice informing the great public when you will be back."

"Such a thing was never heard of!"

"It is quite time it should be heard of then. Why, sir, your business is not like a doctor's, or even a baker's. People can live without diamonds!"

"Don't speak disrespectfully of diamonds, Mr. Warlock. If you knew them as I do, you would know they had a thing or two to say."

"Speak of them disrespectfully you never heard me, Mr. Burns."

"Never, I confess. I was only talking from the diamond side. Like all things else, they give us according to what we have. To him that hath shall be given. The fine lady may see in her fine diamonds only victory over a rival; the philosopher may read embodied in them law inexorably beautiful; and the Christian poet—oh, I have read my Spenser, Mr. Warlock!—will choose the diamond for its many qualities, as the best and only substance wherein to represent the shield of the faith that overcometh the world. Like the gospel itself, diamonds are a savour of life unto life, or a savour of death unto death, according to the character of them that look on them."

"That is true enough. Every gift of God is good that is received with faith and thanksgiving, and whatsoever is not of faith is sin. But will you come?"

Mr. Burns did at length actually consent to close his shop for three days, and go with Cosmo.

"It will not be a bad beginning," he said, as if in justification of himself to himself, "towards retiring from business altogether—which I might have done long ago," he added, "but for you, sir!"

"It is very well for me you did not," rejoined Cosmo, but declined to explain. This piqued Mr. Burns's curiosity, and he set about his preparations at once.

In the mean time things went well at Castle Warlock, with—shall I say?—one exception: Grizzie had a severe fit of repentance, mourning bitterly that she had sent away the youth she worshipped with only eighteen pence in his pocket.

"He's sure to come to grief for the want o' jist that ae shillin' mair!" she said over and over to herself; "an' it'll be a' an' only my wite! What gien we never see 'im again! Eh, sirs! it's a terrible thing to be made sae contrairy! What'll come o' me in the neist warl', it wad be hard for onybody to say!"

On the evening of the second day, however, while she was "washing up" in the gloomiest frame of mind, in walked Cosmo, and a gentleman after him.

"Hoo's my father, Grizzie?" asked Cosmo.

"Won'erfu' weel, sir," answered Grizzle, with a little more show ofrespect than usual.

"This is Grizzie, Mr. Burns," said Cosmo. "I have told you about Grizzie that takes care of us all!"

"How do you do, Grizzie?" said Mr. Burns, and shook hands with her. "I am glad to make your acquaintance."

"Here, Grizzie!" said Cosmo; "here's the auchteen pence ye gae me for expences: say ye're pleased I haena waured it.—Jist a word wi' ye, Grizzie!—Luik here—only dinna tell!"

He had drawn her aside to the corner where stood the meal-chest, and now showed her a bunch of banknotes. So many she had never seen—not to say in a bunch, but scattered over all her life! He took from the bunch ten pounds and gave her.

"Mr. Burns," he said aloud, "will be staying over to-morrow, I hope."

Grizzie GLOWERED at the money as if such a sum could not be canny, but the next moment, like one suddenly raised to dignity and power, she began to order Aggie about as if she were her mistress, and an imperious one. Within ten minutes she had her bonnet on, and was setting out for Muir o'Warlock to make purchases.

But oh the pride and victory that rose and towered and sank weary, only to rise and tower again in Grizzie's mind, as she walked to the village with all that money in her pocket! The dignity of the house of Warlock had rushed aloft like a sudden tidal wave, and on its very crest Grizzie was borne triumphing heavenwards. From one who begged at strange doors for the daily bread of a decayed family, all at once she was the housekeeper of the most ancient and honourable castle in all Scotland, steering the great ship of its fortunes! With a reserve and a dignity as impressive as provoking to the gossips of the village, from one shop to another she went, buying carefully but freely, rousing endless curiosity by her look of mystery, and her evident consciousness of infinite resource. But when at last she went to the Warlock Arms, and bought a half dozen of port at the incredible price of six shillings a bottle, there was not a doubt left in the Muir that "the auld laird" had at last and somehow come in for a great fortune. Grizzie returned laden herself, and driving before her two boys carrying a large basket between them. Now she was equal to the proper entertainment of the visitor, for whom, while she was away, Aggie, obedient to her orders, was preparing the state bedroom—thinking all the time of that night long ago when she and Cosmo got it ready for Lord Mergwain.

