Rinaultrie
Author: Rae, Milne
Date: 2016-05-07T05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fiction
Description: Ebook prepared by crutledge@knology.net
Rights: Public Domain

TABLE of CONTENTS

CHAPTER I—The Return.

CHAPTER II—Mirkwood

CHAPTER III—Some Things Set Mary Thinking.

CHAPTER IV—Remo Me Impune Lacessit

CHAPTER V—Boston At Home.

CHAPTER VI—A Meettng In The Snowdrift.

CHAPTER VII—The New Tenants Of Hetberlep.

CHAPTER VIII—a Compact.

CHAPTER IX—The Manse Of Blairton.

CHAPTER X—The Ordination at Retberley.

CHAPTER XI—The Returned Student.

CHAPTER XII—Boston Lends.

CHAPTER XIII—Wibiterasbes.

CHAPTER XIV—A Heavy Secret.

CHAPTER XV—Cross Purposes.

CHAPTER XVI—How Quick Hopes have Sudden Ends.

CHAPTER XVII—“Si Jeunesse savait et si veillesse pouvait.”

CHAPTER XVIII—An Hour Strikes.

CHAPTER XIX—Out of the Depths.

CHAPTER XX—Mary visits two Manses

CHAPTER XXI—A Red-Letter Day.

CHAPTER XXII—Old Friends Meet.

CHAPTER I
The Return.

“The bliss youth dreams is one
For daylight, for the cheerful sun,
For feeling nerves and living breath—
Youth dreams a bliss on this side death.—M. Arnold.

The old mail-coach had, for the previous hour, been creeping up a steep road between stretches of brown morass. With exhilarating suddenness the bleak landscape changed The road began to dip between two wooded hills which towered on either side of the way, as if resolved that the first glimpse of the fair valley should be viewed through their protective giant gates.

“There’s a gey curren hichts and howes afore we win til the Burnett Airms yet,” volunteered the coachman, glancing round at the passenger next him.

The sudden sight of the fertile glen was inspiriting after the long boundaries of bog-land, and strangers were apt to take for granted that their journey was at an end, and to think of the possible comforts of the old white inn whose gables gleamed alluringly in the afternoon sun. The horses too, at this point, seemed to become vivacious; for was there not a glorious stretch of downhill before them, with the brown roofs of their stables in the hollow, suggesting to them also creature comforts! There is a sudden champing of bits, a rattling of harness; the old bay leader gives a warning glance at his more volatile companions, and off they start at a breakneck pace, leaving an enveloping wake of dust round old farmer Balardie’s gig, which he had been keeping in the rear so that his ancient cob might be stimulated by the high-stepping hacks. Two ladies, inside passengers, exchanged anxious glances concerning the suddenly quickened speed; but they encouraged themselves in the thought that the old coachman looked staid and reliable.

The same happy confidence could not, however, be the portion of the traveller on the coachman’s left He had taken his seat at the last posting-place, and had hitherto been a silent passenger; but now he shouted, in as authoritative a tone as he could muster, owing to the sudden pendulous motion to which his limbs were subjected,—

“I say, driver, this cannot be tolerated. It is risking precious life. I will report you if spared to reach the inn. Stop! I say—” He wound up with a gasp as be clutched the iron railing of his seat The functionary thus appealed to was seated with both his hands in the pockets of his ample greatcoat, the uppermost of a stratum of similar garments which enveloped his portly person, designed seemingly to serve as a non-conductor to the August heat as they did to the wintry blast. His weather-beaten face wore a serene off-duty expression, and, as he listened to tho expostulation of his scared passenger, his features relaxed into a slow comical smile. Glancing at the driving-box, his usual throne of office, which he had vacated a few minutes previously in favour of another occupant, he said in an undertone,—

“Ye’ll maybe need to gie the ribbons to mysel’, Maister Escape; the puir craeter is doonricht feart” Turning to the stranger, however, he shouted, with a reassuring nod, “Diipm iash yersel’, sir; it isna ilka boddy I wad lippen wi’ the reins. There’s nae a better wheep in a’ the countrie-side nor Maister Esmae.”

The still doubtful passenger continued to glance anxiously towards the brevet-coachman, and we shall take the opportunity of glancing at him also.

It is a boy’s face, frank and fearless, as if he had never lost a friend nor made a foe. About his whole bearing there is that undefinable attraction which belongs to unspotted exuberant youth. His fourteen years have done their growing work welL There is an unstudied grace about every movement of his supple, restless limbs. Hardly tall enough to guide the horses from the high-raised seat, he leans balancing himself against it as he holds the reins, his glance resting on the horses with affectionate appreciation of their every movement. His cap has fallen off, and his fair rippling hair is gilded by the sun. We can see him better now as he lifts his bright eyes, and tossing the sunny falling lock from his forehead, he glances across his native strath. There is about him a certain breezy air which some boys have, causing their anxious mothers to forecast for them a life of peril on the sea. But for Esmae Burnett there had hoped and feared no anxious mother since his babyhood; and he never went to sea. He had his sea of troubles to cross, and its waves and billows were more than once like to overwhelm him; but the storms and tempests reached him mostly in the calm valley lying now before him in the dreamy haze of a golden autumn afternoon.

“Look, Boston, you wanted me to tell you when we got into the Rinaultrie lands: that old dike there begins them, I think; and there is one of the best views of the house,” he said, turning to a boy who seemed to have been sharing the fears of the stranger with regard to his personal safety, judging from the uneasy air with which his eyes had for the few previous minutes been fixed on the reins. There was an air of repression about him which gave the idea of his being considerably older than his companion, though he was in reality his senior by one year only. That his dark, well-cut face is decidedly handsome is one’s first decision regarding his appearance; but one looks again, dissatisfied that such aquiline features do not leave a more pleasing impression,—the face seems altogether too formed and decided for one so young.

Boston Burnett, for such was his name, seemed to have the faculty of doing two things at a time, and of doing both tolerably well. On his knees a volume of Virgil lay open, marked by marginal notes in a small, careful handwriting. It appeared heavy reading for a school-boy during the first days of his vacation, and his companion had gaily assured him that he would find too strong a rival to the ancient classic in the old coachman, who was as good as a Bed-book, with a fund of legendary lore into the bargain, and willing to impart both his facts and his myths to inquiring spirits.

The self-given task had not, however, been neglected, though Boston had been keenly awake to the varied features of the north-eastern strath through which he had been posting since early morning. No old mansion gleaming through its trees, no tract of morass nor fertile pasture-land, had escaped his notice; and when his attention was drawn now to the first glimpse of the ancient domain to which he was going as a guest that afternoon, he carefully put a mark in the place where he stopped reading, and, slipping his Virgil into his pocket, he raised himself on the sloping coach-seat and fixed his eyes with a steady gaze on the scene before him.

Rinaultrie! There is no lovelier place in all Scotland. And Esmae is right: it is from this hill at the entrance to the glen that one gets the best view of it. The river Aultrie flows beneath in one of its great, shining curves; and from its opposite banks, and all along its winding haughs, as far as the eye can see, there rises a sunny lawn in gentle undulations. Ancient beeches spread out sheltering boughs on its greensward, where favoured sheep cluster in select groups. On a broad, stately plateau, overlooking the lawn, stands the old baronial house with its gray massy walls and many turrets. Rocky heights, beautifully broken by knolls of birch, oak, and hazel, rise behind the castle; and to the west, the lawn mingles with the wild ferns and heather of the spreading park, where dappled deer may be seen standing deep in bracken, and rabbits run busily to and fra Acres of dark firwood gradate away from the park, till at last the solid masses of green break into streaks and merge in the wild scarped ravines, where vegetation ceases and all is bare and rocky. And beyond cluster the great shoulders of the purple mountains which form the outposts of the fair valley, guarding it sentinel-like around, leaving only one gap in the encompassing chain, a break which widens towards the eastern table-land, where a sky-line of misty blue-gray blends at last with the distant sea.

In the midst of the dense masses of surrounding wood, the old walled-in garden looks like a clearing in the forest; but there are many nooks of interest within the labyrinth of green which cannot be seen by a stranger’s eye from the top of the coach—many pleasant woodland walks, ferny dells, trickling waterfalls, and here and there little moss-built summer-houses within the sound of the music of the brooks; grottoes too among the water-worn courses where murky gloom reigns in the brightest hours of the day, and round which many a childish romance had been woven. All this, and much more, Esmae Burnett sees as he glances lovingly across his native woods after his first absence from home.

“And where exactly do the Rinaultrie lands begin, Esmae?” asked Boston after a prolonged, silent survey of the fair scene.

They mairch wi’ Netherley’s lands at yon auld bigget dike,” replied the coachman, the acting one being at the moment engaged in administering a little timely rebuke to a frisky mare that seemed inclined to dispute the leadership of the team. “A’ the lan’ roun’ and roun’, as far as ye can see, belangs til the laird. We are nae to be callin’ him the auld laird yet, though I see some folk hae begun wi’ that; and truly this young chap is wearin’ up oncommon faist,” he added with an admiring glance at Esmae, who had just Succeeded in reducing to submission the rebellious mare.

“Dear old governor! In another half-hour you will see him, Boston. Don’t you remember asking me all about him the first day we ever spoke to each other in the quadrangle of the High School. You wanted to know if he was tall, and all that kind of thitig, and what colour of eyes he had; and I couldn’t tell you exactly, only I know they are the Very nicest colour that eyes could be.—Can you tell him the colour of the governor’s eyes, Bauldy! ”

“Gin it be the laird ye hre meaning I canna richtly speak upo’ the exac’ colour o’ his een, but I ken they are een that aye see the best side o’ a thing, and hae a richt kin’-like glint in them for a boddy—though, whiles, they are maybe ower blin’ to the ill tricks o’ some folk. But whatna new-fangled name is this ye hae gotten for the laird himsel’f The like o’ you for finding queer-like names for folk,” added the old coachman with a depreciatory shake of the head; whereupon both the young gentlemen laughed, and Esmae proceeded to explain the conventional nature of the parental appellation, which, however, Bauldy’s ears had not been wrong in detecting as newly imported into the valley.

The elderly passenger, seemingly reassured as to his personal safety, appeared to become possessed with a sudden accession of interest in the scene. Venturing at length to relax his hold on the rail of his seat, he folded his long angular arms and began to blink diligently around through the medium of his spectacles. At last, clearing his throat, he asked in a formal tone,—

“May the parish of Netherley be said to commence here! You made some mention of that locality in your conversation a few minutes ago, if I mistake not”

The old coachman, instead of replying at once, bestowed on his passenger a keenly interested glance, summing up his survey with the muttered soliloquy of, “Ay, so that’s him.” Then with his eyes fixed on his horses, he replied slowly,—

“Weel, I dinna ken if ye can ca’ it a pairish exactly, this mony a mile yet; it’s maistly hare and rabbit grun’, and it taks men and women til mak’ a pairish, I wad think. But ’deed, sir, gin ye be the Factor Cranstown’s ane, ye’ll maybe fin’ a wheen less objectors amang the beasties i’ the woods and braes than i’ the buts and bens o’ Netherley.”

“I perceive that you refer to my presentation to the benefice of Netherley. Yes, my friend, you have guessed aright. I ain the person to whom you allude. I have the honour to be the presentee,” said the stranger with a gratified air. “I am aware,” he continued, pausing to clear his throat, “that there are a few objectors. I presume it is to that point you alluded just now. I do not doubt, however, that it will be given to me, when I begin to move about among them, to extinguish all opposition, recommended as I am by so powerful a superior as Mr. Cranstown.”

“Who is Mr. Cranstown?” asked Boston, seemingly impressed by the suggestion of his power.

“Old Cran’,the factor,I suppose,” said Esmae in a careless tone. “Just the same, Maister Esmae. It’s nae muckle winner that ye lauch. Though, ’deed, the factor has mair power some gaits than he ocht til hae,” added Bauldy, with a frown.

“I’m thinking, sir, ye will no find it that easy to extinguish, as ye ca’t, the folk o’ Netherley,” he said, glancing down at the stranger with a resentful air. “That will be to snuff them oot like, I tak’ it; but, I’se warrant, yell fin’ some o’ them are no that ready to be snuffed oot There’s Auldearn; it will tak’ a guid few blasts til snuff him oot”

“Ah, yes; Mr. Auldearn, one of the tenants. I have heard of him. I hope to make Mr. Auldearn’s acquaintance very soon.”

“There’s nae ‘mister’ intilt, sir. Auldearn is the name o’ the best fairm in Netherley, and there’s been Bruces holdin’ it langer than most folk min’.”

“Ah! I understand. They are called after the farms—a country practice, I believe. I am a town-bred person, you see, and not yet at home in your rural distinctions; but all that will come in good time,—in good time,” murmured the Rev. Peter Coutts, as he rubbed his long fingers together with a complacent air.

“Yes, of course, people must have a chance of being known before they can make their way,” said Boston promptly, some sympathetic chord evidently having been touched by the last remark.

“Exactly so, young man; I see you understand something about the matter,” nodded Mr. Coutts, fixing his light-reddish eyes approvingly on Boston. “I am not altogether taken by surprise at your sensible remark, however,” he continued; “for I observed with gratification that until the untimely interruption to thought and study to which we were subjected a few minutes ago, owing to the reckless speed of the driving, you were absorbed in the contemplation of one of our great Latin classics.”

“Oh, my Virgil you mean. Yes, I was grinding up a little. I always like to be beforehand with my work when I can. It is safer and more comfortable,” replied Boston, not ungratified that his diligence should have attracted favourable comment “An admirable rula How often I urged it on my late pupil, Master Lewis Cranstown, when he was under my tuition. You do not appear to be older than he, though I perceive that you greatly excel him in application.”

“Why, we are only small school-boys, Boston and I, in comparison with Lewis Cranstown. He is a very grown-up young gentleman. My cousin is at least a year younger than Lewis, and I am two.”

“All the more wonderful that your cousin should be endowed with so much sense, and have acquired such admirable powers of application,” replied the stranger slowly, as he glanced with a suspicious air at Esmae, who had not evidently regained his confidence, though he had skilfully reduced the speed of Bauldy’s team to suit the nerves of his passengers.

Mr. Coutts was now free to indulge the silent train of thought which he accused the young coachman of disturbing, but he seemed more inclined to conversation. He had found, he decided, a congenial companion in this diligent young student.

“Possibly,” he remarked, “now that you are no longer in dread of your personal safety, you may propose resuming your valuable study; but if—”

“Oh, you are quite mistaken. I was not in the least afraid. I am sure I never said so,” quickly retorted Boston.

His mortification at the impeachment was evidently unobserved by his companion, who had got into a favourite vein and was anxious to pursue it.

“And who should wonder at any for making the Mantuan bard a pocket companion]” he went on with a pleased smile. “How adapted are his utterances to all situations of life, even the most unexpected and, I may say, dangerous, as we felt ours to be a few minutes since. Why, even at the moment of my extremest peril, as I chanced to glance on your Virgil, did not a line from its pages leap into my memory—that one so admirably adapted to give the sound of a horse’s hoofs at full speed. Your own memory, doubtless, treasures them,” said Mr. Coutts, as he repeated the lines in a sonorous voice. “Does not that circumstance alone suffice to show how beneficial to the mind is the study of the ancient classics? How soothing in the hour of danger, how modifying to the sentiments, how restraining to the passions! And yet there are those—would you credit it?—who accuse me of over-fondness for classical allusions in my sermons. And with reference to these objections,” he added, bending forward and speaking in a lower tone, “I may tell you that the discourse which I have been appointed by the presbytery to preach before the Nether ley congregation on the following Sabbath, has been prepared with especial care. I believe it will establish my fitness for the Netherley pulpit even more than Mr. Cranstown’s valued support does.”

“Oh! ” ejaculated Boston with a seemingly studied air of carelessness, as his eye wandered along the fair uplands of Rinaultrie.

“To speak in confidence, young man,” continued Mr. Coutts, always bending nearer and becoming more visibly eager, “this discourse has been prepared by me with the utmost care. I confess that I am inclined to look upon it as my masterpiece. And with reference to classical allusions, it may interest you to know, sir, since you are such a diligent student of the classics yourself, that each quotation in my sermon has been carefully verified by me, and a fresh translation appended to each, adapted to the understanding of rustics. In fact, since you are already so interested, I might just give you some specimens,” he said with a slow pleased smile as he began to fumble in the pockets of his coat Esmae, who had not been unobservant of Mr. Coutts’s growing eagerness, nor of Boston’s evident air of impatience, saw, to his surprise, that the probationer’s gratified expression suddenly changed to one of open-mouthed blankness.

“Gone! my precious sermon gone!” he gasped excitedly. It must have dropped from the coach when her rapid speed began. I had it here not an hoar ago.” Repeated desperate searchings were made by him in the various pockets of his garments and in his travelling-bag, but it was of no avail “Canny, canny, sir; gin ye gang on that gait you will soon be after yer sermon,” cried Bauldy; while Boston muttered some words which had by no means a sympathetic sound. But Mr. Coutts was deaf to criticism at the moment. While he was still groping frantically among his pockets, Esmae, dinging the reins suddenly into the old coachman’s hands, began to clamber nimbly down the side of the coach.

As he reached the ground, he looked up at Mr. Coutts, shouting, “Are you quite sure your sermon was in your pocket when we were at the top of the long hill!”

“Yes, yes, sure enough. I felt it on my person just before that break-neck speed began,” groaned the bereaved probationer. “Then I’m off to look for it”

“Really!” faltered Mr. Coutts, blinking down on him; and then signing the driver to pull up for an instant, he bent over the side, and looking earnestly at Esmae, said in a solemn tone, “ Young man, if you really desire to aid a fellow-creature in deep distress—if your heart prompts you to make an honest search after that on which, I may say in confidence, my future prospects hang, then it is necessary for me to aid you in identifying the manuscript which not half an hour since—”

“It winna do, sir. I manna stop here a meenit langer.”

“One moment, coachman, and I am done,” cried Mr. Coutts with uplifted hand. “My words will be few.—Young man, yon will find no name on the manuscript. Your guide must therefore be internal evidence, so to speak: my text—an appropriate one to the occasion, you will remark in passing, and indeed it was chosen with care—is, ‘See that ye refuse not him that speaketh.’”

“All right, Mr. Coutts;!!! not forget. But surely there won’t be more than one minister dropped his sermon on the long hill this afternoon;—though I shall pocket as many as I can find, you may be sure of that,” said Esmae gaily as he turned to go.

“But, Esmae,” expostulated Boston, now getting to his feet with almost as disconcerted an air as Mr. Coutts’s, “why in the world should you go off like this-? How am I to find my way to the castle all by myself?—Listen to me,” he added, bending over the railing. “Let the old fool find his sermon for himself; or, better still, let it remain lost,” he added in a lower tone, but not so low as to be quite inaudible to the Rev. Peter Coutts, who, turning round, fixed his red eyes in momentary surprise on his supposed friend.

Before Boston had finished his expostulations, however, Esmae made a sudden dart a few paces back, and picking something from the ground, came running forward with a beaming face. “You are in luck, Mr. Coutts. Here must be your sermon all safe and sound. I’m sure of it, though I haven’t looked at the text. See, even the wheels have respected it and with an agile movement the boy swung himself up again to his seat, laying in the poor licentiate’s eager fingers the well-thumbed document “Well done, and like a Burnett!” muttered Bauldy in his gruff voice as he laid the reins again in Esmae’s hands.

Tears of gratitude bedimmed Mr. Coutts’s spectacles as he gazed at the recovered sermon. He glanced hesitatingly from Boston to Esmae, to try to discover how far he might indulge in the thanks which his heart prompted. But just then another stretch of downhill lay before them; and with a gleeful shake of the reins Esmae shouted, “Now for it, Bauldy!” and dashed on, guiding the willing horses, and looking like Phoebus in his morning car.

Perhaps, after all, the best thanks which the stranger-passenger could have given to the restorer of his sermon were conveyed in the seemingly perfect confidence which he now evinced in Esmae’s driving powers, as he sat placidly while he was being carried along at a speed which a few minutes previously he had characterized as tempting Providence. In vain Boston looked towards him now in the hope that he would enter a protest; in spite of all swayings and jostlings, the Rev. Peter Coutts sat imperturbable, only his lean hands travelled furtively from time to time towards the pocket to which the recovered manuscript had been restored.

“Eh, Maister Esmae, gin I mistak na, there is Miss Mary hersel’ wanderin’ amang the birks yonner,” cried Bauldy, as he pointed towards a shadow-woven path which wound away towards the denser woods.

“So it ia—Three cheers, Boston! There is Mary. She does not see us though; what a pity! ”

“Canny, Maister Esmae. This is a ticklish bit o’ the hill, and Ginger’s knees are none o’ the best. Ye mauna halt here, ye ken,” said Bauldy, lifting a warning hand.

“As if I had not known that since I was three years old, Bauldy.—But it is a pity, Boston, is it not? I should just like to have said How do you do? to Mary. I must wave my cap at least Hallo, where’s mine disappeared to? Never mind, yours will do, Bosand so saying, he seized his companion’s glengarry bonnet and waved it gleefully to the girl flitting among the birk-trees, who had now evidently caught sight of him, for she waved in return some flowers which she held in her hand.

“Who is she?” asked Boston, as he carefully replaced his cap on his head.

Why, do you mean to say that I never told you about Mary Cassilis, the greatest friend I have in the world—at least she was before I went to school? It is for her I brought the terrier, you know. But now that I think of it, I daresay it was to Kenneth Maxwell I used to talk about Mary. It is odd how one talks to one fellow about some things that one would never think of talking to another about But you will get on capitally with Mary, Boston. She is quite as fond of books as you are, and knows no end of history and that sort of thing. Aunt Grizel thinks she reads too much.”

“But Aunt Grizel—who is she?” asked Boston after a moment’s reflection.

“Oh, she is not my aunt really, though I always call her so. She is old Miss Cassilis. The Cassilises are old friends, very, of the governor’s; and Aunt Griz has lived at Mirkwood—an old house quite near Binaultrie—ever so long, long before Mary was sent home from India. She has not always the sweetest of tempers, Aunt Griz; but she will like you, Boston, because you have won so many prizes. Though she rather dislikes Mary reading so much, nothing pleases her more than to see me with anything in the shape of a book in my hand, even though it be Dick Turpin’s adventures turned upside down. I shall catch it; you will see, when we pay our first visit to the Mirkwood oak-parlour. I wrote a while ago to old Carden, the parish schoolmaster who used to teach me, you know, that there was not the ghost of a chance of my getting a prize for anything; and of course he’d be sure to step up to Mirkwood for the express purpose of telling Aunt Griz. It must have been fun for Mary to hear them croaking over it”

“But they know now, I suppose, that you did get two prizes after all,” said Boston.

“Not they. I did not dream I should, you know, when I sent off my letter to old Carden; besides, it was all good old Kenneth’s doing that anything in the shape of a prize came my way. The fellow made me work in spite of myself. I used to tell him he watched me like a jailer. Don’t you remember, Boston, that evening you came for me to go out to have some fun? I never saw Kenneth Maxwell so nearly in a passion as when I looked for a minute as if I meant to go. You remember, Boston, don’t you?”

“Yes, I daresay I do,” replied his companion dryly; and then he mumbled something about Kenneth Maxwell being “an interfering prig.” But just then the conversation was interrupted by Duncan, the guard of the mail, who clambered across the£op of the coach from his post in the rear.

“Ye used to be fond o’ blawin’ the auld horn, Maister Esmae. Maybe ye wad like a turn o’ her the nicht, efter being sae lang awa.”

“That I should, Duncan. I remember your trying to teach me to blow that horn when my hands were too small to hold it Wasn’t I a proud boy when I made it speak first!—Here goes, Bauldy;” and surrendering the reins, he took the old trumpet and made its blast resound among his native woods.

Instead, however, of the usual succession of twanging sounds with which Duncan signalled the arrival of the mail, Esmae contrived to bring out of the limited capacity of the instrument a few notes of “Home, sweet Home.”

The villagers heard the unwonted sound, and began to wonder what “cantrips ” Duncan could be “playin’ wi’ his auld horn the nicht.” But there were two people with quick ears and loving hearts who, detecting the unusual sound from Duncan’s horn, knew it was a joyful signal of a happy return. One was an old, bent peasant man, who sat in his solitary hut, and for him it meant that visits as pleasant as the sun-rays which glinted in at the window of his little cottage were in store for him once more; the other was the young girl wandering among the birk-trees, who smiled when she heard the familiar notes, for they told her that her only playmate had come back again.

CHAPTER II
Mirkwood

“The sharpness of our pangs is less in age,
As sounds are muffled by the falling snow;
But true, no less, that what age faintly feels
It flings not off.”—-Sir H. Taylor.

The sitting-room where Miss Cassilis received her visitors might properly be described as a boudoir, except that its owner would have disclaimed such an appellation as “new-fangled, outlandish, and contemptible, as she was wont to characterize eveiy-thing across the Channel either in fashions or nomenclature. Times were harder and simpler in the years when Miss Cassilis’s life-habits were formed. Scotland was much more Scotch, more individual, more separated from its wealthier yoke-fellow, than it is now; and none more jealously guarded the traditions of her youth, in things small or great, than the old mistress of Mirk wood. Her sanctum certainly bore no resemblance to those which modem luxury provides. No soft - cushioned lounging chairs suggested tempting proposals to weary limbs anywhere within its borders; no dainty writing-tables, with appliances for the manufacture of scented notes to acquaintances of the season, stood in any of its deep-embrasured windows.

It is not therefore to be supposed that Miss Cassilis had no correspondents. There were days when she sat for hours upright at her old desk, filling large folio sheets to absent friends of life-long standing. The steady, clear, legible handwriting and well-considered phrases were indeed fair indexes of the type of friendship of which these letters were the outcome— careful in selection, faithful in continuance, though occasionally exercising that censorship which had not always among its component parts that gracious quality which hopeth and believeth all things. There were other days—and they happened oftener now—when the old lady’s high-backed chair was stationed in the vicinity of an antique cabinet which filled one side of the parlour, and whose sentinel carved griffins looked down from quite a giddy height on the dwellers on the carpet Within its massive oaken doors slumbered many a relic of other days, some of which had been unmolested for years. Its ranges of pigeon-holes were filled with yellowing bundles of letters tied together by pieces of old ribbon, worn, faded, and put away, like many of those of whom these letters gave glimpses, yet linked with the indestructible as they clasped those records of human lives.

Of a tall, proud, noble presence, Miss Cassilis carried well the weight of her threescore and ten years. The face which looked out from the close blonde cap borders, though marked by wrinkles and tints of age, was haughty to imperiousness. There was a keen glance in her eyes which made them shine out gem-like from her withered skin. Latent capacities they had for sending out tender rays, but they were eyes that could both scorch and chilL

There could not well be a greater contrast than between the stately hostess and the visitor who sat near her now—a tiny old woman, with small ferret-like eyes and restless gestures. Her thin, Bharp, sallow, witch-like face was framed in a big gay-coloured bonnet. A large befrilled parasol, with an ivory parrot carved on its top, reposed upright in front of her; on it her withered hands, and sometimes her peaked chin, rested, as she sat perched on the edge of her chair, talking volubly.

“Well, you do astonish me. To think that you, Miss Cassi lis, have not got that piece of news from Mr. Burnett himself long before this time of day,” she said now, as she peered search-ingly into Miss Cassilis’s face.

It was not often that Miss Pimie could discern in the stately demeanour of the lady of Mirk wood anything more than a half-scornful reception of what she considered even her prime pieces of news; but on this occasion she perceived that she had been the bearer of unexpected tidings. Nor was her triumph lessened by the discovery that they were perturbing as well as new. With a gleam in her foxy eyes, she continued,—

“It is not always that my bits of news are first-hand when they come from that quarter; and if it had not been that I went round on my way here to give a look whether Mrs. Carden (slatternly body that she is) had cleaned her windows yet—not that it is any business of mine, you may say; but I was always brought up to hate dirt—I would never have fallen in with the laird. ‘ Fine afternoon, Miss Pimie,’ says he, beginning the conversation, mark you. ‘Glad to hear that Mr. Esmae is expected,’ says I; and then, just for the sake of another remark, I said, ‘ Hope he won’t be thinking the parish too dull after the stir of the town of Edinburgh.’ ‘ Ah,’ says the laird, ‘ I fancy that is what my little lad must have been afraid of, Miss Pirnie. He is bringing a friend with him—a Burnett, too, though I have never seen him; but young folks will forgather, you see.’ That’s what he said. And there is no saying how much more I might have heard, for he seemed in a humour for speech,” she continued, “but just then up came his dog-cart with some of those wild beasts of horses they always keep at Rinaultrie, so I was glad to run out of danger’s way; but that he is a Burnett and a nephew, I can answer for that. But you do astonish me—”

“I do not know what there is to astonish you so much, Joan Pimie,” interrupted Miss Cassilis in a tone which Miss Pimie knew well, and she instantly felt that her little triumph was at an end. “-Surely Mr. Burnett may have what visitors he likes at Rinaultrie Castle without your interference or mine.”

“Interference! O Miss Cassilis, that I should be thought to be interfering with a Burnett! Dear, dear! as if the Pimie family didn’t always know their place in the parish, and keep it too,” cried the little woman, with a well-feigned air of distress. “But with a Cassilis, you know,” she recommenced with a cringing expression, which was meant to cover another attack.

Into Miss Cassilis’s eye, however, there had now crept a look of reverie in which her visitor knew that she had no share. Still, there could be no doubt that she had so far succeeded in stirring the lady of Mirkwood from her wonted reticence, Miss Pimie felt with elation; and deciding that it was too good a chance to lose of adding if possible to her chief social commodity, she began, in a murmuring tone,—

“My memory fails me so now. Who was it that scapegrace Mr. Bichard married? and where did he meet the person! ”

“It is not for me to discuss the doings or misdoings of the man my father’s friend and my own banished from the parish, Mias Pimie,” replied Miss Cassilis with a look of cold displeasure as she bent over her knitting.

“True, true; the Burnetts and the Cassilises were always one,” murmured the little old woman, fidgeting uneasily as she perceived that her hostess had now fairly erected her defences and mounted guard. But she would not yet give in entirely. “I did hear once,” she continued reflectively, “that Mr. Richard’s widow was in Edinburgh—had come across the seas and settled there; and if this be the case, this lad’s visit won’t be the end of it. Mark my words, Miss Cassilis, Mr. Richard Burnett will be arriving at the castle, bag and baggage, before long; and he will find the broad lands of Rinaultrie much pleasanter quarters than maybe a close in the High Street,” wound up Miss Pimie, revealing that she was already in full possession of all details of the topic in question.

Yes, of course, ail the country-side knows that the laird’s younger brother married in America after he had beggared his father, besides breaking his heart. But he is away,” added Miss Cassilis in a softer tone, as if she felt regret at having been betrayed into a harsh word concerning the dead. “Did you see Mary anywhere about as you came along, Miss Firnie? ” she asked after a moment, as she glanced at the sunset-tinted sky.

“Miss Mary? no. By-the-by, this will be fine newB for her. She and Master Esmae used to be such friends. But likely, when these new Burnetts get the run of Rinaultrie, you will not be caring so much for the mixing of the young folks,” remarked Miss Pimie, resolved not to be so easily diverted to another topic as her hostess seemed to intend; besides, she had by no means exhausted her stock of gossip, and, moreover, the Mirkwood tea-hour was at hand—indeed, the odour of the specially fragrant beverage of which Miss Cassilis partook, and which she loved to share, was now being wafted to Miss Pimie’s acute organs, and was of itself sufficient to induce her to prolong her visit “By-the-by, talking of Rinaultrie,” she began with renewed vivacity, “reminds me of what I beheld with my own eyes last Sabbath day. It was far into the morning when I gave a look out at my window, hearing a heavy foot, and who should step by but the minister himself. And if your rheumatics had not kept you from the kirk, Miss Cassilis, I am thinking you would not have been long in judging that the minister had suppit with the laird. Marget thought maybe we would be favoured with a new text, seeing he has been holding at the same verse of Scripture exactly seven Sabbath days; but never a new text had we. And, ’deed, it was maybe safer to keep to the ground he had gone over before; for, as I remarkit to Marget on the road home, his head could not have been very clear after keepin’ such hours. And our Bell told me she saw a man and his wife from Nether ley, with a bairn to be baptized, hanging about the kirk doors for three blessed Sabbath days, and always putten off till a more convenient season, as the Book says. As for the laird, as I said to Marget, he had maybe gotten a dispensation, after the fashion of the Papists, for he did not darken the kirk door. The more’s the pity that he should neglect ordinances. And as for Mr. Gordon—”

“Come now, Miss Pirnie, just you let the laird and the minister alone,” retorted Miss Cassilis, assuming her usual attitude to the parochial tattle of her acquaintance. “I make no doubt if you had not chanced to spy the minister on his way home when you should have been sound asleep in your bed, you would have thought not so little of his sermon. As for Mr. Burnett, who knows that he was not afflicted with the rheumatics, like myself. We are all growing old, you see, Joan,” she added with an arch smile, glancing at her visitor, with whom the subject of advancing age was known to be a sore point. “Let me see now: I was seventy last June; Robert Burnett is four years younger; and you—”

“Oh, here comes Miss Mary. I just got a glint of her pink frock among the trees,” cried Miss Pirnie, rising briskly and hurrying towards the window, evidently hailing the timely distraction from so unwelcome a topic as the flight of time.

“O aunty! aunty! just see what he has brought for me! ” cried a gleeful voice resounding through the corridor, while its owner seemed still struggling with the handle of the door. In another moment the old room was lighted up by a bright presence. A young girl’s glowing face looked out from rich masses of falling brown hair; the broad-brimmed Leghorn hat which she wore had slipped down in the excitement of her homeward race; a pair of sunburnt little hands were holding tightly the ends of her cotton frock, in which a treasure seemed concealed.

“Dear me, Miss Mary, what have you got there? crumpled up in your nice clean frock, too,” said Miss Pimie, stepping nimbly forward with an air of curiosity. “An animal, I declare—that’s a paw, I’m certain. It is a monkey, I’ll wager; or I should not wonder if it was a baby bear—I saw one advertised for sale in an Edinburgh paper. Oh dear! don’t go near your poor aunt if it’s anything that bites,” cried the little woman, retreating with an air of fright; for Mary was struggling with the contents of her frock, and looked wistfully towards her aunt, seemingly for some guarantee of welcome before she could risk making them more visibla But Miss Pimie’s sensational suggestions made the introduction easier; for now a small black nose peeped from the pink folds, and a pair of tiny energetic paws scraped the little fingers.

“It is not a bear at all, nor a monkey, Aunt Grizel It is only a delicious little terrier. Esmae has had him for a whole fortnight in his lodgings, just to get to know him a little before he brought him, and he says he is a first-rate little fellow. Is he not a beauty! ” she cried in glee, for now her treasure had quite emerged from his hiding-place, and a pair of keen eyes, surmounted by silken cocked ears, viewed the new surroundings with an attentive air. Miss Pimie was hopping about, undecided which side to take, till the sentence from the high-backed chair should be pronounced. The little dog’s glance happened to alight on her; his bright eyes began to twinkle oddly, and he gave an unexpected bark, which made her retreat several paces.

“Oh dear! such a vixen. I would not keep it on any account Let Mr. Esmae take it himself. It will do for the menagerie they keep at the castle.”

Meanwhile the terrier had reached the carpet, and with nose and paws directed towards Miss Pimie, he set himself to scold vociferously.

“Take him away, Miss Mary! take him, will you! He is just on the point of flying on me! A bite from that viper would be the death of me! ” screamed the little old woman brandishing her parasol defensively, now in real alarm.

Mary endeavoured to repress her new protege, but without success. At last she turned to glance at her aunt’s face with a despairing air. She was prepared to read there a verdict of instant banishment for her favourite; but instead, she caught sight of a slow rippling smile, which raised her hopes, and she turned with renewed vigour to the task of repressing the imprudent new-comer.

Be quiet, doggie,” she said in her most persuasive tone; “that is Miss Pimie. You must not bark at her or at Miss Margaret either.—But he will soon understand, will he not, aunty! ”

“Understand, forsooth! You surely do not expect that your aunt will give in to keep such a furious brute as that at Mirk wood,” cried Miss Pimie from her retreat in the vicinity of the door, her enemy having now turned to wag his tail to his young mistress in evident expectation of approval.

“What shall we call him, aunty? Esmae said I would be sure to find a name for him in one of my favourite booka”

“Surely Esmae Burnett, after a winter at the High School of Edinburgh, might have wit enough to name a dog,” said Miss Cassilis with a pressure of her thin lips.

“And you have seen Mr. Esmae already, then,” said Miss Pimie, coming cautiously forward. And did you get a sight of the lad Burnett that we hear he has brought with him? ”

“O aunty, how could I have forgotten till now to tell you all about thatl” said Mary, flinging back her long curls and raising her bright face to her aunt. “But I must begin at the beginning.” •

This mode of narration was dear to Miss Pimie’s heart, and though she was made slightly uneasy by a suppressed growl from the dog, now ensconced in Mary’s lap, she ventured again to seat herself, and was all attention.

“Well, the reason that Esmae has come a whole delightful week sooner, and that he did not pay the visit to Major Dennistoun, is not because he is changeable, as you guessed, aunty, but because he has found a new cousin in Edinburgh, who was very anxious to see Rinaultrie. His mother and he live in such dull rooms up ever so many pairs of stairs, and Esmae says they have not even a scrap of garden.”

“Gardens in the High Street of Edinburgh! What are you thinking of, Miss Mary? I know those great stony towers of Babel better than that,” ejaculated Miss Pimie.

“And so Esmae preferred this new-comer to his father’s old friend. Major Dennistoun will not likely ask him to be his guest again, after having broken his engagement so cavalierly.” “0 aunty, and I was just thinking as I came along how good it was of Esmae to hurry back for his new cousin’s sake; for you know he has been counting on going to see Dennistoun Park, and he gave it all up just because he is so kind.”

“Well, well, the Burnetts have always either been rogues or fools,” said Miss Cassilis; but there was a soft light in her eyes, and Mary saw that her defence of her friend had not been in vain.

“And you have seen the cousin, of course, Miss Mary?” asked Miss Pirnie, bending forward with interest.

“No, indeed, I have not. That comes of his not being fond of running. When the coach got to the foot of the long hill Esmae jumped down. He saw me among the birk-trees, you know, and he had this hidden away under his jacket,” said Mary, glancing affectionately at the small dog, which now slumbered on her lap, at peace with all mankind.

“And what news had he? ” demanded Miss Pimie, with a dissatisfied air.

“Oh, only the dog. He had not a minute to stay. He galloped off by the short cut to be at the inn as soon as the coach, because he said his cousin—Boston, that’s his name—did not like to be left alone. And just as be was jumping the paling be shouted out that he would be at Mirkwood by ‘skreech o’day’ to-morrow. So you see he has not forgotten all his Scotch yet, as Mr. Carden said he would.—Oh, here is Miss Margaret: I must go and collect my books. But, aunty, you have not said yet whether I may really keep him. Neil said you would not let him live a night in the house.”

“Neil is always ready to speak for his mistress except when he is wanted to. Keep him, child, if your heart is set on it; but it will be only to give yourself a heartbreak some time— that is always the end of keeping creatures.”

Mary bent with delight over the hew companion who had been admitted into the Mirkwood circle with such a sad prophecy.

“How comes Marget to be here to-night? and she has her teaching-bag, too. She never told me this was one of her Mirkwood nights—Marget is so close.”

Miss Cassilis smiled a certain smile which she was wont to bestow on the unfairnesses and minor infirmities of her fellow-creatures. She happened to know that the imputed closeness of Miss Margaret had arisen—at all events on this occasion— from the fact that Miss Pimie the elder had been absent from her home in the village for several hours on her gossiping tour. She now explained that some time early in the day Mary’s governess had sent a note to ask if it would be equally convenient to give her lessons that evening instead of the following one.

“And, pray, do you know, Miss Cassilis, why she has set her heart on being free to-morrow? ” cried Miss Pimie with an angry air, as she wheeled round her small figure from the window. “It is just that she may go galloping off in the gloaming to that meeting in Auldearn’s bam at Netherley. The girl’s head is just choke-full of these Voluntaries and their seditious stuff. She got some pamphlets full of them from Edinburgh some days since, and she has been. at them every spare minute. She is so close, Marget It is not often she tells me her thoughts, hut I can see well where she is drifting to. I tell her that it ill becomes the like of us—holding our cottage from the laird, and minister’s daughters of the Establishment—to mix ourselves up with such sedition,” wound up the little old woman in high dudgeon.

Dear me, Miss Pimie,” said Miss Cassilis with a dry smile, “have you not just been railing at the laird and the minister yourself! I would not wonder though you were to turn out a much hotter Voluntary than ever Miss Margaret will be.”

A Voluntary! Heaven forbid that I should mix myself up with such people! But I must be stepping home now, Miss Cassilis,” she said, with an evident intention of taking her leave at last; for an invitation to tea was not now so attractive, seeing her sister might possibly be one of the party. “I am just going to give that girl a bit of my mind about her close ongoings, this very minute,” she added with an irate air, as she hopped away. “Just see, Miss Cassilis,” she said, pointing to the broad beech walk under the windows, where Mary and her governess were standing. “Marget is really getting to have a look different from other folk, with her queer ways; she is really more like a ghost to-night than a living woman. She shall go to no more of these meetings if I can help it.”

Miss Cassilis rose slowly from her chair after her visitor had gone, and laying aside her knitting she walked towards the window and stood looking out.

They certainly presented a great contrast, these two who were now slowly coming along the woodland path arm in arm with the sunset rays glinting on them. Faded, like one of the old water-colour copies which she carried in her teaching-bag, was Miss Margaret’s face. The fair thin hair braided on the meek pale brow looked as if it might once have been bright, but had somehow got all the gold rubbed off in the wear and tear of life. It seemed as if .close city streets must have been her home, so worn and white she looked. But the writing of time on Miss Margaret Pimie’s face was a record of days spent under the shadows of the blue mountains behind which the sun was setting now. Her quiet gray eyes were resting with an interested air on the glowing face which looked into hers.

“She is a good creature, Margaret Right glad I am that I held to my point of getting her to teach Mary, instead of being troubled with one of those new-fangled dames from the town,” muttered Miss Cassilis, as the pair disappeared from her view under the broad eaves of the old house. She could hear now, from the echoes of shrill tones which travelled through the still air, that Miss Pimie had joined them and commenced her attack. It was not Miss Cassilis’s usual policy to interfere on behalf of her neighbours; but frowning now, she crossed the room with her slow stately step and began to descend the old staircase. A sharp bark began, however, to mingle with the shrill tones; and it evidently won the day, for a moment afterwards Miss Cassilis met the governess and her pupil passing upstairs together unmolested. There was a shadow resting on the young face, for Mary loved her meek teacher; but Miss Margaret’s expression was placid as ever, so with a passing salutation Miss Cassilis allowed them to go on to their evening’s work.

“It is just wonderful how she bears all the pecks of that little ill-natured sparrow,” muttered the old lady, as she again betook herself to her high-backed chair.

If she had followed her niece and her governess to the big bare schoolroom allotted to their use on the third story, she would have been able to trace a still greater abstraction from daily worries on Miss Margaret’s face as she sat with kindling eyes reading with her pupil a chapter of the heroic age of the Christian church, which happened to make their history lesson for the evening. Mary’s thoughts were carried far away from the breezy valley, from her playmate’s return, and from her new treasure, to the catacombs of Borne, with their holy stirring records of the persecuted yet victorious church.

But we must leave these earnest students, for the present, to explain how it was that young Mary Cassilis came to find a home in the ancient dowager-house, built on a spot where the woods were thickest and the shadows fell deepest in the forests of Binaultrie.

“You are a brave woman, Grizel,” said the present laird, when Miss Cassilis first suggested that she would take a lease of the old jointure-house of the Burnetts. There were, in fact, certain eerie traditions connected with it, and for many a long year it stood deserted and decaying. No smooth-shaven lawn and flower-beds spread under its windows. It stood on the mossy floor of the forest. Great aisles of beech and pine stretched all round it At some distance from the house a garden had been redeemed from the forest and walled in by some bygone laird, for the benefit of the ancient ladies as they passed from their reign in the baronial mansion to spend the evening of life in the green seclusion of the dowager-house Near it the lands of Binaultrie marched with those of Nether-ley, the old domain of the Cassilis family. Between the Burnetts and the Cassilises there had thriven a hereditary friendship. But evil days had fallen on the house of Cassilis; their ancient patrimony had slipped bit by bit into other hands. The old stock, too, had dwindled down to the elderly spinster and the girl-orphan of the last and youngest of the Cassilis brothers. He had gone to the plains of Hindustan to endeavour to make gold enough to buy back his inheritance; but when the hard-won gold lay in his grasp, a hand strong and deadly wrenched it from the eager winner. His little daughter Mary, the heiress of ten lacs of rupees, came fatherless as well as motherless to the care of her aunt.

It was on one dark evening of a Scotch spring that a bundle, seemingly, of rich Eastern shawls was carried into the entrance-hall of Mirkwood from the old family chariot, and out of the luxurious folds there stepped forth a pale-faced tiny girl with imperious gestures, prattling her impatient wishes in a tongue unknown to all else save her attendants—a much-bejewelled, gaily-draped ayah, and a turbaned male domestic, to whose care she had been consigned as she travelled across the seas to her Scottish home, Making profound salaams to Miss Cassilis, they laid their little charge dramatically in her arms. The child at once resisted the claims of kinship. “Me go back ship. Isa woman don’t want,” she sobbed, as she struggled to her ayah, and buried her little face in the bright-coloured draperies.

“Hech, sirs, sic a bairn to be gaen on that gait til the mistress hersel’! ” cried Eppie, the henwife, who formed one of the outer ring of domestics gathered to stare at the strange little Oriental group. Her sentiments seemed shared by all Neil, the butler, retreated to his pantry, ominously shaking his head, while cook descended to her domain with uplifted hands. Nancy, Miss Cassilis’s own maid, and Mary’s projected nurse, stepped forward at length to endeavour to bring the wilful little lady to a better mind. But, in her, the ayah at once recognized a rival. Her dark eyes flashed with jealousy, and her dusky arms, with their many bangles, clasped more closely her little mem sahib.

To think o’ preferrin’ blackamores to the like o’ his! ” muttered Nancy angrily; but Miss Cassilis was more wise and patient than her waiting-maid.

“Let the bairn alone, Nancy,” she said gravely. “It would be an evil sign of her if she had not a warm side to these poor black creatures who have brought her across the sea;” and, beckoning to the strangers to follow her, she led the way up the old staircase to a chamber which had been opened up for their use. Very soon the little company were seated on the soft rug in front of a bright fire, while little Mary supped her bread and milk, and chatted gaily to her attendants, quickly forgetting her brief troubles. Nor did the mistress of Mirk-wood invade the privacy of her small guest until sleep sheltered her from all alarms. Then, indeed, Miss Cassilis stole into the new nursery, and crept noiselessly towards the cot, at the foot of which the ayah lay stretched on the carpet vigilantly guarding her charge. The baby face was like a shady corner now that the eyes were closed. Long silken lashes rested on the white cheek. The lips were shut with a firm, proud look. There was a stateliness about the little thing which half fascinated, half intimidated Miss Cassilis, as she gazed eagerly on the tiny sleeper. And this was her best-loved brothers child, come from distant lands to the valley where the ancient stock had thriven for so long. She was no longer the only Cassilis within sight of Netherley; and this little hand had come with gold enough to buy back the fair stretches of hill and dale on the other side of the river which had belonged to her race in bygone days. A new hope and interest seemed to come into her life.

It was many a day since she had felt so excited, though none would have guessed it from Miss Cassilis’s calm demeanour as she issued from her sleeping-room in the bright morning light. These little feet pattering on the stair seemed to her the sweetest sound she had listened to for many a long year. The ayah again endeavoured to persuade her charge to make salaams to her relative, but without success. She turned away with an imperious gesture, and a suspicious gleam in her expressive eyes. Again Miss Cassilis resolved to be patient; but there was a look in her face which one onlooker, with quick eyes and a kind heart, had never seen there before. She was turning away to her solitary sitting-room to bide her time, when her niece gave a cry of delight, and the tiny feet pattered across the polished floor of the hall to the old doorway, where a boy visitor stood watching the scene.

“O boy, boy, you’ve come to play wiff me. Ship done sail away wiff all the boys and girls Mayo’s got nobody to play wiff, except stupid ayah. Come, boy!”

The little hand was shaken off the jacket sleeve rather un-chivalrously. “No, I won’t play with you. You are a bad girL You have come to make Aunt Griz look sorry.” And the boy pointed in the direction of the sitting-room, at the door of which Miss Cassilis stood watching the meeting.

Mary looked at her mentor with an attentive air, and then turning to glance at Miss Cassilis, she seemed to reconsider her claims. But her aunt appeared to dread any sudden decision in her favour, and said abruptly, “Take the little lassie to see your pigeons, Esmae—and the black woman, too. I’ll warrant you she has never seen Scotch doos before.”

“And there’s a lot of young ones since yesterday, Sandy says,” said the boy eagerly; and then glancing more leniently at the culprit, he added, “Come, I’ll take you.”

This was how Mary Cassilis’s Mirkwood education had begun. The wilful Indian child seemed to vanish with the going of her Eastern attendants—the last link with the golden morning land. Long before the time our story begins, her little heart had shaped itself to the surroundings of her Scotch home. The valley of Asloune was now as much the centre of her young life as if she had never strayed beyond its rugged moorland boundaries. The lights and shadows of its mountain passes were familiar to her eyes, as the daily lives in the humble homes which clustered round their base were familiar to her heart Her Aunt Grizel had long since been the unquestioned representative of authority, of justice, and of a certain severe kind of motherhood.

Mary did not know how much yearning love went out to her under her aunt’s stem demeanour. Its roots were strong and deep, but it required other weather to bring out its blossoms and its fruits than the everyday atmosphere of the Mirkwood home. Esmae Barnett, too, had forgotten the morning when he had taken up the cudgels for his old friend with the imperious little Anglo-Indian, who so wilfully resisted all her aunt’s advances. Indeed, Mary and he had altogether changed places since then. Once or twice, before he left the valley for school, his boyish pranks had come under Miss Cassilis’s severest censure, and Mary had always been ready with a loyal defence on behalf of her playmate.

CHAPTER III
Some Things Set Mary Thinking.

“Shall I make of my girl a woman
Holy and wise,
Or leave in the mists of the morning
Her bright blind eyes?”

“Is the laird anywhere about, Mr. Duff! ” asked a visitor, reining his horse at the base of the time-worn flight of steps which made the chief entrance to Rinaultrie Castle.

The gray-headed servant to whom the question was addressed wore an air of marked importance which seemed habitual to him; but so clearly was it founded on a deep sense of the dignity of the house, rather than on personal claims, that he looked quite a fitting part of the noble doorway in which he stood.

“Thomson! ” he now called with a loud voice. A sleek-look-ing footman appeared, arrayed in shining new livery which formed a marked contrast to the old butler’s threadbare suit of plain clothes. He seemed to listen with puzzled attention to his superior’s orders, and to turn away with a perplexed air to fulfil them.

“A new-comer, is he not, Mr. Duff, judging from his want of appreciation of your excellent Doric)” asked the visitor, as he alighted and began to ascend the steps.

The old servant darted on the questioner a quick, suspicious glance, though he replied coolly, “Nae aulder nor the beginnin’ o’ laist week, Maister Cranstown. He was shippit frae Lon’on by sea; but, ’deed, gin be doesna grow faister i’ the uptak o’ my speak,—and I roar that loud til him that I’m awears o’ brakin’ my win’,—it will mak’ little maitter til me though he had been at the boddom o’t.”

“From London, all the way, is he! ” said the visitor, raising his eyebrows. “So there are no servants good enough for Rinaultrie on this side of the Border? ”

“And will ye be for sayin’, sir, that if there be ae guid servant to be gotten in a’ the lan’, that this ancient hoose isna the fitting place for him? ” retorted the old man with a flash in his eye; and then, as if in punishment for the disloyal remark, he added, “Maybe I ocht til warn ye, sir, that I wouldna wunner though the laird didna come in aboot til the gloamin’. He’s far intil his woods wi’ the forester the day.”

“Most annoying!” muttered the visitor with a frown. “And how about lunch, Duff? Can you give me something to eat? I feel hungry after my journey.”

“Gin half a sheep will serve ye, ye are welcome til that, sir. It is ready cookit, and the first bell gone. But niver a glint o’ Maister Esmae and his friends can I see.”

“Oh yes, by the way, Master Esmae is back again. He has friends with him, you say. Who are they? I saw a lad wandering among the beeches there. I suppose he is one of them. There he is coming along the courtyard now.”

“He is a Burnett, Maister Cranstown. Dinna ye ken? He is Maister Richard’s son,” added the old man, glancing furtively round the hall as if he had uttered a forbidden name.

A low whistle was Mr. Cranstown’s first rejoinder. His face darkened as he muttered, “Who next, I wonder? There will be another valet from London to wait upon him, I suppose.” But as Boston drew nearer, he came forward with one of his blandest smiles and held out his hand. “Mr. Burnett, I am told. You have come to see Rinaultrie at its best, sir. Fine old place it is, to be sure. Perhaps I should introduce myself,” he said with a little bow, as he perceived the lad’s look of questioning shy-ness. “I am the Burnetts’ family lawyer—a necessary evil, I may be called,” he added with a smile. “Mr. Duff tells me that there is half a sheep awaiting our attention at this hospitable board, Mr. Burnett Suppose you and I endeavour to do it a measure of justice. The laird is not a luncheon man; great mistake, I think. But what has become of the young laird? Is he not going to honour us with his company! ”

“Esmae, you mean, I suppose! ” said Boston slowly. “No, he did not seem to want to lunch at home; but I preferred to come back here.”

“Like a wise man. Never neglect creature comforts. It does not pay—that is my motto,” said Mr. Cranstown, rubbing his hands as they walked into the big dining-room.

Any bestowal of deference was specially dear to Boston’s heart He felt flattered by the gracious address of his new acquaintance, and took his seat near him not without much secret gratification that it had fallen to his lot to entertain so polite a guest It was with a feeling somewhat akin to disappointment that a few minutes afterwards he saw the master of the house walk into the room.

Mr. Burnett came with an atmosphere of the fields and free air about him. At the first glance, his burly frame, gray homespun clothes, and bespattered leathern gaiters suggested a man of a more homely type than one would have expected in the representative of the ancient house. As he stood beside his guest, a smooth, dapper, town-bred man in well-fitting broadcloth, there seemed as great a difference as exists between a massive granite boulder and a bit of stucco. Though bent, he was still a head and a pair of broad shoulders above him in height. From his rugged, wrinkled brow shone out steady gray eyes, with a light which seemed to beam kindly on all around. Large of bone and feature, the face at first sight appeared too heavy to be called handsome, but there were still some delicate curves about it where beauty lingered. Under his ringing, hearty laugh and cheerful bearing, Boston thought he saw an expression of care which he had not observed before. Flinging himself with a wearied gesture into his arm-chair, he said, “Do not let me disturb you, Mr. Cranstown. Pray go on with lunch.’” And then, after a minute, he asked, with evident anxiety, “Anything new to-day? ”

“Well, no, sir, I do not think so. The fact is, I have come on a little bit of business of my own this morning,” replied Mr. Cranstown, smiling, with rather an embarrassed air. He looked almost bashful, Boston observed; but seemingly reassured by the laird’s cheerful, “Ay, and what is that?” he proceeded:—

“It is about Netherley, sir. You see Mr. Densil wants to let the place. You know it is three years since he has set foot in it, and the doctors have again forbidden him to come so far north.”

“So he wants a tenant Not difficult to find, I should think, if he had advertised in time for the shooting season. The Netherley moors are in capital condition. But I don’t suppose the coming of any new tenant will affect your functions. He would have no right to interfere with the management of the estates, and probably as little inclination. Only possibly the present malcontents among the tenants might get his ear and his sympathy and give you some trouble. I always told you that you kept too tight a rein with those Netherley folks. They are an energetic, independent set—always were. And it may be they will use any side-influence they may have with the new-comer to prejudice him against—”

“You mistake me, sir,” said Mr. Cranstown, interrupting him with a sudden darkening of his face; but he had learned to rule his spirit evidently, for the next moment he looked up with a Bmila “It is not my Netherley factorship I am anxious about, Mr. Burnett. The fact is, it is entirely a domestic affair I have come down about. My wife has set her heart on taking some place in the country. The change will be good for our girls; and my eldest son, who is waiting his commission, is keen about good shooting. In fact, he is at Netherley to-day looking about him. So I have been thinking of myself becoming Mr. Densil’s tenant for a couple of years or so.”

“An excellent idea,” said the laird, evidently receiving with entire placidity the piece of news which his factor announced with ill-concealed excitement “I am heartily glad that the old house will be opened up to the light of day once more. Mr. Densil’s perpetual absenteeism has been most unfortunate for Netherley. And it will be a good many years yet before little Mary Cassilis can make an offer to buy it back, if she ever does.”

“The Cassilises! but what have they to do with the Netherley estates now? ” asked Mr. Cranstown. “Ah, I remember! The old lady has some romantic notion that her niece may restore it to. the family when she reaches her majority; but, perhaps, Netherley may not be in the market then. However, I think I shall ride round by Mirkwood and let the old lady know what is on the cards. I only hope Miss Cassilis may give me as kind a. welcome to a place in the county as you have done, Mr. Burnett” And then, with a little nervous laugh, he added, “The fact is, it seemed to me a little—well, somewhat aspiring, shall we say! for a poor professional man like me to think of taking even temporary possession of the ancient house of Netherley.”

No such idea seemed, however, to have visited the mind of the big gray man on whom the factor’s restless glance was fixed.

“It will do you a world of good,” he said in hearty tone. “I was just going to say that it would make a man of you, Cranstown; but that would hardly be a polite way to put it. But, mind, you must leave your dusty parchments and ledgers and give yourself up to a country life, for a while at least”

“Oh, I shall be content to leave the rural pleasures to my wife and family. We are creatures of habit, you know, and a town life suits me best; not, indeed, that I have ever had an opportunity of giving any other a chance.”

“Ah, but the country will get round your heart in spite of you when you come to live in it. And then, perhaps, you will understand better what it needs—how much long-suffering and how long a purse—to keep a countryside healthy, and wealthy, and wise,” said the laird with a smile; but Boston noticed that a look of sadness stole into his face.

“Ah, there you are with your Utopian ideas of a landowner’s functions, Mr. Burnett. You cannot hope to convert me to them at this time of day. I confess I should like to have some spare time to spend at Netherley, if it were for nothing else than to keep those unruly tenants in order. They are still trying to get up an agitation against that excellent presentee to their vacant kirk. They, forsooth, to be setting up opinions on matters in Church and State—ignorant, canting, radical set that they are! But it is the same everywhere. The country is marching on to revolution, sir, and it is the duty of every wise man to do what he can to stem the current.”