Cosmo and Mr. Burns found the laird seated by the fire in his room; and there Cosmo recounted the whole story of the finding of the gems, beginning far back with the tales concerning the old captain, as they had come to his knowledge, just touching on the acquisition of the bamboo, and the discovery of its contents, and so descending to the revelations of the previous two days. But all the time he never gave the jeweller a hint of what was coming. In relating the nearer events, he led him from place to place, acting his part in them, and forestalling nothing, never once mentioning stone or gem, then suddenly poured out the diamonds on the rug in the firelight.

Leaving the result to the imagination of my reader, I will now tell him a thing that took place while Cosmo was away.



CHAPTER LVII

TOO SURE COMES TOO LATE.

The same day Cosmo left, Lord Lick-my-loof sent to the castle the message that he wanted to see young Mr. Warlock. The laird returned the answer that Cosmo was from home, and would not be back till the day following.

In the afternoon came his lordship, desiring an interview with the laird; which, not a little against his liking, the laird granted.

"Set ye doon, my lord," said Grizzie, "an' rist yer shins. The ro'd atween this an' the ludge, maun be slithery."

His lordship yielded and took the chair she offered, for he would rather propitiate than annoy her, seeing he was more afraid of Grizzie than aught in creation except dogs. And Grizzie, appreciating his behaviour, had compassion upon him and spared him.

"His lairdship," she said, "maunna be hurried puttin' on his dressin'-goon. He's no used to see onybody sae ear'. I s' gang an' see gien I can help him; he never wad hae a man aboot 'im 'cep' the yoong laird himsel'."

Relieved by her departure, his lordship began to look about the kitchen, and seeing Aggie, asked after her father. She replied that he was but poorly.

"Getting old!"

"Surely, my lord. He's makin' ready to gang."

"Poor old man!"

"What wad yer lordship hae? Ye wadna gang on i' this warl' for ever?"

"'Deed and I would have no objection—so long as there were pretty girls like you in it."

"Suppose the lasses had a ch'ice tu, my lord?"

"What would they do?"

"Gang, I'm thinkin'."

"What makes you so spiteful, Aggie? I never did you any harm that I know of."

"Ye ken the story o' the guid Samaritan, my lord?" said Aggie.

"I read my bible, I hope."

"Weel, I'll tell ye a bit mair o' 't nor ye'll get there. The Levite an' the Pharisee—naebody ever said yer lordship was like aither o' them—"

"No, thank God! nobody could."

"—they gaed by o' the ither side, an' loot him lie. But there was ane cam up, an' tuik 'im by the legs,'cause he lay upo' his lan', an'wad hae pu'dhim aff. But jist i' the nick o' time by cam the guid Samaritan, an' set him rinnin'. Sae it was sune a sma' maitter to onybody but the ill neebour, wha couldna weel gang straucht to Paradise. Abraham wad hae a fine time o' 't wi' sic a bairn in 's bosom!"

"Damn the women! Young and old they're too many for me!" said his lordship to himself,—and just then Grizzie returning invited him to walk up to the laird's room, where he made haste to set forth the object of his visit.

"I said to your son, Glenwarlock, when he came to me the other morning, that I would not buy."

"Yes, my lord."

"I have however, lawyer though I be, changed my mind, and am come to renew my offer."

"In the meantime, however, we have changed our minds, my lord, and will not sell."

"That's very foolish of you."

"It may seem so, my lord; but you must allow us to do the best with what modicum of judgment we possess."

"What can have induced you to come to such a fatal resolution! I am thoroughly acquainted with the value of the land all about here, and am convinced you will not get such a price from another, be he who he may."

"You may be right, my lord, but we do not want to sell."

"Nobody, I repeat, will make you a better—I mean an equal offer."

"I could well believe it might not be worth more to anyone else—so long, that is, as your lordship's property shuts it in on every side; but to your lordship—"

"That is my affair; what it is worth to you is the question.

"It is worth more to us than you can calculate."

"I daresay, where sentiment sends prices up! But that is not in the market. Take my advice and a good offer. You can't go on like this, you know. You will lose your position entirely. Why, what are you thinking of!"

"I am thinking, my lord, that you have scarcely been such a neighbour as to induce us to confide our plans to you. I have said we will not sell—and as I am something of an invalid—"

Lord Lick-my-loof rose, feeling fooled—and annoyed with himself and everybody in "the cursed place."

"Good morning, Glenwarlock," he said. "You will live to repent this morning."

"I hope not, my lord. I have lived nearly long enough. Good morning!"

His lordship went softly down the stair, hurried through the kitchen, and walked slowly home, thinking whether it might not be worth his while to buy up Glenwarlock's few remaining debts.



CHAPTER LVIII.

A LITTLE LIFE WELL ROUNDED.

"Pirate or not, the old gentleman was a good judge of diamonds!" said Mr. Burns, laying down one of the largest. "Not an inferior one in all I have gone over! Your uncle was a knowing man, sir: diamonds are worth much more now than when he brought them home. These rough ones will, I trust, turn out well: we cannot be so sure of them."

"How much suffering the earlier possession of them would have prevented!" said the laird. "And now they are ten times more welcome that we have the good of that first."

"Sapphires and all of the finest quality!" continued Mr. Burns, in no mood for reflection. "I'll tell you what you must do, Mr. Cosmo: you must get a few sheets of tissue paper, and wrap every stone up separately—a long job, but the better worth doing! There must be a thousand of them!"

"How can they hurt, being the hardest things in the world?" said Cosmo.

"Put them in any other company you please—wheel them to the equator in a barrowful of gravel, or line their box with sand-paper, and you may leave them naked as they were born! But, bless thy five wits! did you never hear the proverb,'Diamond cut diamond'? They're all of a sort, you see! I'd as soon shut up a thousand game-cocks in the same cellar. If they don't scratch each other, they may, or they might, or they could, or they would, or at any rate they should scratch each other. It was all very well so long as they lay in the wall of this your old diamond-mine. But now you'll be for ever playing with them! No, no! wrap each one up by itself, I say."

"We're so far from likely to keep fingering them, Mr. Burns," said Cosmo, "that our chief reason for wishing you to see them was that you might, if you would oblige us, take them away, and dispose of them for us!"

"A-ah!" rejoined Mr. Burns, "I fear I am getting too old for a transaction of such extent! I should have to go to London—to Paris—to Amsterdam—who knows where?—that is, to make the best of them—perhaps to America! And here was I thinking of retiring!"

"Then let this be your last business-transaction. It will not be a bad one to finish up with. You can make it a good thing for yourself as well as for us."

"If I undertake it, it shall be at a fixed percentage."

"Ten?" suggested Cosmo.

"No; there is no risk, only labour in this. When I took ten for that other diamond, I paid you the money for it, you will remember: that makes a difference. I wish you would come with me; I could help you to see a little of the world."

"I should like it greatly, but I could not leave my father."

Mr. Burns was a little nervous about the safety of the portmanteau that held such a number of tiny parcels in silver paper, and would not go inside the coach although it rained, but took a place in sight of his luggage. I will not say what the diamonds brought. I would not have my book bristle with pounds like a French novel with francs. They more than answered even Mr. Burns's expectations.

When he was gone, and all hope for this world vanished in the fruition of assured solvency, the laird began to fail. While Cosmo was yet on the way with Mr. Burns and the portmanteau to meet the coach, he said to his faithful old friend,

"I'm tired, Grizzie; I'll gang to my bed, I think. Gien ye'll gie me a han', I winna bide for Cosmo."

"Eh, sir, what for sud ye be in sic a hurry to sleep awa' the bonny daylicht?" remonstrated Grizzie, shot through with sudden fear, nor daring allow to herself she was afraid. "Bide till the yoong laird comes back wi' the news: he winna be lang."

"Gien ye haena time, Grizzie, I can manage for mysel'. Gang yer wa's, lass. Ye hae been a richt guid freen' to yer auld mistress! Ye hae dune yer best for him 'at she left!"

"Eh, sir! dinna speyk like that. It's terrible to hearken til!—I' the verra face o' the providence 'at's been takin' sic pains to mak up to ye for a' ye hae gang throu'—noo whan a 's weel, an' like to be weel, to turn roon' like this, an' speyk o' gaein' to yer bed! It's no worthy o' ye, laird!"

He was so amused with her expostulation that he laughed heartily, brightened up, and did not go to bed before Cosmo came—kept up, indeed, a good part of the day, and retired with the sun shining in at his western window.