“You must not be too hard on the people. Blame their rulers rather. Of course the people will use what powers they have.” “Ah, there it is, Mr. Burnett—that Reform Bill is at the root of all our trouble. It is a matter of history that political power in the hands of the lower orders has always been fatal to the State,” said Mr. Cranstown in an oracular tone, which rather impressed Boston, who felt a growing interest in the topic in question. “I must say,” he continued in a didactic tone, “it does always surprise me, Mr. Burnett, that you, who have such excellent Tory principles, and are by inheritance a Tory, should not take more severe views of the encroachments of the lower orders.”

. “I am a stanch Tory, sure enough; so good a one that I even dislike fashionable phrases—the ‘encroachment of the lower orders, for instance,” said the laird in his deep voice; and then he added slowly, “I do not like the Reform Bill, but I am not sure that I dislike it on the B&me grounds as you, Cranstown. I do not grudge the people their vote, but I don’t see that they will get much good out of them. It seems to me that there are many greater benefits the wealthier classes could bestow if they had only the proper feeling towards the poorer classL But I am not much of an economist, you know—political or otherwise,” wound up the laird with a little laugh, which admission the factor endorsed with a meaning smile. “But, by the way, Cranstown,” said the laird after a moment, “I was surprised to see that you, with your ideas, had been taking the side in the Edinburgh Town Council against that bill of Jeffery’s. You object to the Annuity Tax for the payment of the city, clergy being imposed on members of the legal profession, I see. It seems to me the whole opposition is a more dead-set against the Established Church than anything that is happening to it just now. You don’t seem to shrink from making use of popular clamour either, in this case, I notice.”

“Ah, but you see, my dear sir, there are wheels within wheels in this case. The masses must sometimes be used. We lawyers understand that,” said Mr. Cranstown; but it was evident that he winced under Mr. Burnett’s criticism on the side he had been taking in a question which was then agitating the Scotch metropolis. “Besides, the fact is,” Mr. Cranstown went on, “we have too many clergy. They are a dangerous body. Priestcraft, you know, has always been the bane of Scotland, Mr. Burnett The ministers should be decimated; and if this agitation brings that about, or anything like it, we will get rid of a good many troublesome meddlers in public affairs. Dr. Chalmers is becoming a perfect tyrant in the Town Council, I assure you.—Ah, here is our young friend listening with all eyes and ears. I ought to have been more carefuL Possibly you may be destined for the Church.”

Boston muttered a confused disclaimer. The laird glanced kindly at him when he observed his sudden embarrassment.

“By the way, I do not think I introduced you to Esmae’s friend. He is Richard’s son,” he added with a sigh.

“Yes; we effected an introduction—did we not?” replied Mr. Oranstown, with a little patronizing nod towards Boston. “Always glad to see a rising Burnett. I trust this one will be a credit—Boston, so that is your name; not a familiar one in the family, if my memory serves me right”

“No, I should think not, sir. I believe my father and mother called me so because I happened to be bom in the town of Boston. I hate the name.”

“Ay, and so you hate your own Christian name. I would not be at the pains if I were you,” said the laird, glancing at him with an amused smile. “It will sound quite fine with ‘ doctor ’ in front of it—He is going to be a scholar, this young man, you must know; a rare thing in the family. I believe I shall be quite proud of my learned nephew yet He carried off several prizes at school”

“Ah, indeed,” said the lawyer in an indifferent tone. “But where is Master Esmae? Am I not to have the honour of seeing the rising hope of the house to-day? ”

“Yes, by the way, what has become of the little lad? Not in time for lunch evidently,—seldom is. What have you done with him, Boston? ”

“Oh, after we had done fishing he wanted to go up to see some old lame man—I forget his name; but he took me to see him yesterday, and I did not care to repeat the visit, so I came back here.”

“Ah, that is Donald Reid, I suppose. But I assure you Donald is by no means a wearisome person. He is a first-rate old fellow. You made a mistake to miss an opportunity of cultivating him, if you are in search of wisdom,” said the laird good-naturedly.

But Boston winced as if lie had received a stem rebuke. At the moment the factor’s eye met his with what he interpreted as a sympathetic glance. “He understands me; he does not forget what a different life I have had from my cousin— how poor my prospects are, and how bitter it all must be.” He went so far as to resolve that when a suitable opportunity offered itself he would summon up courage to ask the factor if he remembered his father, whose evil memory had a fascination for Boston which his mother would fain have transferred to her humble but worthier “forbears.” There did not, however, seem any chance of a tète~â-tète with Mr. Cranstown on the present occasion. He had now drawn his chair nearer the laird’s, and seemed inclined to pursue the conversation in a lowr key. And there was Esmae’s clear ringing voice resounding through the old courtyard. Boston went to meet him at the door.

“Oh, bother it, is that old Cran’s voice that I hear? I did hope he would stay away all our holidays, at leash He always contrives to set dear old daddy moping, somehow, and I did so want him to be jolly all the time we are here.”

“But I do not think Mr. Cranstown has done that this time,” said Boston.

After a few minutes the gentlemen emerged from the diningroom. Mr. Cranstown came forward and shook hands with Esmae, who stood disentangling his fishing-tackle in a corner of the halL While the lawyer was indulging in some facetious remarks, Boston noticed that his uncle leaned absently, with folded arms, against one of the pillars, evidently absorbed in troubled thought. After a few moments he roused himself abruptly from his reverie, and turning to Mr. Cranstown, said,— “Well, shall we have a look into these matters now! ”

“At your service, sir,” replied the factor briskly, following his client. The timid aspirant to a place in the country evidently now merged into the sharp man of business. Esmae meanwhile was effecting a lightning descent down the broad-ribbed oak banisters, which had formed an irresistible slide since his babyhood; while Boston finished his cogitations as to what could have brought the expression of heavy care into the massive face of the laird On the afternoon of the day after Mr. Cranstown’s visit to the castle, Mary Cassilis turned her pony’s head towards a steep bit of road which wound up the face of a furzy knoll overlooking the village, known as Bramble HilL On its slope a solitary cottage stood Its sole occupant was Donald Reid, one of the oldest residents in the parish, though not a native of it. Down in the hollow, on the other side of the hill, he had met with the fate in early stalwart manhood which had chained him to the valley whither he had come temporarily to work. He belonged to a band of labourers who, during the reign of the last laird, were engaged by him to open a quarry on his estate. The enterprise had a vigorous beginning, and there was no more arduous pioneer than young Reid He became a marked favourite with the laird, who Boon perceived in him a valuable assistant in his latest hobby. As for the young workman, he found some warm interests in his new surroundings; for was not Ellen Glendie, the sweetest girl in the country-side, his betrothed wife? It was within a couple of days of their intended marriage that Donald went one morning gaily to his work, to be carried home a few hours later a man maimed for life. A fragment from a boulder which was being blasted struck him down and hopelessly injured his spine. For a time, indeed, it seemed doubtful whether he would survive the effects of his accident; and when he came back to life, it was to face some of its bitterest sorrows. His betrothed, who had evinced a proud fidelity to her disabled lover, was attacked by a fever, and died after a few weeks’ illness. And just then, troubles began to gather thicker round the master whom Donald had learned to love with true Celtic devotion. The misdeeds of his younger son threw Mr. Burnett into grave pecuniary embarrassments; and though still confident in the success of his undertaking, it had to be abandoned suddenly. So the musio of the busy hammers rang through the dell no longer. The gray walls of rock seemed to look down pathetically, and the disbanded workmen shouldered their tools and went to seek work elsewhere, leaving only their sick mate behind.

Sometimes Donald, as his eye rested on the furzy ridges of the deserted quarry, felt as if he and it were companions in misfortune. On summer evenings, when kindly neighbors volunteered to help him to take an airing, it was to his old haunts that he oftenest wished to go; and as he crept feebly about under the shadow of the overhanging rocks, where tufts of sweet wild flowers and dainty lichens now grew out of the rents and scars of years ago, he used to think that the fresh green, interspersing the ruins, was a pleasing emblem of the many interests which had budded round his broken life. For Donald Reid had learned that quieting philosophy of soul which had not failed him through all his lonely years. Perhaps had he remained strong and free as in his youth, the chambers of his mind and soul would not have been so well-stored as they were. Personal interests having been denied him, it was given to this lonely peasant, as to many a brave spirit throughout all generations, to take into his widened heart the interests of all his fellow-creatures. For them he dreamed dreams and saw visions, for them he rejoiced and was made sad, hoped and prayed. And so the little shattered bark, which might have been stranded in the shallowest pool, was still able, by force of that great helm, the communion of spirits, to take its place in the mighty living stream down which the ages move towards the haven where they would be.

The clay-floored little kitchen where Donald always sat had long since been a charmed place to Mary and to her playmate Ssmae. His wise, calm views of life had not been without their effect on their childish minds. His graver talk was often interspersed with marvellous legends, which fixed themselves in their young imaginations; for Donald belonged to a part of the country where the hills seemed to loom like mighty giants wrestling for a place in the sky, where the rivers flowed more rapidly, and wild torrents crashed from rocky mountain sides—a country where every cliff had its story, and Donald was full of such.

On this afternoon, however, Mary did not find Donald alone, as she liked to do. Near him sat two visitors, both more or less known to her as dwellers in Asloune. One was David Logan the shoemaker, or the soutar, as he was generally called. He was a pale, sallow man, black-haired, with large bright eyes surmounted by a high peaked forehead. His pallid hands and stooping shoulders told of a sedentary occupation, and his keen expression revealed that his brain was busy during his hours of manual toil. Mr. Logan was not a native of Asloune any more than Donald. A town-bred man, he migrated to the country when the close air of the city began to tell seriously on his health. Originally, he belonged to a small body of Seceders, and in the dingy but stirring little chapel near the court where he was born he played an important part He had become imbued with some ideas not then familiar to the dwellers in the glen; was indeed the chief exponent of radical opinions in the village, and at a time when schemes of change in the old order were pervading the social atmosphere there was always grist for his mill His little, musty, leather-flavoured room became the centre of much noisy discussion. One of Mr. Logan’s favourite topics was the deadness of religion which he considered prevailed in the parish and those adjoining it ‘So eloquent was he on this topic, and so at home in theological phraseology, that many of his simple admirers thought it a great mistake he was not utilised for the office of the eldership. The parish minister, Mr. Gordon, however, did not seem desirous of attaching him as a pillar to the kirk, so the soutar remained an unofficial person, and some said, therefore, so severe a critic.

Donald’s other visitor was John Glendie, a smiling, ruddy-faced farmer, who rented the Haugh, one of the best farms on Rinaultrie. Both Logan and he were arrayed in garments superior to their work-a-day clothes; and indeed a call on Donald in working hours was exceptional, and formed part of an expedition to the neighbouring parish of Netherley.

The conversation sounded brisk when Mary knocked at the little door, but both the visitors seemed momentarily silenced by the arrival of the young lady from Mirk wood. They half rose, fidgeting their chairs on the clay floor by way of greeting; but Donald raised his bent figure by the help of his staff with the courteous manner habitual to him, saying, “Tou are very welcome, Miss Mairy. Master Esmae said you would likely be up to-day. Eh, and this is the small dog he said you would be bringing to see me? a keen young gentleman he appears to be.”

“Oh yes, he is keen enough, Donald. But he is not properly educated yet He barks dreadfully at Miss Piraie every time he sees her, I am sorry to say. Esmae said he was going to try to break him in a little more; but he will not have much time now the shooting has begun. Are you not glad Esmae has gone to the hill with all the big sportsmen, Donald? You know he has wanted to go for ever so long; but somehow uncle never seemed willing to allow him. I am sure I do not know why.”

“I am thinking the reason is not far to seek, young lady,” said the soutar, looking up with a smile that was not altogether pleasant. “The laird is a better father to his son than he is a good son to his God and Father. He maybe would not like Maister Esmae to be clean corrupted with the walk and conversation of his elders just yet—Anyway, that’s my way of thinking, Donald,” he added, having caught sight of Donald’s gray eyes resting upon him with a disapproving glance.

“Ay, David, I doubt none of us are auch good aona to our Father in heaven aa we should be.”

“That’s a fac’,” said Glendie with an approving nod; and a pause ensued, during which the soutar vigorously bit his nails.

“Eh, airs, but you are privileged to have the use of your legs,” said Donald, looking up from the blue stocking he was knitting. “If my frail limbs would carry me, I would fain be one of the company in Auldearn’s bam this night. I wonder what portion of the word that young man will be choosing for you.”

“We will hope that he will blow the gospel trumpet with no uncertain sound; but I fear he will not match the one I heard in the town at my old chapel a fortnight ago. Eh, man, it was just an oncommon powerful discourse,” said Logan, bending forward and resting his arms on his knees, as if preparing to enter at length on a congenial topic. “I need not tell you that there was no paper in the question. The word came from his mouth just most extraordinary; but the best part of it all was when he began to tell of the deadness and the dangers o’ the Kirk at this present time, and charged one and all among us to maintain our spiritual independence as our Covenanting forefathers had done among these very braes and moors, where the laird and his crew are killing God’s creatures this day,” declaimed the soutar, with a dramatic wave of his hand, in evident imitation of the quoted orator, as a shot from the hill rang through the keen autumn air.

“Weel, gin I was til speak my min’, Dauvid,” began the slow-tongued farmer Glendie, “I thocht the lad jist lost himsel’ a bittie when he begud wi’ the windin’ up. It’s ae thing til gie a guid ringing bark—and maybe a necessar thing—but it’s anither to tak’ til misca’in’ ither folk, and makin’ them oot to be ‘ dumb dogs that canna bark.’ ”

“A most precious word—from the Book itself, Glendia Do you no ken that, man) I can give you chapter and verse for it And, ’deed, it is right true about some folk not very far off What is our own minister but one of these same dumb dogs? And the old minister of Netherley, what was he but such another? ”

“Softly, softly, Logan; he’s away,” murmured Donald “Well, all I say is, may the Almighty deliver the parish of Netherley from such another; and may he give power to the flock to resist the introosion o’ the Reverend Peter Coutts, that the factor has plotted into the living, for, if all tales be true, he is one o’ the dumbest o’ dumb dogs. Ay, it will be a grand chance for them to have the privilege o’ standing up for the liberty wherewith He makes His people free,” said the shoemaker in a rasping nasal tone.

“I cannot go in with you there,” said Donald, gravely lifting his head from his work. “There is a deal of that kind of speech at the present time that I cannot go in with whatever. I doubt, soutar, you are maybe mixing up two things very different in all your words about liberty. I am fearing there is many a man that has all the liberty to worship, and a godly servant of God to tell him the gospel tidings, and yet be knowing nothing about the liberty the Book speaks of. For we must not forget that heart-liberty is heart-service to the Master. And maybe He who can read our poor hearts through and through sees whiles that when we are clamouring and puffing most about our liberty, we are in bondage to some evil sin or other that makes us slaves indeed.”

Donald had a clear, low, musical voice, very different from the harsh, rasping tones of the soutar. His words fell with a solemn cadence which seemed felt both by the young visitor from Mirkwood and by blunt farmer Glendie. “’Deed, Donel, I sudna wonner though ye are richt there,” said the latter, scratching his head musingly. But Mr. Logan did not seem quite to relish the suggested fallacy in his definition of spiritual liberty. He began to shuffle his chair uneasily after a moment, saying,—

“Well, Haugh, it is high time we were holding on our road to Netherley. I am thinking there will be a great throng in Auldearn’s bam the night; and I am to be precentor, you know.” So after an interchange of greetings the two took their leave.

For a minute or two silence reigned in the little kitchen. Donald knitted busily, though his thoughts seemed far away; and Mary sat watching him with dreamy eyes. She had got so accustomed to him thus occupied, that a rough blue stocking in progress seemed quite a part of Donald. But it might have Btruck a stranger with surprise to see the still broad-shouldered man with his massive head and sagacious look betaking himself to such simple feminine toil. And it was not an easy task for the young quarrier, with the beatings of a strong manly heart in its prime, to shape it with meekness to such a lowly occupation. It was indeed part of that lesson which Donald learned when he bowed his head and said, “It is the hand of God.”

Lately poor-rates had been introduced into the neighbouring parish, and there were some of Donald’s visitors who considered him one of the fittest subjects for parochial relief. But the fact is, there was no more intelligent opponent of the introduction of poor-rates into Asloune than Donald Reid. Dear to the bereft man was that which he still possessed—the dignity of independence; and he ardently desired to preserve it as the heritage of all his lowly neighbours. He had, indeed, done much for many a year to foster unflinching self-respect in the little community. The result was that most of the natives of the glen still thought it a degradation to receive any support from public charity while they lived, or to be buried by it when dead.

It was only when Mary held out her hand to say good-bye that Donald was roused from his reverie. Looking at her with a wistful, half-pitying air, he said,—

“Eh, Miss Mairy, but it seems to me that we are on the brink of heavy times. It is not for the like of me in the gray gloamin’ of a gray day to be casting a dark cloud on your bonnie, sun-glinted young morning. But I am thinking, maybe, there will be some wild, stormy weather for them that lives to see it, as you and Maister Esmae are like to do. The clouds are gatherin’ over many a bit o’ sky that once looked blue and clear. You must be making right sure, Miss Mairy, that you hae Him that is the hiding-place from the storms of life for your friend; and ye’ll not need to forget that Maister Esmae needs such a Friend—maybe at this vexy minute is in sore need of a sound of His voice at his young tempted heart The soutar’s tongue is aye too ready, but I make no doubt there is truth in his hard words that the young laird will not always see the best o’ examples with his elders on the moors this shooting time. And soon he will have to wander back for his schoolin’ to that great and wicked city of Edinburgh. Whiles I think, as I sit quiet here, that the very roar of it must be enough to put a body in mind of the roar of him that goeth about seeking whom he may devour. And may God forgive me if I am harbouring an ill thought against one that is harmless, but I do not like the look o’ that new lad Maister Esmae is so taken with. Eh, Miss Mairy, if the good Lord is going to make a woman wise and holy of you—if he is teaching you to lift up your young heart in prayer, as I know he is, then be earnest for young Binaultrie; for the clouds are gathering. I see them yonderand Donald’s eyes had a prophetic gaze in them as he glanced into the whitening embers of his fading fire.

Mary’s eyes were full of tears and her lip quivered as she said in a low tone, “I want to be holy and wise; and I will try to help Esmae all I can all my life long.” And turning away, she walked slowly out of the cottage with the solemn sense of having taken a vpw upon her.

The valley was sweet and calm in its autumnal radiance as the young girl rode slowly down the hill. No lowering clouds had come to chime in with Donald’s sad prophecies, Mary thought with almost an air of relief as she glanced round. The little village seemed to nestle cheerily at the base of the hill, its white gables, red tiles, and curling smoke telling of comfortable homes to rest in after the burden and heat of the day. She could catch the yellow glimmer of the river as it flowed peacefully between its green winding haughs. The autumn-tinted woods of Binaultrie seemed glorified, as if by a benediction, by the last rays of the setting sun. There was certainly no foreboding of ill on the fair face of Esmae’s ancestral home. Why should she allow her heart to be sad? Was it only that the gossiping village cobbler had thrown out hints about his superiors which might, after all, prove slanders prompted by jealousy? Still Donald’s forebodings did not seem altogether suggested by his talk.

And this very morning, had not a shadow crossed her own path, which deepened as the recollection of the scene occurred to her? It had come in the shape of some cross words of Miss Fimie’s, which had brought a look of sharp distress into the face of her gentle governess which she had never seen there before. Could it really be true that she had money of her own, her very own, as Miss Pimie said9 But what was that she had hinted about people not being handsomely enough paid for the trouble she gave them? Oh, surely she could not mean that Miss Margaret was wronged in any way; for had she not received much more from her than money could ever pay? “ Yes, Donald is right; there are clouds about,” thought Mary with a shiver as she walked into the darkening entrance-hall.

“Dear me, Miss Mary, how late you are! Your aunt has been speirin’ about you a dizzen times i’ the laist half-hour, sin Miss Marget gaed awa,” was Nancy’s rather rasping greeting as she met her young mistress in the corridor which led to Miss Cassilis’s sleeping-chamber—a large, shadowy-looking domicile, especially at this twilight hour. Mary entered it now with considerable perturbation. She surely must have lingered longer at Donald’s than she was aware of; and her aunt had more than once worn her severest frown when she stayed unattended in the darkening woods.

But, to Mary’s relief, her greeting now gave no evidence of any pent-up vial of wrath In a gentler tone than was her wont, and using a name which always had a ring of rare tenderness on her lips, she said, “Well, bairn, so you have been at old Donald Reid’s, have you? Poor soul! I mind when the last laird was proud of him as his strongest quarrier. I was a strong girl then, too; but for both Donald and me there came dark clouds into our bright morning, and now we sit like withered, sapless trees struck down by the storm.” Stretching out her long, thin hand, she laid it gently on Mary’s bright brown hair, saying in a husky voice, as if she were talking to herself, “I meant it all for good, for the best good of Paterick’s bairn, the last of her race. But maybe I made a mistake in keeping it from you, Mary, that this little hand of yours will some day have a hold of much gold. Forgive me, my bairn; I did it for the best.”

“Forgive you, Aunt Grizel! As if there could be anything to forgive,” cried Mary, glancing into her face with a look of mingled amusement and distress. “And this is what has been making you keep your room all day and look so troubled, aunty!” “Well, no; that only came a little ago—another cloud among the dark ones that seem gathering round.”

“O aunty, please do not speak any more about dark clouds. Donald has been talking about them too. It makes me feel quite sad. Ah, I know what brought this cloud to you. It was good Miss Margaret herself,” cried Mary. “So that was why she wanted to come to Mirkwood all of a sudden. Why, aunty, there is nothing to be worried about It was only Miss Piraie who was in a bad humour, and began to say some things that seemed to vex Miss Margaret very much.”

“Well, I must say I think Joan Pimie might have held her tongue about a matter that did hot concern her; but folly seems bound up in that creature as well as ill-nature. However, Mary, now that I have had a little time to think over it, I am not sorry you should know the truth about your poor father having left you more money than has been in the hands of any Cassilis for two generations. It is better you should know it now; for Robert Burnett and I, who are your only guardians, are both getting old, and there are wolves about that are ready to prey on silly lambs.”

“O dear aunty, you make me feel like little Red Riding-hood,” said Mary playfully.

“Ay, my bairn, but you will heed to have done with the fables of childhood now, and try to get an old head on young shoulders, if you are to act the part of a good Cassilis of Netherley,” said her aunt in a tone which quenched Mary’s mirth, and reminded her of old Donald’s solemn charge.

Why in the world was everybody combining to make her feel sad to-night? And, after all, was it not a piece of very happy news that she had money of her very own? for were there not many things which she had often thought she would like to do if she were rich like some of the people she had read of in story-books? Her thoughts forthwith began to stray into regions of castle-building, as to the rare gifts she would be able to bestow on those who peopled her small world when her aunt and Mr. Burnett thought fit to put into her hands the purseful of gold which perhaps was stowed away in the antique cabinet in the oak-parlour, whose recesses she had so often longed to explore. Such was Mary Cassilis’s idea of her fortune and its capacities, from which it will be seen that she still dwelt in the happy realm of childhood, still basked in the blissful dawn of her Garden of Eden. Were its golden gates about to close on her now? Was destiny, like the angel with the gleaming sword, preparing to thrust her forth to the thorns and thistles of the wilderness?

CHAPTER IV
Remo Me Impune Lacessit

About the same time as Farmer Glendie and the soutar were hurrying along the highroad to the village of Netherley, another group were making their way towards it. They were the sportsmen from the moors.

“Well, it is an ill wind that blows nobody good, and this coming back by Netherley happens to suit me,” said one of the party, a tall, erect, elderly man, with an evidently well-filled game-bag slung across his shoulder. “I shall be a trifle late for my appointment;—wonderfully punctual for the shooting season, though,” he added with a glance at his watch.

“What is it, Gordon—a funeral or a christening? I’ll be bound you have kept the infant waiting till it will be of an age to argue with you on the doctrines of the Church.”

“Not quite so bad as that, Cranstown; but I have a few baptisms hanging fire both at Asloune and Netherley. I mean to slump them all together one day next week. It is a meeting of kirk-session I am due at now. I assure you I shall be nothing loath to get rid of my temporary superintendence of the Netherley flock—troublesome sheep they are. But I have you to thank for some of my worries with them, Cranstown. They are terribly mutinous still at the prospect of the Reverend Peter Coutts.”

“Ah! so you find them veiy refractoiy? Tell me; I want to know exactly how matters stand. What is the extent of the opposition to the presentee? ” asked the factor, who walked by Mr. Gordon’s side with an air of unruffled tidiness hardly indicative of a long day spent on the moors.

“Oh, well, they really do not bother me much, worthy folks, though I indulge in the luxury of grumbling. I hate extra work, you know; besides, the Netherley people are not exactly of the type I like. They have opinions on this and that and the next thing—they are advanced, in fact They have not been pleased with the supply I have got for them, any more than they are with Mr. Coutts. To be sure, it has generally been a spare dominie glad of the job; and I believe the last man they had—I forget his name—was really intolerable.”

“You are too easy, by far, with these seditious cattle, Mr. Gordon. They require a firm hand, I assure you. I mean to do a little shepherding of that flock myself when we take possession at Netherley. I will show them what a legal shepherd can do. Upon my word, they will not find my rod and staff comfort them,” said Mr. Cranstown with a grim smile.

“Til warrant you will find one or two of the Netherley tenants will not bend to your legal rod so easily as you fancy, my good sir.”

Oh, never fear, Mr. Gordon; the governor will bring them to order sharply. But it does seem rather a joke that the Reverend Peter Coutts should be stirring up such a dust. Why, he used to be as meek as Moses when he was my tutor,” said a young man who was walking by the minister’s side smoking a cigar. Though slimmer and slightly taller than Mr. Cranstown, it was not difficult to trace the likeness between father and son. “I have always had a great belief in my father’s wholesome power of intimidation since I went with him one rent-day. Depend upon it, the Netherley crofters will not be such fools as to get into the black books of such a Shylock,” he added with a light laugh.

“Upon my word, Lewis, you are not very complimentary, comparing me to the old Jew.—What think you of such filial disrespect, Mr. Burnett?” said the factor, turning to the laird, who had just joined them.

“So you are finding Shakespearian caps for us, Mr. Lewis; and you think old Shylock’s fits the factor, do you? Not very complimentary, certainly; but I daresay old Murdoch might agree with your son, Cranstown, if you were to raise his rent I have been thinking over it, and, in case I forget, it must not be done on any pretext,” said Mr. Burnett in a decided tone, not altogether unfamiliar to the factor, who smiled coldly, and with a little bow said, “As you please, sir.”

“Excuse me, gentlemen, for introducing business, but tomorrow is rent-day, and my memory fails me so now. I daresay I should have forgotten to mention this matter until the mischief was done, unless I had taken advantage of this reminder.—So, Mr. Lewis, your resuscitating of the old Jew has been of some practical use. Well, I remember the Merchant of Venice was my favourite play in the days when I was well up in my Shakespeare.! wonder if my little lad has made its acquaintance,” said Mr. Burnett glancing round.

Esmae was not, however, within reach of being interrogated as to his Shakespearian knowledge and tastes. He was bringing up the rear with the old gamekeeper, deeply engaged in moorland talk with that high authority. Boston’s companion was old Major Innes, a friend of the laird’s, whose home was a pleasant cottage which he had built after his retirement from the service, on the other side of Netherley; but no moors were attached to his snug domain, so Major Innes was a regular habitue of Rinaultrie during the shooting season. An expert in sport, he was fond of educating those less skilled in his favourite pastime. Boston’s quiet, deferential willingness to receive his wisdom quite gratified the old gentleman, and called forth more than one eulogy concerning the new Burnett who had come among them. The day had been one of the happiest which Boston had spent since his coming to Rinaultrie. With the good fortune which is frequently the portion of beginners, he had had various successes which had brought a glow to his pale cheek, and would prove a gratifying recollection when he returned to his city surroundings. He had, in fact, “bagged” more than Esmae, rather to the old gamekeeper’s chagrin, though his cousin’s triumph did not certainly seem to impair in any degree the young laird’s gaiety as he chatted about the haunts and habits of moor-fowl.

The laird, according to his custom, had invited all his fellow-sportsmen to dine at the castle. But the factor had expressed a wish to execute some business at Netherley, so the dogcarts had been ordered to meet the party at the Cassilis Arms instead of at the southern corner of the hill which touched Rinaultrie. Mr. Lachlan Lowrie, the innkeeper, was by no means insensible to the honour of having a call from the laird, on whom he bestowed his best bow. Nodding facetiously to the major, who was a more frequent visitor, he led the way to the old wains-cotted parlour, whose walls had looked down on many a riotous festive scene, and whose decorations were more or less emblematic of its past history in the sporting and bacchanalian prints which hung on the old panels, and in which Mr. Lewis Cranstown found fuel for a fire of mirthful criticism. Mr. Burnett and the factor seated themselves at the old table to do some business with a forester whom Mr. Cranstown had arranged to have waiting for them.

Mr. Gordon had parted company with the others a few minutes before they reached the inn to fulfil his pastoral appointment. Depositing his double-barrel at the door of the school-house, he strode in with his mud-bespattered gaiters and his game-bag still slung on his shoulder, expecting to find the members of the kirk-session of Netherley waiting for him in decorous readiness, as had been their wont But there was no trace of such a gathering, though it was more than half an hour past the time announced for the meeting. This fact might, in some instances, have proved a sufficient explanation of the empty benches; but the minister of Asloune had precedents of many cases of more protracted waiting on his unpunctuality than the present, so he did not conclude, as might have been expected, that the sheep had got wearied waiting for the tarrying shepherd. Going to the door which adjoined the school-house, he knocked once or twice without result It was at last opened to him by a little flaxen-haired girl, whom he recognized as the schoolmaster’s daughter.

“Well, my little woman, what has come of everybody to-night? Where is your father? ”

“Faither’s gone til Auldearn’s barn, and so’s my mither and Johnnie; and I’m keepin’ the hoose,” she replied, with a vigorous grasp of the handle of the half-opened door, as she cautiously surveyed the big minister.

“But what has made them all go to Auldearn’s bam this evening? Did your father not know that I had intimated a meeting of the kirk-session for to-night? ”

“A fat?” interrogated the little damsel, and there was something in the moon-like face and round eyes fixed on him which made Mr. Gordon indulge in a laugh.

“Come, little girl, you must run at once and tell your father that I am here waiting for him. I shall go and sit in the schoolroom till he comes,” he said in an easy tone “’Deed no, sir; I’ll do -no siccan a thing. I dauma leave the hoose its lane. Mither telt me afore she gaed oot that the missioner said hoo we was til be faithfu’ in little, and the Lord wad mak’ faithfu’ in muckle ae day,” narrated the little girl stoutly.

“Well said, little woman—very proper sentiments these-but are you the only righteous soul left to defend the house? Can’t you send somebody to fetch your father?” and Mr. Gordon glanced round to see if he could not discover any stray messenger about the usually well-peopled village street But he noticed now that all was strangely quiet to-night “Where have all the population absconded to in all the world? Are you the only creature left to be a witness for the truth in the village? ” he asked with some annoyance.

“The feck o’ the folk’s at Auldearn’s bam, ye ken. Near a’body gaed til hear the missioner frae Aberstone. Johnnie’s to be left at hame neist time, and I’m to be ta’en gin I am a good girl.”

When Mr. Gordon at last perceived that it was the service at Auldearn’s bam which had clashed with his meeting, a slight frown crossed his good-humoured face, and shouldering his gun he walked hastily in the direction of the Cassilis Arms, where his speedy return was welcomed by various jokes concerning the convenient brevity of his kirk business.

“Well, bad as Netherley is, I did not believe that things had come to such a pass. It is downright rebellion! It is ridiculously good-natured of you to stand being shelved for a conventicle,” exclaimed Mr. Cranstown when he heard the state of the case.

“But I have not stood it yet,” replied Mr. Gordon, uneasily pondering what policy would tend t6 save his dignity and be least troublesome into the bargain; for the minister of Asloune was not a bellicose individual, and though he certainly did not relish the slight which seemed to have been given to his intimation, the element in it which stung him most was that the factor should have become cognizant of this passing misunderstanding. “It is possible—most likely, indeed, I think—that there has been some mistake about the evening. My beadle may have lost the memorandum I gave him for the schoolmaster.”

“But it is the idea of such a meeting being held at all that is the gravest part of the offence against the patron and the presbytery whom you represent, Mr. Gordon,” said Mr. Crans-town. “I believe it is nothing more or less than a seditious gathering met to circumvent the law of the land. Bruce will have to answer for the use he has made of his bam to-night, before he holds it many days longer. I am determined I shall put an end to this rebellion, whatever it costs me.”

“What is this going on at Auldearn to-night, Lowrie? ” asked Major Innes, as the innkeeper placed a tray with some bottles and glasses on the table.

“Nothing more than has been going on for the last three weeks, sir. They say the barn’s choke-full this evening. It is only from hearsay that I had the news; I know my place better than to be mixing myself up with such a lot,” he added with an obsequious glance towards the factor. “And from what I hear, there is more mixed up with it than the folk of Netherley. There’s been a good few from Blairton; and, if I mistake not, I saw Borne parties from Asloune passing this door on their way to the bam not long since,” volunteered the innkeeper in a more hesitating tone, as he glanced at Mr. Burnett, not knowing how far such information regarding his tenants might be acceptable to him.

“But who is it that all these good folks are taking such an interest in? Who is the orator, and where does he hail from? ” asked Mr. Burnett carelessly as he mixed himself some grog.

“He calls himself the Reverend Alan Falconer, your honour. They tell me he is the minister of a chapel of ease in Aberstone. It is Mr. Bruce of Auldearn that gets him down here, I’m told; but I am not one to mix myself up with such ongoings.” “Oh no, Lowrie; nobody would ever accuse you of too much religion or interest in the same,” said Major Innes lightly.

“I’ll tell you what, governor, wouldn’t it be a good joke for some of us to appear at the conventicle and give them a bit of a scare! It would be a capital lark. There is no saying what fun we might get out of it; and, besides, it would let—what’s his name!—the farmer know that he has been found out.”

“Oh yes, come, let’s go!” cried Esmae, seizing his glengarry, tired already of the inaction which pervaded the inn parlour.

“Nonsense; can’t you leave the poor devils alone? If we find our sport in killing God’s creatures, why should they not find theirs in singing psalms? ” said Mr. Burnett testily, looking up from the newspaper he was reading. “Besides, Mr. Lewis,” he added with a smile, “you do not know the people in this part of the world, if you think they are afraid of being ‘ found out’ They have the courage of their doings, especially in matters relating to their Kirk, I assure you.”

“Well, for my part, I think Lewis’s idea rather a good one. It would not be dignified for any of us to appear at such a gathering, but it seems to me the young people might go with impunity to spy the land. You do not know, Mr. Burnett, what a spirit of insubordination is abroad among these peasants. Their failing to appear at Mr. Gordon’s meeting of session is surely a clear proof of it”

“But you seem to think there is some mistake about it, don’t you, parson?—You need not set that sin to their charge till they have been convicted, at all events, Mr. Cranstown. It’s my belief, Gordon, you will find the intimation of that meeting among your fishing-tackle or some such place when you get back to the manse.”

“Oh, it is more than likely,” replied the minister in an easy tone, drawing his chair to the table in order to refresh himself. “Come, man of law, let us forget our Netherley tribulations for the present and partake of some of its good cheer. I can answer for Lowrie’s whisky.—Ay, Master Lewis, so you have learned how to mix good stiff grog already, I see. You are early begun,” he added with a laugh, as he watched the younger Cranstown mixing a strong potation for himself.

“Oh, I am fortifying myself for the means of grace in Auldearn’s barn,” replied the young man with an air of mock solemnity. “But, by the way, we will need a guide to the confounded place; but I daresay the innkeeper can supply that.”

“As if I did not know the way to Auldearn,” cried Esmae, starting up. “Gome, Boston, let us go and have some fun; it is awfully slow in this stuffy old room,” he added, glancing questioningly at his father, who he remembered did not seem to relish the idea of their suggested expedition. But Mr. Burnett happened to be occupied for the moment with something which he had found to interest him in the columns of a rather stale newspaper; so the younger members of the party hurried away without further parleying towards the gray farm gables which looked out from a clustering company of tall gean-trees, a little way from the village.

Mr. Bruce, the tenant of Auldearn, was one of the most substantial of the peasant farmers in the district For two or three generations there had been Bruces in possession of the comfortable homestead, and they had borne the reputation of being good and sagacious men and successful cultivators of the soil In the old days the Cassilis family had known how to appreciate such tenants; and on the Bruces’ part there had always been a strong feeling of loyalty to the ancient possessors of the soiL But Auldearn’s independence seemed more annoying to Mr. Cranstown than even the whining impecuniousness which he sometimes encountered, and the old farmer and he had long since been on terms of armed neutrality. Lately, however, there had been some active passages-at-arms between them, in which Mr. Cranstown had occasion to feel that he did not have the best of it, and hence had grown up an angry feeling in his mind towards the worthy farmer, smouldering as yet, but ready on the smallest provocation to break forth; and this reported meeting in Auldearn’s barn seemed one at least of the chain of condemning facts for which he was on the outlook. Now at last he thought he had clearly proved Mr. Bruce to be the leader of the present opposing faction, and that from sheer radical love of resisting law and order.

The reverent-looking old man who now welcomed the young sportsmen to seats in the extemporized place of worship had, however, no thought of rebellious opposition for its own sake. Recognizing the bright boyish face of the young laird, his furrowed face shone with a deep joy. The coming of these young men was surely a fresh proof of the Divine blessing on the gathering that evening; for was it not some young fresh soil in which the preacher might sow the good seed of the kingdom ? Rising from the bench where he was seated, he led them to the best available place for hearing in the crowded audience.

A psalm had just been given out to sing, which the congregation joined in while sitting; and, according to a primitive and rather perturbing practice which prevailed in some country churches, the precentor read each line of the stanza previous to singing it. Mr. Logan, by no means an artistic vocalist, was a most jarring reader. The nasal cadence which he imparted to the portion of the good old metrical version of the Psalms from which he read, might have had a ludicrous side for even more soberly inclined hearers than those who had now joined the meeting. To Mr. Lewis Cranstown it seemed a fitting occasion for a display of his mimicking powers. For some seconds his efforts to act as a stumbling-block to the precentor remained comparatively unnoticed, but presently it tickled the ears of some of the younger part of the audience. A couple of little boys in Mr. Bruce’s neighbourhood, after various attempts to suppress their laughter, indulged in a small outburst, which was gravely and effectually checked by the old farmer. But this only seemed to encourage the intruder in his efforts to upset decorum. The succession of discordant sounds, breaking in as the lines were being read by the precentor, soon became audible to all, and many grave, disapproving glances were cast on the young strangers. Auldearn himself, however, being on a bench some way behind, and joining in the song of praise with all his might, remained unaware of anything unusual, and attributed the glances that were directed towards the newer comers as rather annoying symptoms of curiosity on the part of his neighbours.

The preacher, however, soon perceived the intention of Mr. Lewis Oranstown’s visit. Once or twice he looked gravely towards the group. There was something gentle, almost pitiful, in his glance, Esmae fancied, as their eyes chanced to meet, and he instantly ceased to have any more inclination for a “lark.” Moreover, he began to feel slightly ashamed at the attention which his older companion’s performances attracted during the singing. Mr. Falconer’s glance seemed, however, to rouse very different feelings in the breast of the factor’s son. “Impertinent hound, to stare so at a gentleman,” he said in a loud whisper to Boston; “but he will find it takes two to make a stare.” Besting his face on his arms he fixed his eyes insolently on the speaker; but Mr. Falconer had now opened the big old Bible which had been placed on the table before him, and was glancing down on the yellowed page. “My message to you from God’s Word to-night is this,” he said, raising his eyes with a serene glance on his congregation, ““A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.’ ”

There were one or two of his audience over whose faces a momentary expression of disappointment rested as they listened to the text Mr. Logan was evidently crestfallen. In his walk between Bramble Hill and Auldearn he had been the centre of an admiring following as he descanted on his favourite topic, the need for rallying round the banner of spiritual independence; and he made various scriptural quotations to establish his position, which he considered would have been much more suitable for the text this evening than the one which Mr. Falconer had chosen.

It need hardly be told that the blessed words fell on even less responsive hearts as they reached the ears of the little deputation from the inn. What could broken hearts and contrite spirits have to do with paths which seemed strewn with glorious gifts, bright possibilities, with youth, hope, and love? And yet there fell a day when, for two of these at least, the recollection of these words, spoken now in the old bam on this peaceful autumn evening, came vividly wafted back on the wings of memory. Whether they came, as they did to the conscience-stricken king, with healing in their wings, or only as a bitter reminder which brought with it new hardening of heart, we shall have to follow these lives through some chequered years to discover.

As for Mr. Lewis Cranstown, with an ingenuity not uncommon in his type, he contrived to keep the words even outside the region of his ears, and was able afterwards to make the veracious boast that he had not heard a syllable of what he elegantly denominated “the rot.” While the preacher proceeded to explain the passage, and to offer it to the necessities of his audience, Mr. Lewis kept looking about impatiently for some elements of a “lark,” for he felt that he had hardly yet succeeded in making his visit to the conventicle the success which he hoped. Nothing very sensational, however, seemed to offer itself, and he was reduced for his diversion to borrowing the snuff-box of an aged man beside him. Helping himself ostentatiously to its contents, Mr. Lewis contrived to produce a fit of prolonged sneezing, which tickled the risible faculties of the small boys in farmer Bruce’s neighbourhood, and called forth another rebuke from him. But this time the delinquents did not feel inclined to take more than their fair share of the blame. “It’s that gentry there that’s garrin us lauch,” said one of them, pointing resolutely towards Mr. Lewis Cranstown. Now that Auldearn’s eyes were opened, he kept his gaze severely fixed on the bench where the young men sat; for he was the last man to tolerate unseemly levity unrebuked. Boston de- dined the snuff-box, and Esmae could not be induced to take more than one pinch, so that any hope of amusement from that quarter seemed extinguished. Mr. Cranstown, junior, began to feel quite balked in his efforts towards the creating of discomfort in this orderly congregation, when suddenly help came to him from an unexpected quarter. The barn-door was pushed slightly open, and a clanging of chains made everybody glance round. The noise was made by two setters of Mr. Cranstown’s, who stood in the entrance wagging their tails effervescingly, but seemingly not quite inclined to penetrate further without a summons, probably with some consciousness of disobedience in having escaped from the inn stables, where they waited their return to the Rinaultrie kennels. Nor did they respond to their master’s first beckonings. Memory as well as conscience makes cowards, and they were quite as familiar with the strength of Mr. Lewis’s shining boot as with that of his dog-whip. But when they heard their master’s distinct whistle they felt their summons certain, and came bounding along the passage with flying ears and tails, their connecting chain dragging on the floor and rattling noisily against the wooden benches.

Before, however, the setters reached him, Mr. Cranstown had received a salutation from another and an unexpected quarter. A tall, straight shepherd behind him bent forward and said in a low, passionate whisper, “How daur ye whustle in the hoose o’ God, ye ill-fashoned callant? ” Mr. Lewis was about to make some pert reply when he saw another man step from his seat and administer a warning kick to the frisking setters, which made them yelp shrilly, and they began to beat a cringing retreat. Up jumped their master, and striding down the passage, with flashing eyes and a face blanched by anger, he took the administrator of the kick by the elbow, and, without any attempt at an undertone, said, “You rustic hound, I will teach you better manners to gentlemen’s dogs.”

Hardly had the words dropped from his lips than Mr. Lewis found himself lifted from the ground by the stalwart shepherd by whom he had been previously rebuked, and borne as swiftly out of the meeting-place as if he had been a bag of wool.

It was not a pleasant plight for an aspiring gallant defender of his country and an amateur wrestler of no mean reputation. Nor was his ignominious treatment at an end. The door of the outhouse, where the farmyard poultry were ranged for roost, stood open, with a large, powerful-looking key in its lock; and, in the twinkling of an eye, Mr. Cranstown, junior, found himself as fast a prisoner in the Auldearn hen-house as any ill-fated criminal in his condemned cell. Farmer Bruce was the only other, besides the tall shepherd, belonging to the audience who left the meeting, and things seemed now proceeding inside the barn as if no unseemly interruption had taken place, the giggling youngsters being now awed into thorough repression. Esmae and Boston had followed their captured companion in a mechanical sort of way, and stood gazing dumbly at the iron-barred door, while the shepherd slipped the key into his pocket and exchanged a meaning glance with Mr. Bruce.

For a moment only Esmae Burnett stood inactive. Then walking boldly towards the giant-like jailer, he said fearlessly, “Give me that key. I wish to open the door for Mr. Cranstown. If you do not, I shall try to take the key from you. I don’t know whether I shall be able, for you are a bigger, stronger man than I am, but I shall do my best.” The blood mounted to the boy’s face, and folding his arms he tossed back the bright^ falling lock from his forehead, and waited with a resolute air. There was something in his attitude, as he stood on the greensward, with his guileless face all aglow, facing the tall, sinewy shepherd in his prime, that reminded the old farmer, who was looking on, of a print which he had once seen of the youthful David confronting the giant champion. Stepping forward, he laid his hand on Esmae’s head, saying kindly, “My bonnie young gentleman, ye hae a mettle aboot ye worthy o’ a better causa Keep yer brave young hert and yer fearless ee for fechtm’ the battles o’ the Lord, and dinna ye be mixin’ yensel’ up wi’ siccan a Philistine as him that’s gettin’ a taste o’ the guid-wife’s hen-hoose there,” he added, with a half-humorous smila “Don’t make a fool of yourself with those people, Esmae,” said Boston, in a peevish tona Let us go and fetch a policeman at once and give the last one of them in charge. That insolent rascal will have to pay for his treatment of gentlemen; and that other man who kicked the dogs too,” he wound up, glancing at the shepherd with an attempt at an air of authority.

“Not a bit of them, Boston,” said Esmae hotly. “Cranstown behaved beastly ill. He had no business to whistle to his setters when the minister was preaching; it was very rude. But, of course, we must get him out of there somehow,” he added, with another glance at the shepherd, as loud blows and kicks came from the closed hen-house, along with unedifying expressions of futile rage, mingling with the cackling of the disturbed cocks and hens.

“What a confounded mess it is, to be sure! I wish we had never come,” muttered Boston scowling. “Uncle will be angry, too, will he not? ”

“Won’t he just! And he did not want us to come, you remember. It has not been a bit of a lark, either. You see the minister was not saying anything about Mr. Coutts, or anything of the kind, as that suspicious old Gran thought. We must not forget to tell him that, Boston. But, I declare, I can’t face the people again. We must get Cranstown out before the sermon is done. What an awful noise he is making!” said the perplexed Esmae.

Meanwhile the shepherd and Auldearn had withdrawn themselves to a little distance, and seemed in council together. After a few moments, the tall countryman strode away back into the meeting-place again, touching his broad blue bonnet with awkward grace to Esmae as he passed.

Mr. Bruce then came forward with the big key in his hand and laid it in Esmae’s, saying, “There, now, young gentleman, is the means to lat him oot It is nae the Lord’s way til be onforgivin’. The Book tells us he is slow to anger and plentuous in mercy, and it mauna be the way o’ poor sinfu’ creatures. So ye can open the guidwife’s hen-hoose and lat oot the illest bird that was ever intilt May the Lord hae peety on the chiel and gie him a broken hert and a contrite speerit for the ill tricks he tried til play i’ the meeting o’ his saints this nicht I’se awa’ afore ye lat him oot til the licht o’ day, for I’m thinking he has maybe got a bit o’ an affront that will mak’ him no care to see the sicht o’ a Netherley face for mony a day.”

Thank you, Auldearn; you have behaved like a brick, and no mistake,” said Esmae warmly, as he held out his hand frankly. A tear glistened in the old man’s eye as he laid his labour-stained palm in the lad’s kindly grasp.

Boston folded his arms surlily and retreated a step. It is doubtful, however, whether Auldearn noticed the repelling gesture, for he seemed anxious to hurry away to avoid witnessing the release of the ignoble captive. Esmae walked immediately towards the hen-house door, from where a most discordant chorus was still issuing. Pushing the big key into the lock with all his might, he flung it open. Amid the loud flappings and cacklings of the scared fowls Mr. Lewis Cranstown stepped forth. He glanced round him somewhat dazed, surprised evidently to find no one about except his companions. “Where have all the confounded brood gone? I shall pay them out yet, the last man of them. I shall begin with the villain who tripped me up before I had a chance of flooring him. He shall have his quietus at once, at all events; ” and excitedly clenching his fist, he went forward some steps towards the barn-door.

“Stop, Cranstown; you must not go there again. You shall not, I say,” cried Esmae, laying his hand on the young man’s arm. “You are not able to fight that big shepherd, I know. Besides, you brought it all on yourself. The people in this part of the country will not stand that kind of thing.”

“What kind of thing, you little—” and then Mr. Lewis paused and bit his lip, for he belonged to the type of man who does not readily forget when he is speaking to the heir of one of the best landed estates in the county.

Esmae’s face flushed, and he said with simple dignity, which Boston noted, and its memory dwelt with him for long, “Well, Cranstown, you are an older man than I am and should know better; but, I must say, I think you have not behaved quite like—well, quite like a man to-night And if you are to make any more trouble at that meeting, I’ll tell you what it is, I am not going to stand by and see it; ” and folding his arms, the boy walked away. But after a step or two he turned back and said, “Of course, Cranstown, I am not going to peach about all this rumpus to the governor or anybody else. We shall never say a word about it; shall we, Boston? ”

“I am sure I was not saying I would; but it will be beastly awkward,” muttered Boston, looking down.

Mr. Cranstown, junior, meanwhile took refuge in sulks, and turning away, he began to look for his setters. He found them cowering close to the gable of the hen-house, and they proved a convenient safety-valve for his pitiless wrath.

Just then there rose from the bam the first notes of the concluding song of praise, from the Scotch metrical version of the Psalms. Mr. Falconer had evidently abolished the jarring interruption of giving out the line. And, indeed, it was not necessary; there were few among his audience who had not known as a familiar strain since childhood the strong, holy words which fell sweetly and solemnly now on the still air around the steading:—

“That man hath perfect blessedness
Who walketh not astray In counsel of ungodly men,
Nor stands in sinners’ way,
Nor sitteth in the soorner’s chair:
But placeth his delight Upon God’s law, and meditates
On his law day and night.”

The sound of the music had hardly died away when the swift trot of the Rinaultrie horses was heard on the road, and a groom came hurrying towards the young sportsmen to say that Mr. Burnett and his party had left the Oassilis Arms for home, and that Mr. Esmae and his friends were desired to follow without delay. The summons was welcome. Very soon the young men were being carried swiftly along the highroad to Asloune, a rather silent trio.

The laird and his elderly guests had already begun dinner when the young men took their seats at the table. Conversation had flowed into other channels, leaving the bam oonventicle behind, and no questions were asked regarding it, much to the relief of the younger portion of the party. Mr. Lewis Crans-town began to recover his spirits wonderfully, and succeeded in amusing his elders with various anecdotes gathered from his favourite haunts. Boston listened to all the talk and laughter in keen, watchful silence. Only Esmae showed symptoms of being less gay than usual “What ails you, little lad) Have you overdone your tramp on the moors! ” said his father, glancing down the table at him and sending Mr. Duff to replenish his glass. Then only, the major, who had been capping Lewis Cranstown’s stories, directed some conversation to Esmae, which threatened to touch uncomfortable details, bringing a quick flush to Esmae’s face, and causing Mr. Lewis to relapse into moody silence for some momenta Boston began to feel very sleepy after so many unaccustomed hours spent in the keen moorland air. He would have been nothing loath to have retired to bed had anybody suggested it; but Mr. Lewis Cranstown became more markedly vivacious as the minutes Bped by, and Esmae, too, looked brighter since the risk seemed to become less of any cross-questioning as to the earlier events of the evening. Moreover, it was a recent privilege that Esmae should join his father and his friends at late dinner, and the laird seemed always anxious that he should retire after the cloth had been removed and the old decanters in their massive silver stands were sent sliding up and down the dark shining mahogany. Perhaps it was polite consideration for his two young guests which made Mr. Burnett forego his wishes on the present occasion. The decanters had made various journeys along the polished table, Mr. Duff had borne in an ancient silver kettle replenished with boiling water for ample toddy-making, but still Esmae was not sent away.

Voices were getting louder and thicker than they had been in the earlier part of the evening. Major Innes grew almost riotous in his talk; but he moved his chair nearer the upper part of the table, where his host sat, so he no longer indulged in jokes about Esmae’s sleepy eyes. Kind mother Nature, however, came at length, with gentle fingers, and folded the safe curtain of sleep round the wearied boy. How long he slept he knew not, but when he raised his head from the table on which he had been leaning, it was to see the first glimmerings of the gray dawn beginning to steal in at the long, deep, uncurtained windows of the old dining room. One or two of the candles in the tall candelabra ranged on the table still burnt feebly near their sockets, but it was only to add to the general dreariness which seemed to reign. Esmae, for a moment con-fuBed by his surroundings, uttered a little cry of surprise, breaking the silence which reigned now at the festive board. Presently he perceived that he was not the only one who had made the old dining-room serve as their sleeping-place that night. To be sure Mr. Cranstown and his son were not among the number. They had found comfortable quarters in some of the many guest-chambers of the castle; and Boston had also taken himself off to his bed. But the major was snoring lustily with unfastened necktie in the vicinity of his chair. The light from a candelabrum flickered in Mr. Gordon’s neighbourhood, and revealed him sleeping heavily with his head on the table. The host himself had been fast asleep in his arm-chair; but his son’s voice seemed to rouse him. Suddenly starting to his feet, he glanced round and caught sight of Esmae’s pale, wistful face. With a muttered exclamation, he strode forward, and Esmae felt his hand trembling as he laid it on his head. After a moment he lifted the boy in his strong arms, saying, in a broken voice,—

“My little lad—my Mary’s bairn, are you still here? Have you been looking on at this fine exhibition of us? I must have been far gone, indeed, before I forgot to send you away out of sight and sound of all this.”

Silently he bore the still half-sleeping Esmae in his arms up the broad staircase and along dim corridors until he reached the little bedroom where the heir of Rinaultrie had slept since his babyhood.

“Say your prayers, my boy, and get to bed,” said Mr. Burnett in a husky tone, laying his hand tenderly on his son’s head for a moment as he turned to go.

But Esmae was thoroughly awake now. Going to the tall window of his room, he seated himself in its deep embrasure and watched the coming of the day. He did not “say his prayers;” but the wistful questionings, the new hopes, the new fears which flitted across the boy’s mind as he sat pondering while he watched the brightening dawn, were these not borne as true prayer in a time of need to the heart of Him who does not forsake the work of His own hands?

CHAPTER V
Boston At Home.

“Send a horse to the water, yell no mak’ him drink;
Send a fool to the college, ye’ll no mak’ him think;
Send a craw to the singin’, and still he will craw;
And the wee laird had nae rumelgamshon ava.”

“Well, mother, it has come at last! I do believe this is what you have been waiting for all these months, though you would not admit it,” cried Boston Burnett as he walked in at the door of his home, which had just been opened for him by his mother. He stood for a moment on the mat shaking from his jacket the clinging flakes from the heavy snowfall which was whitening the twilight; and then hurrying into the dimly-lighted sitting-room, he drew a letter from his pocket and looked at it with a gratified air.

“You are quite wet, my boy. You must change before you sit down. What has become of your greatcoat?” asked his mother, glancing anxiously at him, instead of evincing any interest in his news.

“Oh, bother my greatcoat! I forgot it in one of the classrooms. The fact is, mother, I have been in such spirits about getting this letter that I can think of nothing else. See, here it is! It is addressed to you. I have not opened it yet; but I know what it is about It is from my uncle Burnett Quick, open it, mother! ”

Mrs. Burnett was a little, timid, tremulous woman, with faded rosy cheeks, dimmed fair hair, and eyes full of tears which always seemed ready to fall, but seldom did. She glanced at the letter which had been put into her hand.

“My dear boy, I do wish you were not so taken up with these Rinaultrie people. Why should Mr. Burnett be sending letters to me? I am sure I never troubled him,” she said in a complaining voice.

“Mother! I do think you are downright ungrateful in the way you always speak of everything connected with Rinaultrie. What can Mr. Burnett have to say to you, forsooth? Why, is he not your brother-in-law? ” said Boston hotly.

Mrs. Burnett glanced at her son with an air of perplexed anxiety, and was silent for a moment Then she said slowly,—

“Yes, Boston, it is quite true. Mr. Burnett’s brother was my husband, as my marriage lines can prove; but think how little he was a relative that anybody could be proud of. You are too young, my boy, to know about these things, and I would fain have kept all such evil knowledge from you for many a day yet You know it was not my fault that you got to know all about my troubles. I am sure I never talked to you about the Burnetts, nor put it into your head to be so much taken up with them,” she added in a tone which had a ring of self-defence in it “But, mother, that is just exactly what I complain of—that you are not more taken up about them. Have I not told you hundreds of times that my uncle seems quite willing to forget what a black sheep my father was, and wants to be as nice and kind as possible, and so does everybody up there. Of course I will not deny,” he added gloomily, “it is hard to have been kept out of one’s family rights so long—never till now to have had any advantage of being a Burnett of Rinaultrie; to have been hidden away in this low city den so many years, while Esmae has had all the privileges of such a fine life, and has grown up in the midst of lots of things that I shall never be able to get my hand into now; for I must put my shoulder to the wheel and grind ever so hard, if I want to gain my proper position in society. I might have had a very different lot even as the laird’s nephew, if you had only played your cards better and made known your arrival when you came to settle in Edinburgh. But we need not worry about the past)” he added philosophically, as he glanced towards his mother, who sat with drooping head listening to his reproaches. Besides, things are coming all right now when my uncle has written to you himself asking you to spend the Christmas holidays with me at the castle. The letter came in Esmae’s packet this morning. Come, mother, you actually have not opened it yet”

“So that is what the letter is about,” said Mrs. Burnett, taking it from her lap, where it lay, and breaking the big seal “But that matter was decided long ago, Boston. I am sure I told Master Esmae as plain as could be, that though it was very kind of him to be so pressing, I could not think of going on a visit to their place. I am not fit for it”

“Oh, that is all bosh! I do wish you would not be so abominably humble,” cried Boston, fairly irritated now. “And have I not begged you, mother, not to call Esmae ‘Master’? You have no idea how odd it sounds. Why, you are his aunt! ”

“Very true. I am his aunt by marriage,” said Mrs. Burnett; “but you know, my boy—only there is no use speaking to you, for you always get angry at me when I remind you of the truth,” she added pausing.