The next day, however, he did not rise. But he had no suffering to speak of, and his face was serene as the gathering of the sunrays to go down together; a perfect yet deepening peace was upon it. Cosmo scarcely left him, but watched and waited, with a cold spot at his heart, which kept growing bigger and bigger, as he saw his father slowly drifting out on the ebb-tide of this earthly life. Cosmo had now to go through that most painful experience of all—when the loved seem gradually withdrawing from human contact and human desires, their cares parting slowly farther and farther from the cares of those they leave—a gulf ever widening between, already impassable as lapsing ages can make it. But when final departure had left the mind free to work for the heart, Cosmo said to himself—"What if the dying who seem thus divided from us, are but looking over the tops of insignificant earthly things? What if the heart within them is lying content in a closer contact with ours than our dull fears and too level outlook will allow us to share? One thing their apparent withdrawal means—that we must go over to them; they cannot retrace, for that would be to retrograde. They have already begun to learn the language and ways of the old world, begun to be children there afresh, while we remain still the slaves of new, low—bred habits of unbelief and self-preservation, which already to them look as unwise as unlovely. But our turn will come, and we shall go after, and be taught of them. In the meantime let us so live that it may be the easier for us in dying to let the loved ones know that we are loving them all the time."

The laird ceased to eat, and spoke seldom, but would often smile—only there was in his smile too that far-off something which troubled his son. One word he often murmured—PEACE. Two or three times there came as it were a check in the drift seaward, and he spoke plainly. This is very near what he said on one of these occasions:

"Peace! peace! Cosmo, my son, ye dinna ken hoo strong it can be! Naebody can ken what it's like till it comes. I hae been troubled a' my life, an' noo the verra peace is 'maist ower muckle for me! It's like as gien the sun wad put oot the fire. I jist seem whiles to be lyin' here waitin' for ye to come intil my peace, an' be ane wi' me! But ye hae a lang this warl's life afore ye yet. Eh! winna it be gran' whan it's weel ower, an' ye come! You an' me an' yer mother an' God an' a'! But somehoo I dinna seem to be lea'in' ye aither—no half sae muckle as whan ye gaed awa' to the college, an' that although ye're ten times mair to me noo than ye war than. Deith canna weel be muckle like onything we think aboot it; but there maun surely be a heap o' fowk unco dreary an' fusionless i' the warl' deith taks us til; an' the mair I think aboot it, the mair likly it seems we'll hae a heap to du wi' them—a sair wark tryin' to lat them ken what they are, an' whaur they cam frae, an' hoo they maun gang to win hame—for deith can no more be yer hame nor a sair fa' upo' the ro'd be yer bed. There may be mony ane there we ca'd auld here,'at we'll hae to tak like a bairn upo' oor knees an' bring up. I see na anither w'y o' 't. The Lord may ken a better, but I think he's shawn me this. For them 'at are Christ's maun hae wark like his to du, an' what for no the personal ministrations o' redemption to them 'at are deid, that they may come alive by kennin' him? Auld bairns as weel as yoong hae to be fed wi' the spune."

The day before that on which he went, he seemed to wake up suddenly, and said,—

"Cosmo, I'm no inclined to mak a promise wi'regaird to ony possible communication wi' ye frae the ither warl', nor do I the least expec' to appear or speyk to ye. But ye needna for that conclude me awa' frae ye a' thegither. Fowk may hae a hantle o' communication ohn aither o' them kent it at the time, I'm thinkin'. Min' this ony gait: God's oor hame, an' gien ye be at hame an' I be at hame, we canna be far sun'ert!"

As the sun was going down, closing a lovely day of promise, the boat of sleep, with a gentle wind of life and birth filling its sail, bore, softly gliding, the old pilgrim across the faint border between this and that. It may be that then, for a time, like a babe new-born, he needed careful hands and gentle nursing; and if so, there was his wife, who must surely by now have had time to grow strong. Cosmo wept and was lonely, but not broken-hearted; for he was a live man with a mighty hope and great duties, each of them ready to become a great joy. Such a man I do not think even diamonds could hurt, although, where breathes no wind of life, those very crystals of light are amongst the worst in Beelzebub's army to fly-blow a soul into a thing of hate and horror.



CHAPTER LIX.

A BREAKING UP.

Things in the castle went on in the same quiet way as before for some time. Cosmo settled himself in his father's room, and read and wrote, and pondered and aspired. The household led the same homely simple life, only fared better. The housekeeping was in Grizzie's hands, and she was a liberal soul—a true BREAD-GIVER.

James Gracie did not linger long behind his friend. His last words were, "I won'er gien I hae a chance o' winnin' up wi' the laird!"

On the morning that followed his funeral, as soon as breakfast was over, Aggie sought Cosmo, where he sat in the garden with a book in his hand.