“Oh yes, of course; I know you are going to lick the dust, as usual, and tell me that though Richard Burnett, my father, belonged to one of the oldest families in Scotland, you, my mother, are of humble birth. I have accepted these facts. I am sure I may, for they have been well dinned into my ears,” he said bitterly. “But, mother, will you not listen to me when I tell you that a woman takes her husband’s rank, and that though my father may have been a blackguard—as I suppose he must, if all tales be true—yet you have a perfect right, by virtue of his birth, to visit anywhere. Besides, just think how often you have been pressed to go to Rinaultrie within the last two years. Do you think my uncle would ask you if he did not want you? But you are not going to be so foolish any more,” he added, trying to use persuasiveness.

“Well, it is a very kind letter; I will say that,” sighed Mrs. Burnett, handing it to her son. “They have really behaved very handsomely to you, Boston. I am sure I hope you will always show a grateful spirit; and Master—or Esmae, am I to say? is really one of the most winning lads I have ever seen in my life. May he be kept from evil ways and bad companions; but I suppose he takes after his good father,” added Mrs. Burnett simply, following her own train of thought, which led her to recall a Burnett whom it was not desirable that anybody should “take after.”

Boston indulged in a little bitter smile as he listened, but he made no remark. Repression was his favourite virtue, and he was proud of his success in the practice of it. He had an air of stronger health and a manner considerably more assured than when he made the acquaintance of Rinaultrie two years previously. All, indeed, had been going prosperously with him. He had finished with honours his course at the High School, and was now a student at the University. His autumn holiday had again been spent at Rinaultrie, and he felt much more at home among his surroundings there, and entered with greater zest into all his rural pleasures, than he had done the previous year. His happiness, indeed, at one time threatened to be impaired by the presence of his rival in Esmae’s affections—Kenneth Maxwell—who had also been an invited guest; but he had been obliged to change his plans, and accompany an old friend of his father’s on a foreign tour. The only way, therefore, in which Kenneth darkened Boston’s horizon was when a long pleasant letter reached Rinaultrie and was bailed with glee by Esmae, who carried the precious document about with him, extricating it every now and then from the involvements of fishing-tackle or shooting-gear, to revel in its contents. And then it had to be replied to; and as Esmae was not a ready letter-writer, like his friend, occasionally the morning devoted to the reply was one in which Boston particularly wanted his companionship. Once or twice, too, Mr. Burnett took the rare trouble of reading Kenneth’s travelling chronicles, pronouncing them capital letters, and prophesying that Maxwell would make his mark in his day; and then the remark was sure to follow,—

“You must get him up here next vacation, my lad; I should like to see something more of him.”

It is sad to acknowledge that these were little drops of gall in Boston’s cup of gladness. But so it was. And now no intervening seas lay between these two. They were seated on the same benches in the college classes—sons of the same Alma Mater, who called them to climb together, as brethren in unity, the pleasant academic heights up which she was leading them.

To Kenneth Maxwell that calm maternal voice came as a moulding influence for mind and soul Not merely was he an earnest student, spending his days and weeks in bookworm labour, in bare striving after those acquisitions which would attract the eye and fetch their price; rather was it as entering into a wondrous kingdom,

“Where all he met was fair and good,

And all was good that time could bring;

And all the secret of the spring Moved in the chambers of his blood.”

Nor was Boston’s soul wholly unstirred by purer thoughts and aspirations during these early days of his student life. One element, however, which had great force in young Maxwell’s growth was entirely missing in his—that of frank, hearty, loyal companionship with those of his own age. Boston was a solitary soul at a time when, of all others, young hearts are generally bound to each other by common sympathy in their outlook on their untrodden path of life; and as iron sharpeneth iron, mind and intellect are made to flash and glow by contact with congenial spirits. Self-centred hopes and plans were his boon companions. The taint of self-ambition had, indeed, already stained and chilled the “chambers of his blood.” He had companionship with Esmae Burnett, it is true; but then there was an arriere-pensee running through it all, though possibly even Boston himself could not have gauged the state of this friendship.

Still less was it analyzed by the frank, affectionate boy who sat side by side with Kenneth and Boston, but who, from different causes from those which influenced his cousin, did not respond to the academic privileges. A year younger than either of his friends, Esmae had been eager to matriculate at the same time as they did, for the sole reason of sharing their companionship, as he could not have done if he had been still outside. He had not, however, reached the stage of scholarship in which he could reap the advantages which a university training offers, and the additional freedom which it gave him proved far from beneficial. A play-loving schoolboy at heart still, it indeed only granted to him a dangerous license to be more idle than formerly. And though Boston and Maxwell were his chief friends, he had numbers of other associates with whom his gay frankness and generosity of disposition made him a favourite: He was, in fact, on familiar terms with a circle of whom his two friends, for different reasons, knew almost nothing, except that they were men to be avoided.

This state of matters was an active trouble to Kenneth Maxwell, with whose love for Esmae there mingled a protective kind of tenderness which belonged to his nature. Sometimes when any of his intimates shook their heads over his friend, and remarked that “young Burnett was taking up with a bad set,” Kenneth would argue that it was Esmae’s wide sympathies which made him hail-fellow-well-met with such different types of men; and, indeed, in many cases, Kenneth happened to know as a fact that it was from mere good-nature that Esmae allowed himself to be taken possession of by associates whom he would never have sought from choice.

But notwithstanding Kenneth’s loyal defence, he had often been gravely anxious about his wayward friend during the past months. Far from acquiring anything from the college classes, there was indeed truth in Esmae’s own light assertion that he knew less than when he was sent forth from Asloune furnished by the worthy parish schoolmaster. Lately, too, he had begun to rail hotly at that which formed the staple of their studies at the university—the classics. Kenneth, to be sure, in his discussions with his friend on the vexed question, always recognized echoes from the talk of that outer circle which sought to claim him; and when he got’ possession of him for a quiet evening, it was a real joy to find that there were still many responsive chords in Esmae’s heart which beat true to all that was lovely and of good report; that his eye still kindled when he read to him from his own well-worn Homer, or talked of the brave days of old. For Kenneth was a fervent seeker after goodly pearls in the realms of thought; and that Esmae should share in his quest, should enter the kingdom of those “dead but sceptred sovereigns that still rule our spirits from their urns,” was what he fancied, in those eager student days, to be all his friend needed to make him good and wise.

To Boston, Esmae’s gay disparagement of his present studies only drew forth a sneer. “What a fool he is to let those days slip by as he is doing,” was his frequent thought as he bent his solitary steps to his upper chamber in the Old Town of Edinburgh, leaving his cousin full of some pleasure-seeking scheme for beguiling the evening, which by him was reserved for studious toil, though of a kind more joyless than that which Kenneth Maxwell knew.

“But why should Esmae Burnett have everything?” he used to ask himself. “Was it not a fair compensation for destiny to arrange that while she. lavished on one the gifts of fortune, position, and many nameless privileges which had gathered round Esmae since his birth, on him, the poor, meek-minded widow’s son, she had bestowed the clever, cool head to work in the rich present and to plan for the richer future?”

The same comforting philosophy could not, however, apply in his soliloquies concerning Kenneth Maxwell Things which fortune in small measure had given to him seemed to have been lavished on young Maxwell, not merely in the externals of birth and position, but in a store of mental gifts and the will and wisdom to use them, and also in a certain nameless charm which seemed to surround them; for Kenneth appeared able to throw a glow of enthusiasm round the driest tasks, which made them not only pleasanter to himself, but gave him a power of casting a glamour over them for others. A peculiarly graceful and ready address and a strong, carelessly-melodious tenor voice were among his possessions not the least envied by Boston. He scowled as he thought of them now, for he remembered that he would have to come in contact with his rival later in the evening.

In moody silence he seated himself at the tea-table, which his mother had just been arranging for their frugal repast at an earlier hour than usual; for he had an appointment which would take him out again to the snowy streets.

It was a debating society connected with the university, chiefly frequented by the more advanced students. Kenneth Maxwell was one of its youngest members, having joined it shortly after he entered on his first session at college. He happened to have one or two intimates among the older men, and from them had got some glimpse of the inner circle, which seemed a charmed one to his youthful imagination. For this society had some loyal lovers among its frequenters, who took a pride in keeping up its historical prestige, and who held it dear as part of their innermost academic life.

In the versatile young Maxwell they perceived the making of an efficient member; nor were they disappointed. Already his voice was familiar in these eager debates—

“When each by turns was guide to each,

And Fancy light from Fancy caught;

And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought,

Ere Thought could wed itself to Speech.”

It was only since the beginning of the present session that Boston had become enrolled as a member of this society. Though his being so was the fulfilling of an eager desire, still it must be confessed that, as yet, he felt his connection with it more a yoke to be borne than a privilege to be enjoyed. There was, certainly, no eagerness on his part to search and sift those mysteries of life which presented themselves with such intensity to some who gathered there. But with the calculating wisdom which characterized him, Boston perceived that it was a valuable discipline for him; that its influences were precisely of the kind which he lacked, and which no amount of solitary “grinding” could bring to him. Considering, however, his state of feeling towards one of the most favourite members of the “Dialectic,” it may be wondered that he did not prefer to connect himself with some other meeting of the kind. But the truth is, that the very fact of his rival’s presence there proved an additional attraction, alloyed by bitternesses though it was. As yet a silent and constrained member, he thought with quickened pulses that the time might come when courage and power should be given him to open his lips, and discernment to confute some of those opinions so airily laid down by Kenneth Maxwell and his set Such was the distorted point of view from which he regarded this fervid gathering, though as yet his disingenuous spirit was unguessed by those with whom he sat side by side.

“Does Mr. Es—the lad Burnett I mean, go to these meetings!” asked Mrs. Burnett timidly as she scraped some butter on her toast “Oh, hardly ever. Maxwell did get him dragged in as a member; but he never attends. It is not in Esmae’s line,” replied Boston carelessly.

“So you won’t see him to-night, then,” said Mrs. Burnett musingly. “Then perhaps the best plan will be for you to ask him to step up here one evening soon and have a cup of tea with us. You have often wanted to ask him, you know.”

“Possibly; but I do not want to ask him now. How can we have anybody—even our near relations—to visit us as long as we are living in this horrid den!”

“Ah, my boy, I mind the day when you would not have called these nice rooms bad names like that. You maybe have forgotten, but I have not, how you said, when we were driving in a cab from the wharf to this, ‘ O mother, is he going to drive us up this steep hill to the tall houses there % Wouldn’t it be splendid to live so near the sky “Well, I suppose I have grown not quite so fond of celestial regions as I was when a small boy, that is all,” said Boston with a grim smile. “But as to asking Esmae here, I decline,” he added boldly, having perceived the innocent little plot which his mother had hatched as the easiest method of declining the unwelcome invitation of the laird of Rinaultrie.

“Besides, Esmae has never a spare evening now. He has ever so many gaieties on hand. An evening spent with us would seem a very dull affair compared with the festive scenes he is used to. By the way, he is to be at the Cranstowns’ tonight They have arranged their Christmas dinner five weeks earlier in order to have Esmae there. I heard Lewis Crans-town flattering Esmae about it yesterday. They have been awfully civil to him lately. I suppose they think it pays to be gracious to the future laird of Rinaultrie; but they have never taken the slightest notice of me,’ added Boston gloomily. “And yet Mr. Cranstown made quite a fuss with me when we met at the castle, said he meant to call and see you, and asked our address several times; but I thought he would not remember, as he never made a note of it in his pocket-book, as I noticed he did about things which it was important that he should keep in mind. But perhaps he was ashamed to be seen coming to a place like this. Only, I think, he might have had the civility to take some notice after I called. But that comes of not having visiting-cards, perhaps. I really think I must get a packet I shall have my name printed on them of course. I noticed that the stationer where I buy my notebooks advertises them. But that horrid name of mine will look such a fright O mother, whatever made you and my father call me so! It was such an odd idea to take the name of the town where I happened to be bora.”

“I am sure we thought it a very grand idea, and a very nice name,” said Mrs. Burnett with an air of mild defence.

“Mr. Boston Burnett Well, so be it. I need not put our address though; when that is, necessary, I can add it in pencil, you know. Yes, I think I shall order them at the shop tonight as I pass, if it is not shut”

“Oh, I think I would not have the ‘Mr, if I were you. Surely everybody does not put that on their calling-cards.” “Well, really, mother, you are a joka I wonder where your humble-mindedness will lead you. I believe you will die of a new disease called enlargement of the bump of humility, just as people are said to die of enlargement of the heart,” said Boston with a laugh as he rose from the tea-table and went towards the fire, where his careful mother had suspended, for airing purposes, a greatcoat which, in the absence of his wearing one, she had excavated from a box of old clothes; for she was a careful as well as a humble soul, Mrs. Bichard Burnett After lovingly helping her son to don the coat, she went to open the door for him, and stood watching him as he went down the long flight of stairs. Then with a sigh she resumed her seat at the fireside, murmuring, “Oh my poor dear boy! if he were not so masterful, and if only he were not so taken up with these Burnetts.”

Boston, meanwhile, did not foiget his resolve to provide himself with a supply of visiting-cards. After having examined the various types shown him by the stationer, and selected one, he proceeded to write on a slip of paper the order for the card-plate.

By mistake he wrote his surname twice over instead of his despised Christian nama “How well it looks, though; and I have seen double names. I am sure I read of a Sir Neville Neville the other day. Suppose I let it stand Esmae may chaff me, but I can easily talk him over; besides, he sympathizes with my dislike of Boston; and if that prig Maxwell says a word, I shall hint to him that if he had such a good name he might follow my exampla Yes, the initials are the same, and it will be a flrstrate way of getting rid of that odious name. It actually looks better without the ‘ Mr.’ after alL So mother is right for once.”

With a feeling of considerable secret gratification he handed to the stationer the slip with the alliterative title of “Burnett Burnett” to be graven on his card-plate, and then he went briskly on his way to the debating society.

CHAPTER VI
A Meettng In The Snowdrift.

“By her exulting outride look of youth
And placid under countenance first endeared.”
Wordsworth.

A black frost had bound the valley of Asloune for several days. Furious winds followed a heavy fall of snow, and their eddyings swept it hither and thither, tearing it up and casting it down in great mounds, changing the face of the familiar country so that it was hardly recognizable. Even those best acquainted with the roads could only guess at the direction of some of them, and it was the easiest thing in the world to lose one’s way even in broad daylight. Passages were made by unemployed labourers, glad of the occupation, through some of the deeper snowdrifts, or “wreaths” as they are called in Scotland. In the immediate neighbourhood of the village little foot-tracks grew out of the necessities of locomotion It would be several days before vehicles could pass, or coach communication- be resumed; but to be able to move about at all, even within a narrow radius, was a great boon to some. None were more eager to take advantage of it than Mary Cassilis. For several days 6he had been obliged to content herself with watching the storm from the windows of the Mirkwood parlour. But to-day the semi-darkness with which the falling flakes had shrouded everything was replaced by a flood of sunshine. The whole country shone with a dazzling whiteness which was exhilarating to the young and strong, though it seemed to produce an opposite effect on the aged Miss Cas-silis resolutely turned her back on it Her high-backed elbow-chair had been removed from its wonted angle near the window to a point where she had, at all events, a side view—a great concession for her—of the crackling logs with which the big shining grate was glowing.

Miss Cassilis had frequently remarked during the storm that she could not understand why it seemed such a favourite occupation of her niece to stand for an hour gazing out dreamily on the snowy landscape; and since the beginning of the heavier fall of snow, she had strenuously resisted Mary’s frequently expressed wish to explore the wonderful new white world On the previous afternoon, however, Mr. Burnett came to inquire after the ladies of Mirkwood, looking like a big snow giant in his great dreadnought coat besprinkled with feathery flakes. Mary’s longing to escape from the dulness of the old house belonged to the class of desires with which the young-hearted laird could fully sympathize. He assured Miss Cassilis that her niece and her pony might have a most safe and improving constitutional along many of the beaten tracks. As Mary listened she thought she felt as grateful to him as the inmates of the ark might when Noah’s dove returned with the olive-branch.

But before Mr. Burnett left, the brief bright day was done, and the low, red sunset had begun to peer over the western pine-woods. So Mary had been unable to use her restored liberty till the following day. Even as she stood all ready for her ride, an impediment presented itself in the form of a message from James, the old Mirkwood coachman, who acted as her groom, and who declared himself to be “unca bad wi’ the rheumatiz,” which being translated, Mary knew, meant that this ancient authority lodged his protest against the proposed ride. But as her nimble pony Jet brought forward no reasons, sophistical or the reverse, for remaining in his stall, and as he had been duly “frosted ” for the occasion, Mary contrived to prove to her aunt that at all events, for such a restricted ramble as this must be, Jet and she could sufficiently protect each other. She had, indeed, nothing more adventurous in view than a call on Miss Margaret; or perhaps a visit to Donald Reid, if anybody had been benevolent enough to make a path to his solitary cottage. But even familiar ongoings had something of the nature of an adventure on such a morning as this, Mary thought, as she guided Jet’s cautious steps along the foot-track leading from the old house and looked round on the radiant scene. A bright gleam of sunshine greeted her; and suddenly the silence was broken by a joyous burst of music from a whole choir of blackbirds hard by. Never did birds’ voices sound more jubilant, Mary thought; and yet they must have had hard times of it lately, in spite of the rations of crumbs which had been duly strewn for them about the deep mullioned windows. It was a song of hope surely, of joy in the good time coming.

The progress of the two seasons which had changed her playmate Esmae and his friends from High School boys into undergraduates had not been without their transforming influences on Mary Cassilis. With her, indeed, there had been little external or marked change. Her golden gates of childhood had not been closed with any rough, sudden jar—any shock from the outside world, any stroke of God which so often meets the young on the threshold of life and thrusts them forth from the sheltering roof into the thorns and thistles of the wilderness.

Still, the “stealthy day by day ” had wrought a great changa It was not merely growing as boys grow. There had come a positive, and, to some onlookers, a perplexing, change. The little girl “so near the ground” was gone. Not that she had grown so much taller, though noticeably more graceful. Her face, fine and delicate in form, still told of abundance of good health and spirits; but about the mouth specially, singular suggestions of sensitiveness and a sort of placid wisdom seemed to dwell in her short and exquisitely curved upper lip; and her low, sweet forehead and deep gray eyes told of a power of quiet thought. For if Mary, in her simple country home, had misBed some of the supposed advantages of a town-bred girl, she had in her lonely wanderings been laying up, not only a store of bodily and mental health, but of resources for thought and feeling, of secret understandings with nature, and eveiything simple and pure and strong through nature.

“The bairn is not herself now-a-days,” was Miss Cassilis’s comment when Miss Margaret glided into the oak parlour in the gloaming, and often by a little talk unobtrusively cheered its proud and lonely inmate. Having no store of gossip like her elder sister, the conversation generally turned towards the strongest link of interest between them. Miss Margaret used to smile—her gentle, half-mysterious smile—when Miss Cassilis spoke of Mary. “That is not how I would put it,” she would reply with a quiet assurance of manner which she never assumed about everyday matters. For Miss Margaret was a bit of a philosopher, and to watch the subtle changes which took place in some of her young pupils at each step towards womanhood was one of her favourite mental pursuits.

There had come, too, into Mary Cassilis’s path a pleasant friendship which had done much to widen and deepen her life. She knew well where she should have liked best to turn her steps on this frosty morning, as she looked wistfully towards the snow-flecked signboard which told that it was three miles to the kirk-town of Blairton.

“The manse parlour will be looking its cosiest this morning, and it is a whole week since we have seen Mrs. Irvine. But it will not do; these terrible wreaths would swallow us up. Let us go instead and see how old Meggy is faring, and then afterwards we shall see if we can manage Donald Reid’s hill,” said Mary, stroking her pony’s glossy neck as she turned his head into a little track which had been carefully cut for Meggy Durret, the solitary occupant of the roadside cottage, a protege of Miss Cassilis; and Mary knew that her aunt would be specially glad to learn how the old woman had been faring during the storm. The Mirkwood servants had been duly charged to see to her wants, and the snow was cleared from the cottage roof, so that Meggy’s brown thatch made a welcome bit of colour in the snowy landscape, and the curling smoke which crept from the black rafters into the clear air looked suggestive of comfort But all round about the old woman’s cottage the great snow-mounds towered. The strong frost had hardened the soft fallen snow, and the huge heaps had taken picturesque shapes. They looked like grand mountain ranges in miniature, Mary thought, and she was reminded of the pleasant letters which Esmae’s friend, Kenneth Maxwell, used to send from Swiss heights during the previous autumn, deciding they must look something like this on a gigantic scale.

She paused for a moment before she turned in to Meggy’s kailyard to take another glance at the new-created scene of magical beauty, which would soon again give place to the familiar physiognomy of the valley. As 6he looked she thought she perceived something black lying between one of the great gorges of snow. It might only be a speck of brown earth which the dazzling whiteness all round made seem more prominent; but if so, it was strange that it should have escaped the general white burial.

Mary suggested to Jet that before she knocked at Meggy’s door he might go forward a few steps in order to gratify her curiosity on the point. These few steps convinced her that it was more than a patch of earth. There was something lying stiffly stretched out which looked wonderfully like a darksleeved arm, the hand of which held a black leather bag. A step further revealed a man’s figure lying on the snow. The figure was quite motionless too. If Jet could only, plough his way a little nearer to it there could be no harm in having a peep at the upturned face. Anything was better than standing doing nothing in such weather, Jet decided as he battled sturdily through the snow, till one rash plunge brought him into a deeper stratum than either he or his rider had bargained for. It landed them, however, in close neighbourhood to the object of Mary’s curiosity. But now she began to wish that she had not ventured quite so near, for the recumbent figure, probably roused by Jet’s snortings and scramblings, began to move—to stretch itself with an air of seeming comfort in spite of the cold situation. Then a broad-shouldered young man raised himself on his elbow and looked round with an air of considerable surprise on the pony and his rider.

It was now Mary’s turn to feel out of the beaten track in every sense.

“I fear your pony, like me, is finding the snow rather too much for him,” said the stranger, jumping quickly to his feet with the evident intention of coming to the assistance of the floundering Jet Touching his cap, he glanced at Mary, saying courteously, “May I help you?—if I can, that is to say. But I suspect a benighted traveller who has been foolish enough to fall asleep in the snow may not be of much use.”

“Oh, thank you; but I think Jet will manage to scramble out It is only the last step that brought us into such very deep snow. There is really quite a good path close by; ” and as she spoke Jet extricated himself deftly, and backing into safer footing looked as if he would rather quit the dangerous neighbourhood as quickly as possible; but Mary did not feel quite inclined to desert the strayed traveller at this juncture.

“Was it not very dangerous for you to be sleeping out here on such a night as last?” she said, glancing at him with an air of grave concern.

“Not sleeping exactly. The nap at which you caught me was a mistake. I did not mean to give in. I do not think I did till it was nearly morning, for I was particularly afraid of falling asleep. I kept remembering all sorts of stories of the fatal effects of going to sleep in the snow. I believe it was simply the thought of them that kept me hurrying on, each step taking me further from my destination. Can you tell me, please, in what direction the village of Blairton lies, and how far it is from this? ”

“Oh, it is exactly three miles from this to the manse. That is where you are going, I think,’’ said Mary smiling.

“Ah, you know my cousins there perhaps. Do you live at Blairton? I hardly know it at all I did once begin a visit there which was meant to be a long one, but it came to a speedy end. I had to leave after two days and hurry south to look after a small brother who grew sick at school”

“Yes, I remember very well. Esmae was so disappointed, and so was I,” said Mary simply.

“Ah, how stupid of me not to guess at once! You are Mary Cassilis, of course,” cried Kenneth, his face all aglow; “at— at least that is what Esmae always calls you. But—” then, as if deciding to refrain from the apology which was on his lips, he added with a smile, “I did see you once before, though you did not see me. It was near your house. You were standing under some old trees; but I must confess that I was a trespasser that morning.”

“Oh yes; I recollect. Esmae told me all about that You lost your way—mistook our old Mirk wood for the cast la”

“I did; but the acquaintance I have been fortunate enough to make now is hardly the little girl whom I saw playing under the old elms, Miss Cassilis,” said Kenneth, his frank, generous gray eyes resting for a moment with respectful admiration on Jet’s mistress. It pounded strange to be addressed as Miss Cassilis, and Mary felt inclined naturally to protest; but there was an indefinable something more deferential than she had been accustomed to in the manner of this young stranger which was by no means altogether unpleasant, though she became conscious of a slight constraint unfelt before. Esmae’s boisterous joy when they met after an absence had certainly nothing deferential in it. Boston, indeed, was always more studiously polite than she liked, and there were times during his last visit when his manner had momentarily jarred on her, simply from its marked graciousness; but she had never troubled to analyze it much, having accepted him as an inevitable part of the pleasant holiday time at Binaultrie.

The passing from childhood to thoughtful womanhood which Miss Margaret watched in its secret, subtle processes was recognized by Kenneth instinctively, and he gave it that homage to which he felt prompted. He had sometimes vaguely pondered what it would feel like to have as great and familiar a friend in a girl as Esmae had in Mary Cassilis. But, it must be owned, he generally came to the conclusion that such companionship would be sure to prove too slight and incomplete to be in the least attractive to him. Kenneth’s ideals of friendship were high. His ardently affectionate heart had gone out to one or two of his male friends more deeply and demonstratively than usually happens at his age. Women he had as yet only looked at in the distance. His mother died before he could remember, and he never had a sister. Most of the girls whom he chanced to meet he had, it must be admitted, set down as shallow and silly, on perhaps rather too slight premises, and was indeed inclined to view some of them with quite an unnecessary degree of youthful scorn. But there was something about this girl which Kenneth felt instantly inspired his respect, and he liked the feeling. That was how he wished to be affected to all women, if they were only worthy of it.

To hear, therefore, that this young lady was none other than Esmae’s friend, Mary Cassilis, was a pleasant surprise to him, even in the midst of his hard wayfaring experiences.

“You must be very tired—and cold and hungry too,” she said, glancing at Kenneth, who certainly began to show unmistakable traces of exhaustion.

“I do feel rather more used up than I thought; but I daresay I shall be all right again soon,” he replied, passing his hand over his aching forehead “I certainly did not know the difficulties of reaching the manse of Blairton in the month of December. Perhaps I ought to have made up my mind for a dull halt at Aberstone; but they did not in the least seem to know how long I might be kept waiting. I had a gig part of the way—a wretched affair it was. One of its wheels came off at last, and there was an end of it. Then the man who drove me said the worst of the road was over; so I set out to tramp the remainder with what I fear my cousin Irvine will call ‘youthful recklessness.’ ”

“You do not mean to say that you have walked all that way! Why, it seems a long journey even by the coach, and to walk in this storm must have been dreadful!” cried Mary.

“I do wish we were nearer Mirk wood,” she added, glancing with increased anxiety at Kenneth, whose careless smile could not conceal how blanched his lips were. She was much inclined to offer Jet’s services, but she felt sure that any such suggestion would meet with rejection from the owner of these stalwart shoulders, even in this pressing dilemma. But there was Meggy Durret’s peat fire glowing hard by.

“Why did I not think of it before?” exclaimed Mary. “You must come to Meggy’s cottage. It is close to this, and she is such a kind old woman.”

“Well, certainly that smoking chimney does look attractive in this frozen region. And I do feel cramped and chilly. Thank you for the suggestion, Miss Cassilis. I shall instantly go and cast myself on Meggy’s protection.”

As Kenneth made his way to the cottage, walking by the pony’s side, it became quite evident to him as well as to Mary that his night among the snowdrift had proved a more enfeebling experience than he fancied. Meggy, after taking in the situation as well as her deafness would allow, proceeded to get ready a restorative in the shape of a cup of tea; while Kenneth, ensconced in the ingle neuk, began to look less haggard. Mary had dismounted to make some suggestions to Meggy regarding her unexpected guest.

The smoky atmosphere of the little kitchen promised to prove conducive to the growth of friendship. Presently Mary and Kenneth found themselves engaged in a lively conversation, which was only interrupted by Jet’s impatiently signifying that he did not at all approve of being kept tied to an old woman’s gate any longer on such a sharp morning.

Kenneth remembered that, unfit as he felt for it, he had still a journey before him. Just then a ruddy ploughman, exercising his arms in flail-like fashion, went whistling along the road.

“There goes a man. That reminds me what a welcome sight a fellow-creature would have been a couple of hours since. And now that I think of it, I am still as much in need of a guide as ever. What would have become of me if you had not taken pity on me, Miss Cassilis, and introduced me to Meggy’s cosy kitchen, I do not know.”

“But you surely do not mean to walk on to Blairton now! You cannot possibly do it I have just been thinking the best plan will be to get our carriage to drive you there, if you will wait here till Jet and I go back to Mirkwood to order it,” said Mary, not without some qualms, however, as to how the suggestion would be received by the owner of the old yellow coach, which, indeed, would have proved almost as unfit for a journey through the storm as Meggy’s cottage would have been. Fortunately, Kenneth promptly declined to put it to the test, gaily assuring Mary that he felt quite equal to the walk to the manse.

“I think I shall hail that fellow to be my guide who passed by just now. He looks as if he had his foot on his native snow; so perhaps he may be able to discover his native heath underneath it, and to lead me to my destination,” said Kenneth, going to the door and beckoning to the countryman, who turned out to be himself on the way to Blairton.

After gay and grateful acknowledgments to old Meggy for her timely hospitality, and having seen Jet and his mistress start off along the safe foot-track to Mirkwbod, Kenneth turned his face towards Blairton.

When Miss Cassilis senior heard of Kenneth’s adventure, she was full of prophecies of the inevitable evil result of such a rash exploit; nor was her boding of ill long in being verified. Two days after Mary’s meeting with Esmae’s friend a note was brought to her from Mrs. Irvine, reporting their cousin’s arrival at the manse, but adding that the effects of his unfortunate journey seemed to threaten to be serious. The doctor had been sent for, she said, and they waited his coming anxiously. Mrs. Irvine concluded by saying that she wrote at her guest’s request to thank Mary for her kind befriending of the strayed traveller.

The thaw set in earlier than was expected. During the melting process the roads were almost more impassable than during the storm, and vastly more uncomfortable. After one or two unsuccessful attempts to enjoy a walk, Mary resigned herself to the Mirkwood sitting-room, or the still greater solitude of the many disused rooms of the old rambling house. Miss Margaret had caught a cold, which kept her a prisoner; bo Mary was deprived of her daily educational visits, which had now merged into almost equal and mutually interesting companionship.

Esmae, too, had not yet come to brighten this dull Christmas time: He had begun his short holiday by paying a visit to an old friend of his father. Mr. Burnett, indeed, the last time he called at Mirkwood, seemed doubtful whether he should come further north in such gloomy weather for the remainder of his vacation.

It would be a strange New-Year’s day at Rinaultrie without her old playmate to set on foot the bonfires, and be the soul of all cheerful ongoings, Mary thought. But everything seemed strange this Christmas. Little news from even the nearer outside world reached Mirkwood during these days. Miss Cassilis was once reduced to such a depth of dulness that she sent her compliments to Miss Pimie, and would she come and take tea with her?

The arrival of the post-runner had become quite an event during this long storm. Mary catching sight of him one morning as she happened to be crossing the hall, hurried to secure the Mirkwood bag; and retreating a few steps from the bitter wind which met her at the entrance door, she was examining its contents, when suddenly Esmae’s familiar tones rang through the old corridor.

“Mary, here you are—standing, too, in exactly the same place where I saw you first when you came from India ages ago I It brings back that morning so, and I had actually forgotten it I ” cried Esmae, as he hurried forward with the brightest of greetings.

It was indeed a pleasant surprise to know that her old playmate had found his way back to them in spite of all obstacles; but, somehow, Mary felt possessed by a new sensation of shyness as he came forward. Esmae, however, seemed quite im-perceptive of any change; he went on in his gay tones to make inquiries about her Aunt Grizel, and Grip, and all the old friends, in one breath.

The new air of slight constraint did not, however, escape the quick eyes of Esmae’s companion. “She is changed. It is not only that she has grown older as we have; but there is something more. What is it?” was Boston’s reflection as he followed her into the oak parlour.

Miss C&ssilis welcomed the lads with her usual stately kindness, bestowing, perhaps, more than her wonted share on Boston, who was always considerately polite and attentive to the elder lady of Mirkwood. He found, indeed, special reflected favour in her eyes on this occasion from the fact that his mother had had the good feeling and discretion to decline the invitation to Rinaultrie with which she had been favoured a fortnight previously. The letter which she addressed to the laird on the subject, and which he had shown to his old friend, had evinced a spirit of meekness which gratified the attached intimate of the Burnetts; and she finally decided that poor Richard’s widow must be, after all, a person of a becoming spirit Boston certainly felt considerably more flattered by Miss Cassilis’s accession of graciousness than he would have done had he guessed its source. That he had not been able to succeed in bracing his timid mother to the effort of taking her rightful place among his father’s relatives was still a rankling thorn to him. He had, however, resolved to banish the thought of it as much as possible during his brief holiday, and to enter in with all zest to the winter pleasures of Rinaultrie. Everything seemed to him on this morning peculiarly to favour his so doing.

There was in the neighbourhood another household whom he felt greatly pleased to rank among his acquaintances, though they were very recent ones. His visiting-cards had already proved of social value. A few days after he had left one for Mrs. Cranstown, there had found its way to his rooms a smart invitation-card, asking the pleasure of Mr. Burnett’s company on a certain evening. During that entertainment Mrs. Cranstown had bestowed some specially gracious words on him, and had referred to the pleasure which she would have in meeting him shortly in the country. And so it happened that as they walked along, Boston had induced Esmae to plan a call with him on the new tenants of Netherley House later in tho day. His little project was, however, destined to receive a check.

“You young men have contrived to find your way to the country in a more sensible way than your friend, the minister of Blairton’s cousin,”’ remarked Miss Cassilis, looking with marked approval on her guests as she spoka “Kenneth Maxwell I You do not mean to say he is at Blairton? Oh, I say, that is awfully jolly !”

“Well, I have my doubts if he thinks so, Esmaa He is ill, I belie va And no wonder, after his foolish conduct!” said Miss Cassilis.

“O Esmae! you do not know then? I thought you would know all about it, how ill he is and all,” broke in Mary, in an eager, anxious tone, which did not escape Boston’s notice. Was she going to come under his spell as Esmae had done? he thought angrily, as he listened in silence while Mary narrated her meeting with Kenneth in the snowdrift, amid Esmae’s sympathetic comments, grave or gay.

When she had finished, Esmae started up impulsively, saying he must ride across at once to Blairton to inquire after his sick friend.

“And this will only be the beginning of it,” thought Boston with bitterness. “There will be nothing except comings and goings to Blairton now,” was his angry reflection as Esmae said a hurried good-bye to Miss Cassilis and Mary, and, putting his arm in his, walked him rapidly down the old staircase, full of preoccupation concerning his sick friend.

“But, Esmae,” expostulated Boston, “you have surely forgotten that we planned to go to Netherley this afternoon. The Cranstowns will think it strange, I am sure, if you do not calL Mrs. Cranstown was complaining to me that you so seldom went to see them in Edinburgh.”

“Oh, bother the Cranstowns! What does it matter about them? I must go at once and see how old Ken is. What a fellow, to think of trying to walk from Aberstone in that storm! But I am awfully glad he is here; the governor will see him at last. And, Boston, I am sure you will come to like Maxwell just as much as I do when you know him better, as you will in this holiday time. I know you have got a sort of prejudice against him; I can’t think why. Wait till you know him well, and you will see what an awfully good fellow he is. You will ride Captain, I suppose. You like him best, do you not? I shall take Vixen.”

Oh, thanks; but I think I shall remain at home this afternoon. I have got lots of work to do for my classes.”

“So have I, for that matter; but surely a fellow need not begin to mope over his books the first day of his holidays! ”

“Quite right, my little lad; I agree with those sentiments,” said Mr. Burnett’s deep ringing voice. He was riding along the avenue, and seemed about to Btrike off into a path which led into the pine forest, when he caught sight of Esmae and his cousin.

“! was looking for you, Esmae. I am on my way to call at Netherley. I think you had better come with me and pay your respects to the new tenants. It is a long time since you have seen the plantations, too; I am going to ride through them. There is not much sport to be got in weather like this; the moors are like marshes.”

“Oh, then, that will do nicely, daddy! Boston will go with you to Netherley instead of me,” and Esmae went on to explain his desire to reach Blairton as soon as possible.

Boston liked the idea of a ride with the laird, though his satisfaction was somewhat impaired by observing a shade of disappointment cross Mr. Burnett’s face when he discovered that it was not Esmae who was to be his companion.

But, to be sure, it was quite natural that he should prefer his son to his nephew, Boston quickly decided, with that strict reasonableness which was part of his temperament He had long since accepted the fact that his uncle, kind and generous though he uniformly was, looked on him as merely a passing guest, and always regarded him more as Esmae’s friend than as a relative.

It had not happened before during all his comings to Rin-aultrie that he had found himself for any length of time in solitary tite-b-tite with the laird, so the prospect of an hour’s ride with him felt quite an event to Boston. It seemed, however, to prove rather an uninteresting expedition after alL Mr. Burnett fell into a more silent mood than Boston had ever observed in him before. The weather was chill and dun, and progress along the slushy bridle-path was not by any means exhilarating. They had got into the dreariest part of the forests before the laird seemed at all to waken from his reverie. Glancing round him at the tall fir trunks, he said, “ What an army of big black giants they look among the snow! Fine trees, are they not, Boston) I am proud of my firs.”

But there was a sigh followed, not indicative of self-gratification. It was, indeed, a stately possession through which they were riding now—the largest forest of which the country could boast, the old forester had told Boston, who was glancing round him with a feeling of veneration on the noble battalions of pine.

“They will make a fine fortune for my little lad one day,” continued Mr. Burnett after a minute, his grave face breaking into a smile. “Not one of their heads shall be harmed in my time. The factor has more than once tried to persuade me to fell every tree of them. But we must take other ways to make the two ends meet than that. Esmae shall have Rinaultrie freer of burdens than his fathers have had it for three generations back; ” and there was a gleam lighted up his furrowed face while he spoke, as if the summer sunlight had been playing on it.

“And so my uncle’s life is spent in planning and saving for Esmae, and his deepest earthly joys are rooted in plans for’ him,” thought Boston, with a jealous pang. Was every mortal blessing, then, to be showered on the head of this thoughtless young cousin, who seemed to walk with such gay unconcern along his gift-strewn path! And if it should chance that he continued pleasure-loving, as seemed his inclination at present, the likelihood was that when’ the time came for him to reign over the broad ancestral acres, the foundation of riches laid up for him now with such romantic tenderness would vanish as the snow was now melting over hill and dale. But, after all, who could tell in this uncertain world whether this cherished heir-apparent would ever be laird of Binaultriel Had not the cruel last enemy often before now in the world’s history snatched for his prey those whose earthly prospects were the brightest?

And if anything so sad were to happen, thought Boston with quickened pulses, why, was not he also a Burnett, and the next of kin?

Yes; failing Esmae, there could be no doubt that he was heir to his uncle’s entailed estates, though the fact never seemed to have entered into anybody’s mind, nor, indeed, into his own until this moment What a wonderful new day-dream it would be in his walk through the busy streets to his poor home.

And yet he was sure he wished no harm to his cousin, he said to himself, with a kindlier glow of feeling than he had known before sweeping through his heart towards his young kinsman. He welcomed this new impulse of affection with a sort of eagerness. It was becoming—it was generous; he would foster the feeling carefully, contented with the lower place. Ah, yes; his hard life had taught him many lessons, though he was only a year older than Esmae, he thought, as a half-bitter smile crossed his thin lips. This little corner of brightness in his dull, gray horizon would be more to him than the great heaven of blue which encompassed his cousin’s path.

And so, amid all Boston’s ambitious thoughts concerning his connection with the ancient house, it was reserved for this morning’s ride to be the birthday of a new idea which was to form in future the corner-stone of his castle-building.

How vividly stamped upon his memory was the very spot in which it leapt into his thoughts, like the sudden flash from a torch illumining a gloomy path; or was it not rather as the smouldering spark which was to set on fire the whole man?

The dim gray sky overhead; the bridle-path through the silent, solemn pine wood; the majestic trees, with their dark interlacing boughs, from which the snow was falling in rustling masses; the great forest floor, looking of wider expanse with its white carpeting than it did in its autumnal glory;— every line of the scene became stereotyped to his mental vision in all after days.

“What a dismal day this is, to be sure; I declare it gives one the blues,” said Mr. Burnett with a shrug. “I wish we had chosen the turnpike to Netherley, instead of this. It is dull work for you, Boston, plodding along this slushy little path when you might have had a good gallop along the highroad. The snow has almost disappeared here now. It has always attractions for me this path, even on such a day as this. But I can hardly expect you to be interested in my firs.”

“Why?” was Boston’s quick, indignant, though unspoken query.

If only the little word had been echoed through the woodland silence, it might have elicited a reply salutary to Boston.

He was, indeed, quite correct in thinking that Mr. Burnett regarded him mainly as his son’s chosen friend, and thus made him warmly welcome at Rinaultrie. That he happened to be his brother Richard’s son was a circumstance which, had he been sounded on the point, he would have confessed he would rather forget. When his old friend Miss Cassilis upbraided him for having admitted into the family circle any link with one who had been so justly expelled from it, the laird replied that it was a hard doctrine that the sins of the father should be visited on the children; and though certainly “Black Dick,” as his evil brother used to be called among the country folks, could hardly have claimed a place for any child of his at Binaultrie after all that had come and gone, yet the little lad had decided the matter by bringing Boston thither, and as long as Esmae cared to have him he would prove a welcome guest.

Miss Cassilis was certainly now entirely won over to her old friend’s theory on the point which at first she had been inclined to dispute so keenly. In fact, the last time Mr. Burnett called at Mirkwood she spoke some laudatory words concerning Boston which occurred to him now.

“Let me see, Boston. This is your second year at the university, is it notl And you have got on very creditably, I hear —been much more diligent than my little lad,” he said kindly.

“Oh, but you must remember I was earlier at the High School than Esmae, and I am a year older, too.”

“Ah yes. Well, to be sure, that does make a difference,” nodded the laird, not unwilling to accept the suggested excusei “But I do not think my boy will ever take to learning very ploddingly. He is not wanting in good parts—nobody ever said that; but I suspect he will never be a great scholar. Indeed, I confess I am not over-anxious that he should be much given to book lore. Rinaultrie will make plenty of wholesome work for him, especially in the flourishing state I hope to be able to leave it to him by a little self-denial on my part He can gather plenty of lore from its woods and hill& But you, Boston, should you not be thinking of one of the learned professions, since you are such a diligent student? What do you say to the Church, by the way? Some day we can give you a lift there, you know,—and there are worse livings than the parish of Asloune. The glebe is one of the best bits of land on my estate, and Gordon has farmed it well. You might have to wait a while for that, of course. But Gordon is getting into years, like myself; and we old fellows must make way soon for you young ones. And you would be quite as sure of getting the presentation in Esmae’s day as in mine; that I will answer for. The little lad likes you well, and he is not the sort to change. But I have been thinking lately that the parson would be none the worse of an assistant at once. These attacks of gout come on so often now that he really cannot put in an appearance in the pulpit every Sabbath. Besides, to tell the truth, sermon-making was never Gordon’s strong point; he is best on the moors. Some of the good folk round about are beginning to complain, too. Haugh gave me a hint about it the other day. Yes, Boston, I fancy that by the time you are ready for Asloune, it will be more than ready for you.”

“Thank you, sir. I am sure you are very kind to have thought about it; but I have no wish to enter the Church,” replied Boston coldly.

“Ah, you have not! Well, there is something against it as a profession certainly, in these radical days. A living is not likely to be the comfortable, easy-going post it used to be. Country folks have grown so mighty critical. There is no satisfying them with a parson, for one thing. But I expect the good people of Asloune would be slow to reject my presentee. I must say, though, I do think it is very unwise of patrons to force a man in against the will of the people, as Cranstown has done at Nether ley; for, of course, in this case it is entirely his doing. I suspect poor Mr. Densil knows very little of the Rev. Peter Coutts, who is such a red rag to his tenants just now.”

“Yes, well,” said the laird after a pause, and seeing Boston remained silent; “perhaps it will be best for you to steer clear of the Kirk, seeing she seems destined to ride in stormy waters for a while; and you prefer smooth seas, I think,” he added with a laugh as he glanced at Boston, who winced under the impeachment, he could hardly have told why. “What do you say to Medicine, then? I have always thought the medical profession a very fine one,” said Mr. Burnett presently.

“I do not incline to it at all,” replied Boston promptly; and after a moment’s pause he said, in a hesitating, timid tone, “I think I know what I should like—what would suit me best: it is to be a lawyer.”

“Ah, so that is where your inclination lies! Well, rather you than me, young man; but tastes differ. If you really think you would like the Law, I daresay I can give you some help. We must consult Cranstown. In fact he could take you into his own office, I daresay. He seems to have a fairly good business, though I do not know much about it beyond his factorship for Netherley and my own place. He has not been our family lawyer for so very long. My father had some quarrel with the firm who used to transact all our business, and he fancied the Cranstowns—the father who is dead, and his son, my present factor—because he thought they were clever, sharp men of business. Indeed, Cranstown is too sharp for my taste often. And if he is to be your guide to your profession, Boston, you must keep in mind that he is inclined to rather hard practice—a j ustice-without-mercy method of managing things, which he thinks very fine, but I do not always agree with him, by any means. However, you might be much worse off than in Messrs. Cranstown and Co.’s office. I shall mention ‘ the matter to-day if I have an opportunity.”

“Thank you very much,” said Boston eagerly.

“Ay, and so you are bent on being a lawyer, I see. Well, there is no saying, Boston; you may be factor for Rinaultrie yet,” nodded the laird with a kindly smile as they emerged from the pine wood, and quickening their pace went rapidly along the road which led to the old manor house of Netherley.

CHAPTER VII
The New Tenants Of Hetberlep.

“Manliness and meekness
In him were so allied,
That those who judged him by his strength or weakness
Saw but a single side.”—Whittier.>

“Mr. Burnrtt of Rinaultrie, I declare! How gratifying that he should call so soon, Ada. And your father was just assuring me that we might not see him for weeks, if at all, he is so unconventional,” remarked Mrs. Cranstown to her daughter as she glanced at the cards which had just been brought to her. “Show the gentlemen upstairs, Fenton.”

The new lady of Netherley received her visitors with many graoious smiles. Her pretty daughter Ada having been duly introduced to Mr. Burnett and his nephew, the visit seemed in fair way to flow in strictly mild conventional channels, when a little interruption occurred which Boston observed caused Mrs. Cranstown’s bland expression to change momentarily into an angry scowl.

There was a sudden rumbling /sound heard in the wide corridor, which waxed louder and nearer, and after a moment the heavy double doors of the drawing-room were thrown open with a bang—not by the soft-footed footman who had ushered in the visitors, but by a big, rosy, smiling waiting-maid, who glanced with a questioning air at her mistress as she made the noisy preparations, evidently dictated by some one from behind.

Hardly had she flung back the doors when a chair on wheels appeared on the threshold, which was being shuffled with great energy by its occupant.

“Oh, here comes our poor dear Norah. You must excuse her very noisy debut, Mr. Burnett. I daresay she has tired of her sick-room,” said Mrs. Cranstown, with an endeavour to transmute her angry frown into an amiable smile.

“Ah, yes! this is your sick daughter, the younger one, I remember.—I hope our fine air will do you good. I am sorry you are still so much of an invalid,” said the laird in a kind tone as he went forward to shake hands.

“An invalid! Stuff and nonsense! that is what they always call me. It is not true. I am not a bit sick. I am stronger than Ada, I believe; and if they would let me go about as she does, I would be quite as happy and happier. My wheels are just as good as other people’s legs,” said the girl, in a low, rapid tone, as if she were used to making remarks aotto voce.

Mr. Burnett evidently did not catch her words, and concluding, probably, that they were some conventional reply to his inquiries, he took no further notice. Mrs. Cranstown happened to be addressing some polite remarks to Boston at the moment, so the laird availed himself—seemingly not unwillingly—of the opportunity of walking down the room and glancing leisurely about him.

Boston’s ears were sharper, however. He did not lose any of the introductory remarks of this member of the Cranstown family, of whose existence he had previously been unaware, and towards whom he now glanced with considerable interest She looked pinched and worn like an old woman; and yet he knew that she was not probably so old as he. The large, dark, expressive eyes that shone out from her sallow face were like gems in a setting of ivory. Her complexion, though pale, was by no means suggestive of disease, and the thin ink-stained fingers which guided the wheels of the big chair seemed to betoken both energy and strength in their owner. Her dusky dishevelled hair rather suited her well-shaped little head and tiny shell-like ears, into one of which was stuck a big ink-bespattered quilL

It was altogether a comical little figure; and Boston felt an instant sympathy with Mrs. Cranstown’s frown. It was natural that she should wish to keep such an elf-like creature out of sight.

Nor ah meanwhile had been glancing at him with eyes as observant as his own.

“That is not the young laird of Rinaultrie you talk about, is itshe asked suddenly, pointing at him with her finger.

“Oh, fie, Norah! Have a little patience, my dear child, and I shall introduce you to this gentleman.—She is so impulsive, poor child,” she added with an apologetic glance at Boston. “This is Mr. Burnett Burnett a cousin of Mr. Esmae’s, I believe,” said Mrs. Cranstown with a graceful interrogative glance towards her visitor.

“Oh yes! Then I know who you are now,” said Norah, slowly nodding her head and keeping her big eyes fixed on him. “You are the boy who changed your name from Boston to Burnett. I remember Lewis laughing about it when he saw your card. I always collect people’s cards in my room. It is one of my ways of getting what is called information, you know. And, besides, it is all I ever see of them—except I am lucky, like to-day.”

Poor Boston’s pale face suddenly became suffused by a crimson glow, whereupon Norah remarked in an encouraging tone,—

“You need not mind what Lewis says, if that is what you are troubling yourself about He is always saying nasty things about somebody. If you could only hear how he teases me, and Jack is just getting to be as bad.

“That is what I came to the drawing-room for just now, by-the-by, mamma,” she went on with rapidity; “I want somebody to come and turn out that horrid boy from my den. He has upset a lot of ink on my precious manuscript; and when Susan tried to turn him out, he kicked her. Was not that lovely conduct in a boy? Really, mamma, I was quite at my wits’ end with Jack’s persecutions; or I should not have come along, for I know it does vex you so that I should be seen.”

“Oh, my dear, how you do talk.—You must excuse her, Mr. Burnett Burnett She is a spoilt child from being such an invalid,” said Mrs. Cranstown with a feeble attempt at a bland smile.

“How awfully angry she is! won’t that girl catch it after we go! ” thought Boston, as he glanced furtively towards his hostess, almost afraid to use his eyes in the presence of this enfant terrible.

Mrs. Cranstown seemed, however, to gather some relief from observing that her more important visitor appeared considerably absorbed in the contemplation of the tall portraits near which he was standing.

The suggestion of a new topic was acceptable in the present dilemma, and hoping probably that her incorrigible daughter might subside if no further notice were taken of her, she rose from her chair, and gliding gracefully towards Mr. Burnett, she said,—

“Ah, you are looking at those dingy old daubs; are they not quite disfiguring to the room? I was just saying to Ada before you came that we must really have them removed. To my mind they are quite oppressive.”

“I am sorry you think so, madam. These pictures have hung there ever since I can remember—and that is not yesterday,” said the laird quietly, still keeping his eyes fixed on the dark features which looked out from the tall canvas in front of which he stood.

“They do not belong to Mr. Densil, these pictures,” he added after a minute. “The fact is, it was a piece of Quixotism on Grizel—on Mias Cassilis’s part leaving them when the old house changed hands. She had a great wish that they should remain on the old panek; and Mr. Densil, I recollect, liked the idea of keeping them. But I rather think there was some compact in the matter. I really forget the details; but if you wish them removed— ”

“Oh, but if it is poor Miss Cassilis’s wish that they should be there, I would not for the world interfere,” said Mrs. Crans-town, with a semblance of ardent submission to the sun that had set at Netherley which she did not at all feel, regarding herself as the rising luminary preparing to diffuse brilliant rays. “Dear old lady, what trials she must have had! what sad reverses! though I have heard that she was very peculiar. Is it so, Mr. Burnett! ”

“Peculiar, do they say she is? Well, I daresay that may be said of us all in this out-of-the-way corner of the world. We are peculiar, old-fashioned, and all the rest of it, no doubt,” said the laird, shrugging his big shoulders. “I am not quite sure, to tell you the truth, that Grizel Cassilis would resent the imputation,” he added with a laugh.

Mrs. Crfcnstown’s face began to darken again with as deep a shadow of annoyance as Boston had observed on it a few minutes previously; but it was banished as quickly as before, and her next remark was gracious in the extrema The new lady of Netherley plumed herself on her entertaining tact, and, indeed, considered that she had not a little contributed to her husband’s success in business by her valuable social talents. It was therefore considerably mortifying to her to perceive that this important client did not seem a person likely to prove in the least susceptible to her fascinations. It had been her intention to entertain Mr. Burnett without summoning her partner in life to her aid; but seeing the state of matters, she decided that the safest and most comfortable course was to hand the laird over to his factor.

“What am I thinking of! How selfish of me to be keeping you all to myself, Mr. Burnett!” she cried suddenly, with a graceful little self-depreciatory gesture. “I must really let Mr. Cranstown know that you are here.—Ring the bell, Ada dear, and let your papa be called.”

Mr. Burnett seated himself Bilently, as if he quite acquiesced in the suggestion. But meanwhile his thoughts began to stray far from the present inmates of Netherley. The old room became peopled for him, as he sat dreamily there, with another group—one which had composed the little social world of his earlier, happier days—and the old glamour appeared to gather round it once more. Little forgotten incidents sprang vividly into his memory as if illumined by a bright ray from the sunshine of youth. Vanished merry voices and gleeful steps seemed to come echoing along the corridors and about the long room, till the gray, stooping man would hardly have felt it to be strange if a light hand had been laid on his arm, and a girlish voice had said, “ Robert, come and play.” As Mr. Burnett brushed the rare tear from his eye, he remembered that he could not again remonstrate with his old friend in her elbow-chair at Mirkwood for passing so much of her twilighttime in the “light of other days.”

The factor now appeared, and presently the laird and he seemed in full tide of conversation, in which the lights and shadows of other days did not mingle.

Mrs. Cranstown, perceiving that her entertaining powers were unlikely to be called into fitting exercise, retired, not, however, without an anxious glance towards Norah, who had stolen such a disconcerting march on her.

The wheels had been nimbly directed towards Boston. She was saying, in a confidential tone, as her mother left the room,—

“Look here, I saw you staring at me dreadfully when I bowled in. Tell me, now, do you think I look very queer? I want jnst for once to know how I strike a stranger. But, after all, I need not ask you. I can see that you are not frank— that you will not tell me the truth. I say,” she went on, without even pausing for a reply to her eager question, “I hope you were not very vexed at me for having told you that Lewis laughed at you. You were, very, I saw, so you need not tell me you were not. It was silly of me to tell you; but, I assure you, you need not mind. If you heard the sweet things that excellent young man says often to his pater and mater.

“Ada, please do not look at me like that I may go off into a faint under your reproving gaze. I know it is very improper of me to appear, but I have reasons, so do not look so savage, I beg of you,” she added; while Boston, who glanced at her eldest sister, could see nothing except the sweetest of expressions on the face of the young lady who bent gracefully over her embroidery frame “Did I not tell you, Ada, that I came here because Jack was making my life a burden; and, besides, it is such an awfully dismal room mamma has given to me, miles away from everybody else “You see,” she continued, turning to Boston again, “I am what would be called in story books the skeleton of the Crans-town family; so when I jump out of my closet in broad daylight, of course it is not agreeable But I do not look so very frightful, do I, after all? ” she wound up with a little laugh.

Boston mumbled a polite negation, but his mental reflection was that the elements of dread which seemed to reside in this young lady’s remarks were more scaring to him than the most startling ghost would prove But the worst had not come yet. There was a moment’s pause, during which Norah kept drumming a tune with her supple fingers on the arm of her chair, evidently revolving something in her active brain.

“Let me see now,” she began slowly: “you are not Esmae Burnett, but you are his first cousin—the only son of the only brother. I know,” she nodded, as if she had the genealogical tree of the Burnett family on her finger ends. “Why, then you are actually the next heir to the property. Dear me, so you are! Now, tell me, do you often think of that? ” she asked, suddenly giving a little jerk to her wheels that she might see him better.

The deadly pallor which for a moment overspread Boston’s face could hardly have escaped her quick eye; but she made no further remark, only she kept staring in front of her in a reflective way, Boston noticed, while she drummed more energetically than ever on the elbow of her chair.

“When and where were the torments of this impish creature going to end? ” thought Boston, as he glanced towards the door, considering whether immediate flight might not be the wisest course.

Was this girl going to read him through and through, to bring to the light of day secret imaginings breathed to none, not an hour old, and which he felt, somehow, increasingly anxious to bury fathoms deep? How he wished that he could summon up courage to cross the rug and begin to talk to her pretty, harm-less-looking sister; but the wheels might follow. He must endure his inquisitress, he decided, till relief came in another shape.

“Ada, you had better come a little nearer and join in our conversation. He wants you to; and, really, there is no good in sitting sulking thera I have managed to find my way to the drawing-room, and I do not mean to go bock to my den sooner than I can help it, I assure you. Come, Mr. Burnett wants ever so much to talk to you,” was the next remark of the irrepressible Miss Cranstown junior.

“Oh, by-the-by,” she began after a minute, no notice being taken of her latest suggestion, “ you wanted to know what Mary Cassilis is like, Ada. This will be a good opportunity.”

The wheels, evidently a most expressive appendage in this case, gave a little interested movement towards Boston. “Look here, yon know her, do you not! Please tell ns all you can about her. I want, oh so much, to know this Mary! She is about the Bame age as Ada, I believe; but I have a notion she is not quite so stuck-up. Perhaps she might condescend to speak even to ma But sometimes, since we came here, I have thought she must hate us all in a bunch—for coming to live in the house that belonged to her ancestors for ever so long, you know.”

“O Norah, how can you say such things! What will Mr. Burnett think of us?” interposed Ada at length, in a soft, deprecatory tone, as she glanced up for a moment from her embroidery frame, and for the first time Boston’s eyes met hers.

“Well, I am only thinking how I should feel myself if I were in her place,” replied Norah composedly. “Do you know Miss Mary Cassilis well, and is she pretty? ” she asked, again turning her wheels that she might have a better view of Boston’s face.