"Whaur are ye gaein', Aggie?" he said, as she approached prepared for walking.

"MY hoor's come," she answered. "It's time I was awa'."

"I dinna un'erstan' ye, Aggie," he returned.

"Hoo sud ye, sir? Ilka body kens, or sud ken, what lies to their ain han'. It lies to mine to gang. I'm no wantit langer. Ye wadna hae me ait the breid o' idleness?"

"But, Aggie," remonstrated Cosmo, "ye're ane o' the faimily! I wad as sune think o' seein' my ain sister, gien I had ane, gang fra hame for sic a nae rizzon at a'!"

The tears rose in her eyes, and her voice trembled:

"It canna be helpit; I maun gang," she said.

Cosmo was dumb for many moments; he had never thought of such a possibility; and Aggie stood silent before him.

"What hae ye i' yer heid, Aggie? What thoucht ye o' duin' wi' yersel'?" he asked at length, his heart swelling so that he could scarcely bring out the words.

"I'm gaein' to luik for a place."

"But, Aggie, gien it canna be helpit; and gang ye maun, YE ken I'm rich, an' I ken there's naebody i' the warl' wi' a better richt to share in what I hae: wadna ye like to gang til a ladies' school, an' learn a heap o' things?"

"Na, I wadna. It's hard wark I need to haud me i' the richt ro'd. I can aye learn what I hunger for, an' what ye dinna desire ye'll never learn. Thanks to yersel' an' Maister Simon, ye hae putten me i' the w'y o' that! It's no kennin' things—it's kennin' things upo' the ro'd ye gang,'at 's o' consequence to ye. The lave I mak naething o'."

"But a time micht come whan ye wad want mony a thing ye micht hae learnt afore."

"Whan that time comes, I'll learn them than, wi' half the trouble, an' in half the time,—no to mention the pleesur o' learnin' them. Noo, they wad but tak me frae the things I can an' maun mak use o'. Na, Cosmo, I'm b'un' to du something wi' what I hae, an' no bide till I get mair. I'll be aye gettin'."

"Weel, Aggie, I daurna temp' ye to bide gien ye oucht to gang; an' ye wad but despise me gien I was fule eneuch to try 't. But ye canna refuse to share wi' me. That wadna be like ane 'at had the same father an' the same maister. Tak a thoosan' poun' to begin wi', an' gang an'—an' du onything ye like, only dinna work yersel' to deith wi' rouch wark. I canna bide to think o' 't."

"A thoosan' poun'! No ae baubee! Cosmo, I wad hae thoucht ye had mair sense! What wad baudrins (PUSSY-CAT) there du wi' a silk goon? Ye can gie me the twa poun' ten I gae to Grizzie to help haud the life in 's a'. A body maun hae something i' their pooch gien they can, an' gien they canna, they maun du wi' naething. It's won'erfu' hoo little 's railly wantit!"

Cosmo felt miserable.

"Ye winna surely gang ohn seein' Maister Simon!"

"I tried to see him last nicht, but auld Dorty wadna lat me near him. I WAD fain say fareweel til him."

"Weel, put aff gaein' awa' till the morn, an' we'll gang thegither the nicht an' see him. Dorty winna haud ME oot."

Aggie hesitated, thought, and consented. Leaving Cosmo more distressed than she knew, she went to the kitchen, took off her bonnet, and telling Grizzie she was not going till the morrow, sat down, and proceeded to pare the potatoes.

"Ance mair," said Grizzie, resuming an unclosed difference, "what for ye sud gang's clean 'ayont me. It's true the auld men are awa', but here's the auld wife left, an' she'll be a mither to ye, as weel's she kens hoo, an' a lass o' your sense is easy to mither. I' the name o' God I say't, the warl' micht as weel objec' to twa angels bidin' i' h'aven thegither as you an' the yoong laird in ae hoose! Say 'at they like, ye're but a servan' lass, an' here am I ower ye! Aggie, I'm grouin' auld, an' railly no fit to mak a bed my lane—no to mention scoorin' the flure! It's no considerate o' ye, Aggie!—jist 'cause yer father—hoots, he was but yer gran'father! —'s deid o' a guid auld age, an' gaithert til HIS fathers, to gang an' lea' me my lane! Whaur am I to get a body I cud bide to hae i' my sicht, an' you awa'—you 'at's been like bane o' my bane to me! It's no guid o' ye, Aggie! There maun be temper intil 't! I'm sure I ken no cause ever I gae ye."