“I have always seen her when I have been up here. Mirk-wood is quite near Rinaultrie—about a quarter of an hour’s walk,” replied Boston, deciding that a reply to one of Miss Norah’s questions was more than sufficient. Had the second query been put to him on the previous day, the positive lack of any opinion on the subject would have prevented his replying to it; but since his call at Mirkwood earlier in the day, he felt that Norah’s question must be answered by such a decided affirmative that he was reluctant to commit himself to his tor mentor.

“Yes? well, that was the conclusion I had come to,” coolly remarked that young lady, after scanning his face. “She is pretty. Mr. Burnett thinks Mary Cassilis pretty, very pretty, Ada—like you. But you are not of the same type of beauty, I fancy. Mind you don’t be getting jealous of her now, for I have a notion I shall take to her very much.

“You see I have been wandering over all the old rooms her ancestors used to live in, and I feel as if I knew lots about them all already. I really believe I have seen more of this place than any of them, though I have not the use of my lega. I have only got to do the lumber-rooms now, and they may be quite exciting, you know; but they are dreadful arctic regions) I made Susan carry me up the winding stairs to have a look at them, but I must wait for my investigations till it gets warmer. Then I mean to begin my history of the Cassilis family. Perhaps you do not know, Mr. Burnett, that I am the author of several works. My last was a novel; but I got so soured by its fate that I do not think I shall ever venture on fiction again. I am thinking of taking to history in future. You see it is awkward when you take your villain, and all that, from the people you live with. I made Jack the villain of my book, because I could imagine so really the wicked things he could do. But, of course, nobody need have known that—the public, I mean. But Jack was in such a rage about it; and after papa had promised to get the story printed and put in real boards, what did that horrid boy do—a real villain he is—but tear all my chapters up into little pieces, and bringing them to me on the shovel, thrust them into the fire before my very eyes. Susan burned herself trying to save even the bits. But it was no good, every scrap went.”

Boston felt that he ought to say something as to the loss which had accrued to the public generally by the untimely destruction of such a valuable manuscript; but as even the most amiable remark might only be used for his own future torture by this incorrigible member of the Cranstown family, he forbora Norah, however, did not seem to expect expressions of sympathy, she was too unconventional for that; besides, she was bent on pursuing another topic.

“Mamma! ” she called eagerly to her mother, who re-entered the room at the moment, “Mr. Burnett thinks that Mary Cassilis is both nice and pretty.”

Boston gasped. Should he remind them that neither on one point nor the other had he given any opinion? In his perturbation his eye met Ada’s: would she come to his rescue and that of truth, he wondered? Apparently not, for she bent down again over her embroidery frame with a little smile.

“I am truly glad to hear that Mr. Burnett Burnett has such a good opinion of Miss Cassilis of Mirkwood,” said Mrs. Crans-town. “But you know, my dear Norah, I have already warned you that unless her aunt and she call here, they can be nothing to us, absolutely nothing, my love.”

“But, mamma, did not old Major Innes, who came to call yesterday, tell you that Miss Cassilis had not set foot in Netherley for years; and that he believed it would break her heart to see the old house inhabited by strangers like us? Indeed, I have quite understood her feelings for the last three days. For of course I must enter into the feelings of the Cassilis family if I am to do them properly. And I mean to be on their side,” wound up the aspiring historian with an air of resolution.

“Mamma, supposing Mary Cassilis were to call on you, would not that serve for her old aunt?” she asked after a moment’s deliberation.

“Well, that depends, my dear. If young Miss Cassilis were to make a visit in due form, I might so far waive ceremony as to return it to her aunt.”

“All right I must and will know Mary Cassilis, and there’s an end of it,” cried Norah with an energetic movement of her wheels.

“So you have not seen little Mary yet? ” said the laird, who happened at the moment to be crossing the room and overheard Norah’s last remark. “I am glad that you want to know Mary. She is a great friend of mine,” he added, coming to her side and smiling down on the eager face which was meeting his glance.

“Oh, there now, that’s the thing! Will you tell her to come and see us?” cried Norah with sparkling eyes as she clapped her hands vivaciously.

“My dear Norah,” murmured Mrs. Cranstown softly. But Boston noticed that there was an angrier flash in her eyes than before. Norah was evidently exhausting the maternal patience.

Fortunately, however, the laird was on his way to the old library to look at some papers which Mr. Cranstown had suggested he should see. So, after assuring Norah that she would not be long in these parts before she made the acquaintance of Mary Cassilis, Mr. Burnett followed the factor.

Boston was still left to the difficulties of the drawing-room, which promised to be lessened now, however, by a peremptory order from Mrs. Cranstown that the wheels should make their immediate exit With hands folded demurely, and her small face composed into a meek smile, Norah suffered herself to be trundled away. Only when she reached the door she wheeled round suddenly, and fixing her eyes on Boston, said with a little bow and a mock air of solemnity,—

“Good morning, Mr. Burnett Burnett; glad to have made your acquaintance;”

It was a positive relief when the sound of the wheels died away among the echoing corridors. Boston endeavoured to forget how successfully he had been persecuted, as he sat talking with Mrs. Cranstown and her pretty daughter Ada. The latter, apparently as much relieved by Norah’s disappearance as he, now raised her head from her embroidery frame and smiled very enchantingly. How pretty she was, thought Boston; quite a superb blonde beauty with her bright blue eyes and her rich crdpe hair! And how amiable and tractable she looked,—such a contrast to her impish sister, he said to himself, as he expanded under her smiles and talked with a frankness quite unusual to him.

The ladies were evidently anxious to acquire all the social information possible about their new surroundings, and Boston gave them con amove all within his power. So successfully agreeable did he prove, that when the laird reappeared to say good-bye, Mrs. Cranstown was profusely polite in her assurances that nothing would give her greater pleasure than that Boston should pay them another visit very soon; and if Mr. Esmae’s engagements permitted of his coming, she hoped to have the happiness of seeing him also.

“There is something so sensible about him,” remarked Mrs. Cranstown when the heavy doors were again closed, and the mother and daughter left tete-drt&te. “To tell the truth, Ada, I prefer the poor cousin to the young laird.”

“Not so I, mamma,” replied Miss Cranstown, who was again bending over a half-blown woollen rose which was growing under her diligent fingers. “But, oh dear, was not Norah dreadful to-day f ” she said after a moment, raising her face with a shocked expression on it “Truly dreadful, my dear. What is to be done with that girl, it puzzles me to think. It is clear we cannot pass her off as an invalid any more; you heard what she Baid about that. It is a comfort to me to think that Mr. Burnett seemed too deaf or too absent to hear what she was saying. And your father will not hear of her being boarded out either. I was sounding him again about it this morning. But it will really be the death of me if she bursts in like that when we have visitors. Susan is always letting her escape from her room now. I shall have to dismiss that girl, though she suits in some ways, her arms are so strong. But Norah has learned to twist her round her little finger. So it is clear she must go. Lewis is quite right: a regular keeper is the only person who can manage her if she goes on like this.”

“And yet papa persists in saying that she is the only one of us who has brains,” said Ada, with a little pitying smile over what she considered a parental delusion.

“Well, I am not sure that there is not some truth in what your father says. There is no doubt Norah is no fool; and if it had not been that wretched woman of a nurse who let her fall when she was an infant in arms, there is no saying she might have turned out a credit to the family. She is certainly very sharp—reads one through and through, that is the trouble of it I am truly thankful that Mr. Burnett seemed too absent-minded to notice her; and, after all, it does not matter about the poor relation.” And with this consoling summing up of the contretemps of the visit, Mrs. Cranstown retired to finish some correspondence in which she had been engaged.

Mr. Burnett and Boston had meanwhile been mounting their horses and getting under way, duly ministered to by Mr. Cranstown’s new staff of liveried domestics. But as they rode away under the shadow of one of the great gables of the old house they met with an interruption. The florid, smiling young servant-maid whom Boston recognized as having flung open the door of the drawing-room to admit his tormentor, came rapidly towards them panting with her race.

“Oh, please, your honours, will you halt a second? She is arcomin’ as fast as her wheels will carry her; but sure the ground is slippy, and she made me run on for to catch yer honours.”

As she spoke, Norah came sweeping round the comer, propelling her chair with wonderful rapidity. Cloakless and bonnetless, her elf-like locks flying in the wind, she presented a curious spectacle.

“She might sit for a portrait of one of the Furies,” was Boston’s thought as he guided his horse so as to give the young lady in pursuit as wide a berth as possible.

But it did not seem Miss Norah’s intention to take any further notice of him on this occasion. Hurrying towards the laird, she said, laying hold of one of the flaps of his gaiters in her breathless eagerness, “Mind you don’t forget to send Mary Cassilis here. But she must call on mamma, you know.

And tell her that she had better not ask for me. They would only make some excuse to keep me from seeing her. I will find out for my own self when she is here. Susan is engaged to the footman now, so I can get lots of things managed for me. Jack used to do things for me, but he has grown such a horribly disobliging boy; besides, I cannot trust him. Do you hear me, Mr. Burnett? ” she asked in an impatient tone, for the laird was looking down on her with a puzzled air as he listened to her panting communications. “You understand that Mary is on no account to ask for me. I shall find out when she is in the drawing-room, and come in with a bound as I did to-day. It annoys them; but, you know, I really cannot help that, though it is a pity Ada gets so spiteful about the noise I make. I am sure she would not get about so cleverly as I do if she had not the use of her legB. Now, mind, Mr. Burnett of Rinaultrie,” she called in a louder tone, “I am awfully anxious to see Mary Cassilis, and you have promised to send her. See that you are a man of your word.”

“To be sure, I shall not forget my promise,” said the laird, as he looked with a half-amused, half-pitiful air at Norah. “Believe me, you shall see Mary Cassilis riding up the avenue on her black pony one day very soon.”

“All right; I think I can trust you,” muttered the girl, knitting her eyebrows as she scrutinized his face. “So now, good-bye; I must trundle back with all speed. Would they not be in a rage if they saw me here!—Susan, push me; I am exhausted.”

Great was Boston’s relief to hear the admission, and greater still to perceive that the young lady shut her eyes and lay back without any further recognition of himself.

“Poor lassie,” said the laird, as they rode on; “what a pity she is so afflicted! It strikes me she is the flower of the Crans-town flock What a keen little face it is! We must not forget to ask Mary to go and see her at once. She seems quite taken up about it, poor child.”

“Yes; she takes all this interest in the Cassilis family because she is living in their old place,” said Boston with a smile, as he thought of the projected historical work.

“And I like her for it, poor child. It shows her heart is in the right place. I expect her mother would fain sweep away every trace of the old family, and replace it with the Cranstown stamp in every nook and cranny; but perhaps she will find that the work of centuries is not to be swept away by summer lodgers,” muttered the laird, with a ring of bitterness in his tone which was new to Boston. Moreover, he felt sorry to discover that Mrs. Cranstown was not a favourite of his uncle’s, for he had just been deciding that she and her daughter were so pleasant that he should certainly avail himself of their invitation, and pay a visit to the Netherley drawing-room before long, even at the risk of the big doors opening with a bang and the wheels appearing. Next time, however, he would try to persuade his cousin to be his companion. Possibly Esmae might distract the terrible Norah’s attention, since she had asked after him with such an interested air.

Boston’s thoughts then began again to revert to his future prospects, as discussed an hour previously. Had his uncle, according to his promise, spoken to the factor as to the possibilities of his being admitted as one of his law-apprentices? he wondered, as the moments passed and no further reference was made to the matter.

“He might have remembered that I would naturally like to hear what my fate is to be. But, after all, he does not look upon me as worth troubling about; and, to be sure, I am only a poor relation,” reflected Boston with a bitter curl of his lip, as he rode along.

Mr. Burnett, indeed, hardly broke the silence during the homeward ride. But Boston did not guess that, far from forgetting to talk about his interests to the factor, it was owing to their having been fully discussed that an additional weight had been added to the kindly heart of the laird.

Mr. Cranstown had very willingly entertained the idea of giving a place in his office to Mr. Burnett’s nephew, but he had used the occasion for harping on a theme familiar and well-worn between his client and himself—the necessity of having permission granted him to manage the estate according to what he called business theories. Even for the setting out in life of this young relative, Mr. Burnett was startled to be told that there would be serious difficulties in raising the requisite sum, small though it was. Ready cash was indeed a possession sadly lacking to the owner of the broad lands of Rinaultrie. His impecuniousness had been, however, by no means entirely of his own creating. Rinaultrie had been swamped in debt when his turn came to take possession of it Every blade of grass, every ear of com was due to some one before ever it lifted its head above ground. The last owner, besides having a wonderful talent for squandering money, had been the victim of misfortune beyond his control. His attempts to retrieve the losses in which his younger son had involved him had all ended on the side of failure.

It had therefore been the present laird’s destiny to reap a heavy harvest of care and difficulty, grown for him by others. Crops of weeds of his own sowing there were, to which -onlookers could point, discoursing glibly—onlookers all “ear and eye, with such a stupid heart to interpret ear and eye, and such a tongue to blaze their own interpretation.”

But, alas, there were even eyes true and faithful that could not be blind to the fact that Robert Burnett’s life had been lived on lower levels than they or he once dreamt of, and they mourned over the supremacy of habits unworthy of his better sell And when, in seasons of self-reproach, he felt their warning presence, the thought of nobler earlier ideals abandoned, higher purposes unfulfilled, youthful dreams of goodness which had been as the morning cloud, then he was wont to excuse himself by dwelling on the difficulties which had environed his destiny; but he did so in no spirit of querulous discontent With brave, sweet cheerfulness, which would have made a scarcely-believable record to the self-centred lad who rode by his side, had Mr. Burnett borne his life-burdens.

Already had Boston’s cold, keen eye detected in his uncle that weakness of will which had been his bane. But it requires a clearer eye to see beauties than defects, and it was not given to Boston’s mental vision to perceive those lovelinesses of character which lingered—the pure heart, guileless and unselfish as that of a truly tender woman. “If Rinaultrie had only been made of sterner stuff, he might have been the richest man in the county, and these ancestral lands of his free as the breezes that sweep across them,” his friend Mr. Gordon used to say when the laird’s fortunes were the subject of discussion, as they not unfrequently were; and the factor would endorse his remark, only he put it in a more bitter setting.

It had been Mr. Cranstown’s effort for years to .induce his client to leave the management of his estate entirely in his legal hands. Fair were the pictures of golden results which he drew; and the owner of Rinaultrie well knew that much exemption from worry, many pecuniary advantages, would accrue to him from such a course—that, in fact, it would make a rich man of him without his knowing it. Mr. Burnett had, however, certain scruples about the methods by which this result was to be reached which made him turn away from such persuasions as from the voice of a tempter.

These scruples were based on what Mr. Cranstown was pleased to call “Utopian ideas, which could not have worked since the days of Adam and Eva” “If I had my will, I should have every mother’s son of these aboriginals swept from the estate, and replaced by paying tenants,” he used to say angrily as he passed his eye down the rent-roll. But as yet he had not had his will in the matter.

Robert Burnett’s gray eyes beamed with almost paternal kindness on every dweller on his hills and dales. If they were impoverished, he helped and pitied them; if they were imprudent, he made excuses for them; if they were altogether unthankful and evil, he had still something extenuating to say on their behalf. Not even the most unremunerative of them could he be induced to evict from their farms or crofts. When offers were made by eligible tenants to replace these cumberers of the ground, as Mr. Cranstown called them, the laird’s invariable reply was, “Turn them out of the house that they were born in! Impossible! We must find some other way of raising the wind than that, Mr. Cranstown.”

It happened, therefore, that the green winding haughs of the Aultrie became a sort of Bethesda, whither the halt and maimed, unfit for the struggle of life in more stirring neighbourhoods, still continued to find a refuge.

Unfortunately, the “other ways of raising the wind ” dwelt on by the sanguine laird had, for some reason or other, always turned out failures. More than once he had staked and lost heavily on popular bubble schemes. And when the failure came Mr. Cranstown was, somehow, always able to remind his client of its being contrary to his advice that the folly had been committed. Not, indeed, that it could always have been so clearly proved that the factor had been the wise mentor in the hour of decision which he represented himself, but it was not Mr. Burnett’s habit to make jottings of his conversations with his land-agent When the hour of possible recrimination arrived he was always ready to bend his broad shoulders for all the burden of blame. The misfortune had fallen at his door, at all events; why wrangle about the allocation of the mistake? he used to argue.

So the years had passed, old age was creeping on, and Robert Burnett was still a care-encompassed man.

CHAPTER VIII
a Compact.

“The noble-hearted gentleman, who house and hand and heart
So open held, that in his own he only claimed a part.”
Dora Greenwell.

It was a pleasant spot the old stone bridge, with the crystal clear water seething among the amber rocks, lying dark under the twisted oak roots, and flashing into glistening spray over the weir just above the bridge; an immemorially favourite place for dawdling on a summer day, but hardly a spot where one would care to linger on a gray winter afternoon. And yet Mary Cassilis stood now, leaning on its lichened parapet, gazing dreamily on the cold hurrying waters.

“Mary! you here all your lone, child, and on such a cheerless afternoon too! Why, you have not even Jet or Grip to keep you company,” cried the laird, reining his horse as he caught sight of her when Boston and he reached the bridge on their return from Netherley.

“Oh, I have not been here long—only a few minutes. Esmae was with me; but he has just started off to ride to Aberstone.”

“To Aberstone! on such a day as this, and so late! What can the little lad be thinking of?”

“Yes, he knew you would wonder; so I promised to wait here to tell you. We thought you would be passing this way.”

“Well, I must say I think it was rather ungallant on Esmae’s part to lay such a mission on you, Mary; you are too good-natured by half, my dear. You spoil the boy, like the rest of us, I fear.”

“Oh, but Esmae is in great trouble; he has heard such bad news. Kenneth Maxwell is very ill He has just been to Blairton Manse and heard all about it. The doctor is very anxious about him; and just as Esmae rode up, he found Mr. Irvine sending off to fetch Dr. Williams from Aberstone. He thought he would ride quicker than the groom, so he has gone.”

“Ay, so young Maxwell is seriously ilL I am very sorry. He seemed a fine young fellow. My little lad will be terribly cut up, I know. If they are sending for Dr. Williams, it must be a bad business, I fear,” said Mr. Burnett, shaking his head.

“Well, I must say I think one of Mr. Irvine’s servants might have taken the trouble of riding to Aberstone. Esmae is by far toa obliging. If he goes on like that, he will soon be more ill than Maxwell,” remarked Boston, with an unpleasant little smile, which seemed to reveal even more to Mary than his grudging words.

“You think Esmae did right to go to Aberstone himself for his friend’s sake, do you not, uncle?” asked Mary eagerly.

“To be sure I da What is a friendship worth—a youthful one especially—if we cannot occasionally run into follies for its sake! A ride to Aberstone is certainly no joke on a day like this, and that fine, mettlesome mare will likely be good for nothing after it; for Esmae will ride as if for a wager, I’ll be bound. But never mind, Mary; I do not grudge the mare. I like to know that the little lad’s heart is in the right place,” he added, looking down with a kindly smile on Mary’s troubled face. “I assure you the fatted calf shall be killed for the young prodigal when he comes home. I only hope there will be better news of poor Maxwell before long.”

“Oh, he brought it upon himself. He is not to be pitied; don’t you remember that your aunt was just saying he would be sure to have a bad illness?—and you see her words have come very quickly true,” said Boston, glancing at Mary; and then, finding that the laird was still ignorant o£ Kenneth’s having attempted to reach Blairton on foot in the recent storm, he proceeded to tell the story, and though he did so with his usual quiet correctness and brevity, the narration somehow jarred on Mary.

A few minutes ago she had been speaking cheering words to Esmae, when he came hurrying to Mirkwood in wild grief about his friend’s danger. Before he parted from her his usual hopefulness had returned, and he had galloped off full of the cure that the skilful Dr. Williams would be certain to work. But now the remembrance of Esmae’s distress before she had succeeded in cheering him, and the thought of the terrible anxiety which hung over the pleasant manse of Blairton, came to Mary with new meaning.

Were they really on the verge of a new and dread experience such as Mr. Irvine had evidently hinted at to Esmae? Was the terrible reaper, whose desolations Esmae and she had seen only from afar, going to cut down swiftly her old playmate’s cherished friend—and, since that meeting in the snowdrift, must she not claim Kenneth Maxwell for her own friend also! And was it all going to end like this!

Mr. Burnett dismounted now, and handing his horse to his groom, he drew Mary’s arm in his, saying, “Come, my dear; you have stood too long in this draughty corner. You are looking like a ghost. I must see you safe in the oak parlour before I leave you.—Boston, I wish you would tell Duff to send a messenger at once to Blairton to make particular inquiries after young MaxwelL We must hear again before dark,” he added, as he turned to go.

Miss Cassilis’s usual practice during these later days was to receive her guests without leaving her high-backed chair. It was therefore somewhat of a surprise to both Mr. Burnett and Mary when she met them at the door o£ her sitting-room, holding out her hand to the laird with an unmistakable look o£ eager expectancy.

What was making her aunt look so restless? Mary wondered. Why should she hold out her hand with such excitement to her old friend, who hardly missed a day without going to see her?

“Robert, you are very welcome. You are the very person I have had a sore longing to see this day. They told me you had gone out coursing, so I thought there was little hope o£ your coming my way,” she said with a tremulous smile as she glanced at her visitor.

“No, I have not been coursing—nothing so pleasant I have actually been making calls—one at least—a rare occupation £or me, you will say, Grizel! ”

“Ha! you have been to Netherley. Yes, I can see you have been there,” she said, looking questioningly into his face.

“Yes; I have been to call on the new tenants. But it was trying work, Grizel. I did not think it would have been such a pull for a hard old fellow like me. It was not the Cranstown group that seemed to me to people the long drawing-room, though; it was another family I still saw there, though so many years have come and gone,” said the laird, with the light of other days sfill glistening in his deep gray eyes.

“I was sure it would be so, Robert You see I know you better than you do yourself;” and something like a gleam of triumph came into Miss Cassilis’s face. After a moment she added, keeping her eyes eagerly fixed on the laird’s face, “And would it be well, think you, that such a hereditary bond as that between Rinaultrie and Netherley should be allowed to wither and decay? That is the question I was asking myself, pacing up and down, when you came.”

“But who talks of that bond withering or decaying, Grizel? You are the best friend I have. Indeed, I have few now left except yourself,” said the laird with a sigh, as he rested his massive head on his hand and looked dreamily into the lira “No, no; such a bond must not be broken as long as there is a Cassilis and a Burnett above ground,’ said Miss Cassilis, with a ring of exuberance in her voice.

Mary had gone to divest herself of her outdoor wraps, and now Miss Margaret was passing up the old staircase to the school-room, where she and her pupil still “studied together,” as conscientious Miss Margaret preferred to put it now-a-days, much to the elder Miss Piraie’s chagrin.

Miss Cassilis and her old friend were therefore likely to have a time of undisturbed quiet for conversation in the oak parlour.

After satisfying herself that the heavy doors were closed, Miss Cassilis came and stood near the laird, saying in a voice trembling with eagerness,—

Robert, we must not neglect to cement the old links. You know, though we are old folks now, with our day nearly done, there is another Burnett and another Cassilis growing up beside ua It has come to me like a revelation, Robert, for I never was a schemer, as you know. But Esmae and Mary must marry.”

“Ha, Grizel! taken to match-making in your old age,” said the laird in a careless tone.

“Do not make light of my plan, I beseech you, Robert It is the desire of my heart. It will be the hope of my fading time,” cried Miss Cassilis, with an impetuosity rare to her, and which made her old friend raise his head and look at her inquiringly. “Ajid they are fond of each other, these two, as ever young folks were,” she went on eagerly. “Esmae leans on Mary, it is plain to see; and truly she is a wise creature for her years. Indeed, there are whiles lately when I have feared that I have surely set myself too much to put an old head on young shoulders. The bairn is so full of thought; and this morning I noticed a curious change in her manner when your boy and his cousin were hern There was a glint in her eye as she talked to Esmae that I had never seen there before.

“And do you not see, Robert, that if Esmae and Mary were to marry it might make some of your crooked things straight! ” Miss Cassilis went on looking keenly at him. “Much gold will go with Mary’s little hand, you know. I tried hard to keep it from the bairn for long that she had a sixpence she could call her own. God knows, I had no other thought except that Bhe should grow up simple and wise, and I feared the knowledge of the fortune lying by for her might turn her young head; but it has just been the opposite. I think she has been wiser and doucer ever since she knew it She will be a treasure to your little lad,. Robert; and it will comfort my old heart even in the valley of shadow to know that Patrick’s bairn has not gone among strangers.”

“But they are mere children, Grizel; why talk about such things? Besides, it is not right of us to be making such plans for them,” said the laird, knitting his brows and speaking in a troubled voice very unlike that with which he had greeted Miss Cassilis’s first remarks.

“Robert Burnett, you never were a wise man for yourself,” replied Miss Cassilis, slowly shaking her head, for she quickly perceived the change. “Is it not a friend of the Burnetts who speaks? Am I not looking to your interest as well as mine in this plan) Will not the broad lands of Netherley, joined with the hills and glens of Rinaultrie, be a fair possession for your only son I And with plenty of gold in his coffers to plant, and to ditch, and to drain, no more insolent talk from that fox of a factor about retrenchments, no temptation to fell ancestral trees to pay the yearly billa Ah, Robert, your old friend does not forget you in these ‘ match-making schemes,’ as you are pleased to call them.”

The laird sprang suddenly to his feet and began to pace up and down the room. Seldom or never had Mr. Burnett seen his old friend moved to such eager speech on any matter. Her ideas and wishes on all points were generally made known with caustic brevity. For once her proud reserve had been broken through, but not without an effort. She sat now shading her eyes with her wrinkled hand, which was trembling with agitation, while she waited for the laird’s reply.

At length his deep voice broke the silence. Pausing in his rapid pacings, he stood in front of Miss Cassilis, saying almost roughly, “Grizel, would to God you had not made me sharer of this idea of yours! ” Then there followed another long silence, during which Mr. Burnett resumed his restless walk. Again he paused, and in a tone of more decision than was usual to him, he said, “ I want you to make a promise to me, Grizel—a couple of them. Will you never again let this matter, as it stands, be mentioned between us! and will you engage to keep our little Mary free as free can be from all that would make one link to fetter her young heart’s choice! Let this be a compact between us. If ever there is to be a marriage between these two, may the angels bless the banns and join their hands, not you and L”

As the laird was making his way across the old entrance hall, having taken farewell of the solitary inmate of the oak-parlour, Mary came hurrying downstairs after him. “Oh, please stop, Uncle Burnett; I want to ask a favour of you. Will you send across and tell me directly when Esmae comes back f I am so very anxious about him. It will be a terrible ride to Aber-stona Perhaps I should not have advised him to go. Do you really think it was not quite too much for him and his beautiful mare) The roads are so dreadful”

“Oh, he is plucky; he will get no harm—at least I hope not It was rather a rash exploit, to be sure,” added the laird more anxiously as he glanced out at the lowering sky.

“But, after all, it is by little affairs of this kind that a man must win his spurs now-a-days; is it not, Mary! ” he said after a moment, as he looked smilingly into the girl’s wistful face.

“Yes; and we want Esmae to be a peerless knight,” replied Mary with an answering smile.

“Don’t we just!” said the laird with a happier laugh than he had been heard to give for many a day. “Bless you, my child,” he added in a tender tone, after a moment’s silence, as he stooped down to kiss Mary’s forehead, which he had not done since she was a little girl, Mary remembered as she stood watching him while he Btrode along the darkening avenue. “Oh, I hope he will not forget to send the news from Blairton, too, though I did not ask that,” she murmured, as she went slowly upstairs to join her aunt.

It was midnight before Esmae reached Rinaultria His father was walking restlessly up and down the dimly-lighted hall awaiting his return, which was signalled by a cheerful whistle echoing along the silent courtyard.

“There he is as bright as a lark in the morning. He has been round by Blairton, I’ll be bound, and heard better news of young MaxwelL What a ride! Little Mary must be told that he is safe back this very minute.

“Yes, Grizel, your idea may turn out right after all The little lad is made of the stuff women like,” muttered the laird with a smile as he went down the broad steps to meet his son.

“O daddy, he is better! I went round by Blairton to see. He has got the turn; the doctor says so. Is it not glorious! ” cried Esmae, springing lightly from his wearied horsa “How good of you to have waited up for me yourself! Boston has gone to bed, I expect.”

“Yes; and so must you, young man, or else you will soon be getting as ill as your friend. Glad to hear he is better—very glad. But, Esmae, there is somebody nearly as anxious about you as you were about MaxwelL You must sit down, tired though you are, and write a note to Mary Cassilis to tell her that you have got safe back. I promised faithfully to send her news of you; she seemed very troubled about your mad ride,” said the laird, glancing questioningly at his son by the light of the lantern he held in his hand.

“Oh yes; to be sure, it was Mary who told you that I had gone off to Aberstona She promised she would. It was from Mary I got the first hope about Ken. She seemed so very sure he would get better. And now the doctor says the worst is over, and he will live; hurrah!—But I must look after you, my poor beauty,” said Esmae, affectionately patting his tired horse’s neck, whom a sleepy-looking stable-boy had come to lead away. “She is awfully done up. I cannot leave her to this sleepy-head. I must go and see that she is made comfortable. She rode famously to-day.”

“All right, my boy. I like to see you care for your horse. It is in the blood. As Gordon says, we Burnetts have always been as careful of our horses as if we and they had Arab blood in us. But what about Maly’s note? ” If Esmae had been as observant as his cousin, he would have noticed that there was a new look of half-curiosity, half-anxiety in his father’s face as he waited for his reply.