Aggie said not a word; she had said all she could say, over and over; so now she pared her potatoes, and was silent. Her heart was sore, but her mind was clear, and her will strong.

Up and down the little garden Cosmo walked, revolving many things. "What is this world and its ways," he said, "but a dream that dreams itself out and is gone!"

The majority of men, whether they think or not, worship solidity and fact: to such Cosmo's conclusion must seem both foolish and dangerous—though a dream may be filled with truth, and a fact be a mere shred for the winds of the limbo of vanities. Everything that CAN pass belongs to the same category with the dream. The question is whether the passing body leaves a live soul; whether the dream has been dreamed, the life lived aright. For there is a reality beyond all facts of suns and systems; solidity itself is but the shadow of a divine necessity; and there may be more truth in a fable than in a whole biography. Where life and truth are one, there is no passing, no dreaming more. To that waking all dreams truly dreamed are guiding the dreamer. But the last thing—and this was the conclusion of Cosmo's meditation—any dreamer needs regard, is the judgment of other dreamers upon his dreams. The all-pervading, ill-odoured phantom called Society is but the ghost of a false God. The fear of man, the trust in man, the deference to the opinion of man, is the merest worship of a rag-stuffed idol. The man who SEEKS the judgment of God can well smile at the unsolicited approval or condemnation of self-styled Society. There IS a true society—quite another thing. Doubtless the judgment of the world is of even moral value to those capable of regarding it. To deprive a thief of the restraining influence of the code of thieves' honour, would be to do him irreparable wrong; so with the tradesman whose law is the custom of the trade; but God demands an honesty, a dignity, a beauty of being, altogether different from that demanded by man of his fellow; and he who is taught of God is set out of sight above such law as that of thieves' honour, trade-custom, or social recognition—all of the same quality—subjected instead to a law which obeyed is liberty, disobeyed is a hell deeper than Society's attendant slums.

"Here is a woman," said Cosmo to himself, "who, with her earnings and her labour both, ministered to the very bodily life of my father and myself! She has been in the house the angel of God—the noblest, truest of women! She has ten times as much genuine education as most men who have been to college! Her brain is second only to her heart!—If it had but pleased God to make her my sister! But there is a way of pulling out the tongue of Slander!"

The evening was Mr. Simon's best time, and they therefore let the sun go down before they left the castle to visit him. On their way they had a right pleasant talk about old things, now the one now the other bringing some half faded event from the store-closet of memory.

"I doobt ye winna min' me takin' ye oot o' the Warlock ae day there was a gey bit o' a spait on?" said Agnes at length, looking up in Cosmo's face.

"Eh, I never h'ard o' that, Aggie!" replied Cosmo.

"I canna think to this day hoo it was ye fell in," she went on: "I hadna the chairge o' ye at the time. Ye maun hae run oot o' the hoose, an' me efter ye. I was verra near taen awa' wi' ye. Hoo we wan oot o' the watter I canna un'erstan'. A' 'at I ken is 'at whan I cam to mysel', we war lyin' grippit til ane anither upon a laich bit o' the bank."

"But hoo was't 'at naebody ever said a word aboot it efterhin'?" asked Cosmo. "I never tellt onybody, an' ye wasna auld eneuch no to forget a' aboot it."

"What for didna ye tell?"

"I was feart they wad think it my wite, an' no lat me tak chairge o' ye ony mair, whauras I kent ye was safer wi' me nor wi' ony ither aboot the place. Gien it had been my wite, I cudna hae hauden my tongue; but as it was, I didna see I was b'un' to tell."

"Hoo did ye hide it?"

"I ran wi' he hame to oor ain hoose. There was naebody there. I tuik aff yer weet claes, an' pat ye intil my bed till I got them dry."

"An' hoo did ye wi' yer ain?"

"By the time yours was dry, mine was dry tu."

When they arrived at the cottage, Dorty demurred, but her master heard Cosmo's voice and rang his bell.

"I little thought your father would have gone before me," said Mr. Simon. "I think I was aware of his death. I saw nothing, heard nothing, neither was I thinking about him at the moment; but he seemed to come to me, and I said to myself,'He is on his way home.' I shall have a talk with him by and by."

Agnes told him she had come to bid him good-bye; she was going after a place.

"Well," he answered, after a thoughtful pause, "so long as we obey the light in us, and that light is not darkness, we can't go wrong. If we should mistake, he will turn things round for us; and if we be to blame, he will let us see it."