“Oh, do write to her yourself, there’s a dear old daddy; and will you tell her the good news about Kenneth? And, please, do not forget to say that I cannot ride with her, as I promised, to-morrow. I must go back to Blairton; Mr. Irvine half-promised they would let me see Ken for a minute.”

“All right, my boy, be it so,” said Mr. Burnett as he walked slowly away to his library. “ Kenneth Maxwell and the bay mare are both nearer his heart still than little Mary Cassilis. It is his boyish folly, perhaps; but ah, Grizel, you shall not lead me into your air-castle,” he muttered with a melancholy smile as he seated himself at his writing-table.

Esmae had finished his ministrations to his bay mare, partaken of the ample supper which awaited him in the big dining-room, and paused upstairs to bed before the laird left the library. As Mr. Burnett was walking along the corridors towards his room he knocked up against somebody who was stepping noiselessly along.

“Hallo, Boston! is that you? ” he shouted, raising his candle aloft to glance at him. Why, you look as scared as if you had seen a ghost This part of the house is not haunted, I assure you. But why are you wandering about like this! I thought you were asleep hours ago, young man.”

“So I was; but I wakened, and I began to wonder whether —if Esmae—if he was safe home, so I went along to his room to see,” said Boston, still with a flurried air.

“And you found the little lad sleeping the sleep of the just, I’ll be bound He has done a good day’s work. Tired limbs and a happy heart, that is the recipe for a good night’s sleep. Ah, by the way, you will be glad to hear the good news. Young Maxwell is pronounced over the worst. But get to bed, Boston. You are surely in for an illness too. You are looking as pale as possibla Why, you will get to have ‘ the lean and hungry look ’ of a man who does not ‘ sleep o’ nights ’ if you tramp about the corridors in the small hours like this. Goodnight.”

Boston stood motionless for a moment, leaning against an old oak cabinet, where he had taken his stand when the laird accosted him. He listened till the Bound of the heavy footsteps died away; and then, as if rousing himself from a reverie, he turned in the opposite direction and walked Blowly away.

So he thinks I will grow like Cassius; not a very gratifying comparison. But I must swallow it for the present, and a good deal besides. There, I firmly believe that he has quite forgotten to say a word to his factor about me, though he promised. And to-night he has scarcely spoken a word to me, except about Esmae and his idiotic ride; and now he tells me as a bit of particularly good news that Maxwell is going to live after all Upon my word, if things go on as they are doing, it would be little wonder if I did grow like the old conspirator. But I may have my chance in lifp yet There are more ways than one of getting rid of the troublesome Caesars that cross a fellow’s path,” muttered Boston, with a flitting smile on his thin lips as he closed the door; and there was silence among the corridors of Binaultrie for the remainder of the night Not on the following day, as he hoped, nor indeed during the remainder of his holiday, was Esmae allowed to see his sick friend, though he made daily anxious visits to the Manse of Blairton, and quite won Mr. Irvine’s heart by his wistful anxiety concerning his invalid guest Thus it happened that, though invisible, Kenneth was an object of almost more interest during the holiday than if he had been able to mingle in the daily social ongoings. Boston felt being left by Esmae with an hourly chagrin quite unguessed at by his cousin, whom he assured that he found plenty of pleasant ways of spending his day when Esmae invited him to accompany him on his rides to Blairton. Boston was so wise and clever, he remarked to Mr. Irvine one day when the minister of Blairton made inquiries about his cousin’s modes of diversion, that it was quite sufficient fun for him seemingly to sit listening to talk on all kinds of dry subjects with the laird and his friends.

Boston was thrown a good deal into his uncle’s company during these days. It was, therefore, all the more trying that the hoped-for broaching of his future prospects never came. The factor had been closeted with the laird more than once, but out of none of these interviews did there come any news for Boston.

The last day of the short Christmas holiday at length arrived. Esmae had gone to Blairton for a farewell visit, promising on his return to meet his cousin on a moor where Boston contemplated spending the day rabbit-shooting, which sport he discovered had elements of more charm for him than fishing in the Aultrie. He was standing in the courtyard with the couple of terriers that were to be his^allies in sport yelping round him, when he heard the laird’s deep ringing voice call him to the library.

The summons was to tell him that the arrangements for his becoming a law-apprentice to Mr. Cranstown were now complete. After Mr. Burnett briefly explained that he was to become responsible for all the pecuniary obligations connected with his becoming a lawyer, he went on to say that he thought it would be much wiser for Boston first to finish his university course before entering on his new studies, but that he had better think the matter over and consult his mother as to her wishes.

Boston’s eye kindled and a glow came into his sallow cheek, but he replied in his usual cool, quiet voice, “There is no need to think over it; I have decided. I prefer to enter Mr. Crans-town’s office as soon as possible.” The little cut-and-dried speech of thanks which he went on to make was set lightly aside by the laird’s remarking cheerily that he hoped to be more than repaid in having an excellent factor for Binaultrie when Mr. Cranstown and he were in the sere and yellow leaf.

CHAPTER IX
The Manse Of Blairton.

“And although he might work blindly,
Yet his aims were good and kindly,
In his quiet neighbourhood.
Not a child but knew and loved him,
Old and middle-aged approved him,
And took his pattern as they could.”

It was one of those rare days in early February which seem as if they had stepped out of their place in the calendar to tell of a balmy brightness in store. Wintry weather would reign again, wild March winds sweep across hill and dale, chilling blasts blight many brave young things struggling into life, but this sweet morning smiled on everything like a radiant messenger of glad tidings.

Such, at least, it seemed to Kenneth Maxwell from his couch, which had been wheeled near one of the pleasant windows of the manse drawing-room. His abode had been a darkened sick-chamber for many weeks, and he still looked fragile, Mrs. Irvine thought, glancing at him now as he lay with pale fingers clasped on the book he had been reading. She and her strong young cousin had indeed changed places of late. A habitual invalid, she had undergone fatigues in Kenneth’s sick-room which would have tried most strong people.

For many days Kenneth had been all unconscious whose kind hands had ministered to him; and when he returned from the borders of the far-off land, it was not one of the least of those sweet wonders which belong to the time of returning health to find in one herself so well acquainted with all the lights and shadows of his present experience his wise and gentle nurse. And now, for the first time since his illness, he was able to be ensconced in what Mr. Irvine called “the invalid’s neuk,’to which he had helped him before setting out to his meeting of Presbytery. Mrs. Irvine had been occupied with some correspondence, but now she took her sewing, and seating herself in her low chair by her patient’s side, thereby announced that she was available for conversational purposes; but Kenneth still remained silent, neglecting also the old worn copy of Pascal’s Pens£es, which had been his constant companion for some days.

“Well, Kenneth, are you following the minister’s suggestion and building castles in the air about wigs and woolsacks?” asked Mrs. Irvine, glancing questioningly at his thoughtful face.

During the first days of his serious illness, when he realized himself in its grasp, Kenneth seemed downcast to morbidness at the thought of the inevitable falling behind in his studies which it must bring. “A session lost ” was the most frequent refrain of his delirium, and in all his feverish wanderings Mrs. Irvine noticed that he seemed haunted by the eager student life of the past months. It would be long before he was able again to take his place in the college classes, and he would lose what remained of the yearly term of study; while in the following session he could only find a place among those now in the class behind him. Mrs. Irvine feared that there was much painful discipline in store for her patient if his lost session became again, as she feared it must, the absorbing preoccupation which it had been. The silence which he had recently been maintaining on the point she attributed to the merciful insouciance of feebleness. For a couple of days past his face had worn a look of deep thought, which had made her wonder, as she did now, whither his mind was journeying.

No, Cousin Dora,” he replied slowly to her playful query, “I have not been dwelling in any such airy castles lately. They seem to get rather dim and shadowy to a fellow, somehow, after such a shake as I have had. One begins to understand a little what is meant by ‘ the earthly house of this tabernacle being dissolved.’ Do you not think so?”

“Yes; and a dreary thought it would be if we could not turn our hopes and dreams to our true home—the building of God, eternal in the heavens.’”

“Ah yes; you know by experience how real these thoughts can seem at such times,” said Kenneth, raising himself with a sudden accession of interest, and looking with his large eager eyes into her face. After a moment’s pause he went on: “I hardly like to talk about it yet, perhaps I never shall, but since I have been lying in that room upstairs some things have come to me as if they were a new revelation. This present life and its possibilities used to look, I think, quite enough as a goal for my hopes. I do not mean to say that I was theoretically disbelieving in a hereafter or anything of that kind, but this grand old world really felt enough, and its prizes worth all life’s struggles. Cousin John was bantering just now when he left me to my dreams of legal honours; but it reminded me of how much they had become to me, especially of late. There is a set of us at college just now who have gone in for that kind of thing specially, I think. I daresay we sometimes have had qualms that we may not find all we hoped for in the days to be; but I think we try to banish such thoughts as unworthy of brave aspirants,” said Kenneth with a smile, as he recalled many eager walks and talks round Arthur Seat, and seemed to hear again from the midst of his beloved debating society echoes of eloquent youthful voices which used to sound to his ardent spirit like the reveille call Mrs. Irvine did not interrupt him, and after a moment Kenneth went on: “But somehow, as I lay upstairs there, this earthly life, even at its highest, seemed to me so short, and so little, taken alone. It was only when I tried to look at it as part—as the beginning of the longer, the eternal life—that it seemed more than an illusion. The idea came to me one day as if it were quite new—a discovery—and I felt the joyous elation which I suppose discoverers must feel. ‘The greatness of eternity ’ used to sound a hackneyed phrase, but that was the phrase which made my heart leap on that night when, I suppose, I lay very nearly done with time, though I did not guess it; only I felt, all at once, that hopes for this life merely could never be what they were before—that they must be linked to the indestructible somehow.

“And then this book has helped me so much,” he added, laying his hand affectionately on the yellowed page by his side. “You remember, Cousin Dora, I asked you to bring me something from your own bookcase, and you said that you must prescribe for your patient something neither too grave nor too gay, and then you brought me this wonderful old Pascal I do not think any other human words could have helped me as his have done all these days. His thoughts seem to have come ‘ out of the depths’ too.”

“Ah yes; and you know his history—such depths, and such a grand uprising.”

“Yes; and every word is so strong and true. There is a quiet sternness about them, too, which makes one feel as if one were taken hold of by a calm, wise, strong grasp, and led up and away from the shows and shadows of our life here, to feel that it is, as he says, ‘ la chose du monde la plus fragile,’ and to understand the greatness of man’s destiny. Yes, Cousin Dora, these have been wonderful days to me,” said Kenneth, as he lay back on his couch with a happy smile.

“Ah, Kenneth, you have made me very glad,” said Mrs. Irvine in a low tone, as she looked with happy though tear-dimmed eyes on her patient “We shall think of that terrible night among the snowdrift as a very blessed milestone, after all,” she added; and then nurse and patient sat quietly by each other for a little.

“Carriage wheels!—here comes a visitor! ” cried Kenneth, getting suddenly to his feet as the sound reached him from the pleasant holly avenue which led to the manse porch.

“Oh, it is Mary; she talked of coming to-day to carry me off for the long-planned visit to Donald Reid,” said Mrs. Irvine. Yes, it is just the old yellow coach from Mirkwood. One does not often see it now-a-days. The dear child has brought it to fetch me. She must have remembered that the minister meant to drive instead of to ride to the Presbytery to-day. She is always so thoughtful for others, Mary.

“But, my invalid, what sudden insubordination is this? Lie down this moment, I command you,” said Mrs. Irvine, picking from the floor the discarded sofa blanket But Kenneth would not be persuaded to occupy his sofa again for the present It was the first time Mary and Kenneth had seen each other since their memorable meeting among the snow, but the interview threatened to be rather disappointing, as sequels often are.

Kenneth’s deep flush when he shook hands with the young visitor did not escape Mrs. Irvine’s notice, and took its place beside some other indications of a similar kind which had revealed themselves to her quiet perceptiveness during the past weeks. Kenneth rather slurred over all talk about himself, and went on to make eager inquiries concerning Esmae.

“Well, I must say it seems to me that both you and Mary idealize ‘ young Rinaultrie,’ as the country people call him. Alick Grahame was just telling me how utterly idle he has been during all last session. He seems to me, from all I hear of him, a young man who squanders his gifts and opportunities shamefully. I really think you overrate him quite.—Do not look at me so reproachfully, Kenneth.”

“Of course I shall, Cousin Dora, when you make such remarks about my dearest friend. Young Grahame is a very decent fellow; but he is just the sort that would never be able to appreciate Esmae,” said Kenneth with a kindling glow in his generous gray eyes.

“You are going to introduce my cousin to Donald Reid, I hear, Miss Cassilis,” he added after a moment, turning to Mary.

“And he is another of Mr. Esmae Burnett’s admirers, is he not? I suppose I shall have to listen to his praises there too,” said Mrs. Irvine.

“That he is. But so would you be if you knew him,” responded Mary warmly.

“She would; and I am determined that she shall know him better, Miss Cassilis,” said Kenneth brightly, as he sprang to his feet to say good-bye to Mary in spite of his nurse’s remonstrance.

Mrs. Irvine, it must be confessed, did not feel quite inclined this morning to extend that charity which believeth all things towards Mary’s old playmate. The fact is, that while Miss Cassilis senior sat in her elbow-chair, dreaming frequently of the cherished hope which seemed to take such strong sudden hold of her mind on the wintry afternoon when she divulged it to the laird, there had been, half-unknown to herself, springing up in Mrs. Irvine’s mind a rival hopa The idea had first suggested itself from her chance observation, one day, of Mary’s evident anxiety about their invalid guest Each time she dwelt on the possibility of a growing liking between these two, it presented greater attractions to her mind. She was not going to act the part of that much-depreciated person, a matchmaker, of course, she said to herself, but Kenneth was so nice, and Mary was so dear; and if only—”

Kenneth, meanwhile, stood in his invalid’s neuk watching the yellow carriage as it disappeared among the shining hollies of the avenue. Then flinging himself wearily on his sofa, he took up his book again with a sigh as he muttered, “What a fortunate fellow Esmae is, to be sure. To have that girl’s liking is a richer portion than all the broad lands of Rinaultrie. How good she looks, and how beautiful! ”

“Oh, I am so sorry,” said Mary, stepping back from the door of Donald’s cottage at which she had just knocked. “He has a visitor, and I am afraid you will not like him. He is not in the least like Donald.”

It was the loud, rasping voice of the village shoemaker, which was distinctly heard mingling with the old man’s gentler tones, which caused such discomfort to Mary.

But whatever Mrs. Irvine might think of Logan, she could not fail to like Donald, she thought, as she followed her friend into the kitchen. She was therefore not a little disappointed to notice, after a few moments’ observation, that the old man appeared very unlike himself on this afternoon. He received his visitors with a melancholy and almost offended dignity, she fancied, and after a few kindly remarks on Mrs. Irvine’s side, the conversation seemed altogether to flag.

“You do not seem quite well to-day, Donald,” said Mary at last, deciding that indisposition might account for his strange manner, though it was very unlike him to mope over his bodily ailments; “have you been feeling your rheumatism again! ”

“Thank you, Miss Mary, I am very well in my body,” he replied with a heavy sigh.

Logan had meanwhile been sitting silent, nursing his elbows on his knees, and biting his nails energetically as he darted keen glances now on the visitors, now on Donald. Raising his head he cleared his throat and followed up Donald’s remark, saying, in pointed tone,—

“There is such a thing as a righteous man’s soul being sore vexed when his body is well enough. And small wonder is it that all the righteous souls in Asloune and Netherley—and Blairton into the bargain, if there be any, for I hear it is a dark locality—should be heart-vexed on hearing of such on-goingB on the pairt of factor Cranstown; and if all tales be true, some other folk who should know better, seeing they call themselves shepherds o’ the flock, are having a hand in this black job.” He wound up with a meaning glance towards the wife of the minister of Blairton.

A slight flush rose to Mrs. Irvine’s face as she asked, “What is going on just now in our neighbourhood that you disapprove of so much? ”

“It is what is going to be done afore many days are ower that I am alludin’ to, mem—the ordaining to the kirk of Netherley of a man that no creature in the parish could be gotten to vote for except that carnal man Lowrie, the innkeeper at the Cassilis Arms. It has gone against the protesting folk in the courts ceevil and sacred—to the shame o’ the courts be it spoke; and this very day the Presbytery have met to settle the business, they tell me, and to saddle a man upon the kirk o’ Netherley that is no fitter for the post nor a bubbly jock. Eh, but it is a sore time for the folk! ’Deed if it were not that Bruce o’ Auldearn is a terrible stander-up for order, maybe there would be doings rough enough to scare the factor and his followin’.”

“I had no idea that the opposition to the new presentee was so strong as that,” said Mrs. Irvine musingly.

“Bight glad am I, lady, to hear you say that,” cried Donald brightening.—“There now, soutar, that is a part of your story that will hold no water whatever. The minister of Blairton will not be mixing himself up with such doings as you tell of; and for that the Lord be praised.”

Mary felt glad that Donald’s self-opinionative visitor had received a little check. And now Mrs. Irvine in her next remark would likely make him feel still more reproved; for she had in her manner a habitual mingling of graceful dignity with kindliness which had long since won the admiration of her younger friend. Much to Mary’s surprise, therefore, Mrs. Irvine turned to Donald and said, in a low, troubled tone,—

“You are mistaken, I fear, in thinking we are altogether free from blame in this matter. I am glad, however, to have more information about these troubles of the Netherley people. I do not think my husband knows quite to what extent they are opposed to having the new presentee for their minister.”’

“The Lord be praised,” again murmured Donald softly, who had been straining his ear to catch every word “Well, Donel, it strikes me ye are praisin’ at the Lord for unca little,” remarked Logan. “It is surely something else we should be doing than praisin’ the Lord this day when such troubles are hanging over the godly in the very next pairish to our own.” “That seems to me rather a strange doctrine, Mr. Logan,” said Mrs. Irvine quietly. “Does not the Bible tell us that we should always praise the Lord? Yes, even when it is the oppression and injustice of man that fulfil his purposes;—or, to put it more plainly, when we come in contact with those who, through mistaken ideas, or, it may be, malicious designs, seem to be strewing the path of good men with difficulties and cares. It would surely be taking a short-sighted view of things if we were to cease to put our trust in the Lord at such times; and that seems to me what we should be doing if we cease to thank and praise him.”

Donald had been listening attentively. There was a bright look came into his face, and he said with a smile as Mrs. Irvine finished speaking,—

The soutar will be saying I have but one ‘ owercome ’ to my song, like the wee Jacobite bird that Mr. Esmae sings about; but I must come over it again, whatever. The Lord be praised, lady, for the words you have spoken. It is like having a bit dark cloud lifted and getting a glint of the sun again. The soutar there and myself have just been sitting here like in the mirk of a thunder-cloud; but maybe what looks to our poor eyes like black darkness will be not the gathering night but the beginning of the dawn.”

Mr. Logan muttered something about his not making clouds darker than they were; but he again took to biting his nails with avidity, and did not seem inclined to lift up his voice further in such unsympathetic company.

Presently Mra Irvine rose to go, saying good-bye to Donald, with a promise that she should return to see him before long.

The ungracious visitor was also taken leave of with considerate kindliness; but as Mrs. Irvine took her seat in the old yellow carriage, she lay back saying,—

“This is sad news, Mary. Things must have been travelling apace at Netherley lately. To tell the truth, I have been so absorbed with my patient that I have not thought of much beyond the walls of the sick-room.”

“Oh, I knew about it, only quite lately though, from the Cranstowna I heard that funny Norah tell her papa the other day, when he rebuked her for mimicking Mr. Coutts, that it showed the good taste of the Netherley people that they were making such a disturbance about having him as their minister. Mr. Cranstown looked angry, and said that the people of Netherley would be obliged to take what the law of the land gave them. But you know the factor speaks bitterly of the country people always. He seems not to understand them the least bit He is so different from Mr. Burnett I often wonder why he keeps him for his lawyer, and so does Esmae.

“But Mr. Irvine is a friend of the factor’s, is he not? At least I heard Mr. Cranstown saying the other day to somebody that the minister of Blairton and he rowed in the same boat”

“Ah, did he really say so! I do not think that is quite the case, though,” said Mra Irvine reflectively, after a moment’s silence. “Mr. Cranstown is very different from my husband— so different that they never could be frienda But about some matters—those weary Church politics, for instance—they have meeting - ground. You see, Mary, there are times in this troublesome world when those who ought to row in the same boat and with the same current seem to be pulling in opposite directions,—wishing to reach the same port, too, only their ideas about the right course to steer are different For instance, my husband thinks he sees dangerous rocks ahead for the Church in the pilotage of the Wild party, where Mr. Grahame of Whiterashes sees only safe sailing. Mr. Irvine considers, you know, that the union of the Church with the State is real help in the ruling of parishes, and a boon in everything connected with the clerical profession. He believes that the good old steadfast Kirk, where his fathers have been ministers for many generations, is really imperilled by the doings of the Wild party—as they call them—and that the whole agitation has arisen from the craving after change, in these restless, radical times.”

“And you, Mrs. Irvine, what do you think)” asked Mary, noticing that as yet her friend had restricted herself to explaining her husband’s position.

“Well, to tell the truth, I used till lately to look on the whole matter as a question of rather uninteresting Church politics. It seemed to me a much happier, and even holier thought, to dwell on the idea of the universal Church—the communion of saints—and to think as little as possible about the small visible part of the Church with which we happened to be linked, except as a door to the invisible one. There is something soothing and fascinating in the idea of the whole earth being a temple, under whose canopy all who love the Lord Jesus Christ worship with one heart. The thought used to feel like a sanctuary to me, when I sat listening to all the talk about the troubles that seem to be thickening round the Church of Scotland. It sounded to me as the wintry wind does when one feels comfortably curtained in. But now, though I would fain keep all the blessed protectiveness which the thought of ‘ one fold ’ and ‘ one Shepherd ’ brings, I do not feel indifferent any more to the bit of pasture-land we call the Church of our fathers.

“I suspect good old Mr. Bruce at Netherley has got firm hold of an idea which has only been slowly dawning on me. I remember thinking so, one day, more than a year ago when he came to see my husband with reference to this dispute about Mr. Coutts’s presentation. That old peasant man seemed to have an ideal, clear and serene, of his beloved Kirk as a whole— as a corporate body, to use a big phrase—that he would work for, struggle for, and, if need be, die for, as some of his fathers did about these very braes and moors.”

“But is that not just what Mr. Cranstown thinks) He is always talking about keeping up the dignity of the Church, and saying that it must not be allowed to become a mere dissenting conventicle, as the Nether ley people are trying to make it” “Ah, but there is the point I suspect that there are some people who would dislike a mere dissenting conventicle even more than Mr. Cranstown, who agree with the Netherley people in holding that they are only being true to the principles of their Church in asking that they shall have a voice in the choosing of their minister. I could see it was the thought that it was not for his own parish church merely, but for the rights of the Church of Scotland that they were fighting, which had taken such a hold of Auldearn’s mind, and made a good, peace-loving man like him act in such a way as the factor considered against law and order.” “Yes, I see,” said Mary thoughtfully. “I wonder what Aunt Grizel will say when she hears that they are really going to force the Netherley tenants to take Mr. Coutts for their minister. She has a great dislike to insubordination of any kind, you know; but she believes so much in everybody who lives at Netherley—all the peasant people, I mean—that I think she will be very angry.”

“I suspect it will make her wish more than ever that a Cas-silis were ruling at Netherley, and not lawyer Cranstown,” said Mrs. Irvine, glancing at her girl-friend with an inquiring smile. Once before only in the course of their friendship the oonver-sation had turned on Miss Cassilis’s known desire that the ancient stock should flourish in the old place once more. Mary had then declared impetuously that one stone of Mirkwood was dearer to her than all the lands of Netherley.

The conversation was, however, interrupted at this point by Miss Joan Pimie, who advanced with rapidity towards the carriage, her whole attitude beckoning, from her nodding curls to the ancient parrot-topped parasol, which she brandished energetically.

“Eh! but I have had such a run after your aunt’s yellow machine,” she panted, addressing Mary, who was looking out at the carriage window. “Marget is behind thera She is so positive, that girl She would have it that this fine, handsome vehicle was nothing more than a brae of whins in bloom, forsooth. It is a wonder she did not say it was a crop of dandelions! It is not often, to be sure, that we get a sight of the yellow coach taking a walk abroad now-a-days. And you will just need to xgive me a seat in it, Miss Mary. I am clean out of breath after this race of mine. But have you heard the news about the Netherley kirk! They have kept it a bit of a secret till now, but it is out with a vengeance at last. The Presbytery met this very forenoon, and your friend Mr. Irvine at the top of them, for fixing a day to ordain the creature Coutts to the kirk. The Netherley folk are up in arms, they say. We met the soutar a while ago, and he says not a single soul will attend the kirk after that man is placed.

“But I beg your pardon, Miss Mary; you are not your lone, I see,” said Miss Pimie quickly, springing back from the carriage steps with a considerably discomfited air when she perceived Mrs. Irvine in the background.

“How do you do, Miss Pimie! You did not give me an opportunity of saying so before,” said Mrs. Irvine, with a slightly amused smile; for, indeed, Miss Joan’s flow of talk since she reached the carriage had left no opening for any one else.

“In my usual health, thank you; but I feel just a bit taken aback with the sight of you, ma’am, not knowing you were there,” jerked Miss Pirnie, with a quick air of annoyance.

“Well, since you are so pressing, Miss Mary, I will just take a seat for one minute. My old bones are aching, I do assure you. As for Marget, she can come on foot at her leisure: serves her right, after mistaking your aunt’s yellow carriage for a bank o’ broom! ”

“Oh, please, do wait for Miss Margaret,” said Mrs. Irvine; “it is so long since I have seen her. She never seems to have time to come to pay me a visit now as she used to do when I was a prisoner in my room. Ah, there she cornea”

“Well, Mra Irvine, the fact is, Marget and me have just been having a kind of a quarrel, like, about the affairs of that Nether ley kirk,” nodded Miss Pirnie confidentially as she took her seat, the atmosphere of the interior of the yellow coach seemingly already having taken effect on her views on Church politics, for she went on glibly:—

“‘Deed, I have just been remarking to her that this step will be an uncommon good thing for the parish of Netherley. It will maybe have the effect of stamping out the sedition that has been about,—these gatherings in Auldearn’s bam and the like. I’ll warrant it is for that Mr. Irvine has given himself to the pushing in to the vacant kirk the Reverend Peter Coutts. But to hear that gossiping body Logan, the shoemaker, talk, one would really think that we were back to the times of the persecutions that we read of in Fox’s ‘ Book of Martyrs,’ and the like. He says it will be the death-blow to religion in the parish if they put the preacher Coutts into the kirk.”

Miss Margaret, who had now reached the carriage, stood silently listening to her sister’s remarks. Mary glanced anxiously towards her; for she knew that her gentle teacher had been taking a deep interest in Netherley of late, and she concluded that the news of the troubles there would probably be as saddening to her as it was to old Donald Reid. To her surprise, however, she noticed a serene and somewhat elate expression steal into Miss Margaret’s face as Miss Pimie narrated the shoemaker’s prophecy. Mrs. Irvine probably noticed it also, for she turned to her, saying softly, “And you, Miss Margaret, what are you thinking about these matters! ”

“I am afraid my sister will tell you that I am given over to these ‘ seditious gatherings,’ as she calls them. But, indeed, they ought not to be named so, Mrs. Irvine,” said Miss Margaret, with eagerness. “I know there are those who have been trying to spread the report that the meetings in Mr. Bruce’s bam have been called for nothing else than to talk about Kirk matters and how to resist the factor; but they have always been for better things. Mr. Falconer has held out the bread of life to the Netherley people as it has never been offered to them in my time, and many have come and more are coming to taste of it; and instead of there being a death of religion in Netherley, as Joan says, there never was more life. Mrs. Irvine, I hardly ever go to Auldearn’s bam that I do not know of souls being born again; ” and as she spoke her voice sank into a whisper. There was an awe-struck look in her face and a new light shining in her faded eyes.

“Ach, Marget, I wonder to hear you—and you the daughter of a minister of the Establishment! As if we could know whether folk were bom again or no!—And ’deed, Mrs. Irvine, I will just tell you that the first and last time I heard that Chapel-o’-Ease man, his sermon was just all about trash o’ duties and the like. There was not a single crumb o’ decent doctrine holden out to the hearers from beginning till end of that discoorse. Now, mem, I put it to you, the wife of a respected minister o’ the Establishment and an upholder of order and discipline in the Kirk, is it right of the like of our Marget, who is a teacher of youth forby, to be mixing herself up with such ongoings) ’Deed, mem, the irreverence that goes on in that bam, of a Sunday evening, is shocking. They will be singing away at bits of hymns, and passing over the authorezed version o’ the Psalms o’ David on a Sabbath evening, just as happy as though it were the middle o’ the week. That’s not my notion o’ behaviour during exercises! ” wound up Miss Pimie angrily.

“And are these meetings still going on in Mr. Bruce’s bam?” asked Mrs. Irvine.

“There will be but few more, and that is the great sorrow to many,” said Miss Margaret, to whom the question was addressed. “Mr. Falconer says that after Mr. Coutts’s ordination the people roust go to the church. You see, Mr. Gordon has had charge during the vacancy, and there were times when he did not send anybody to preach, and times when he sent worse than none, and then for the last year the church has been under repairs, and so Mr. Bruce began again to send his gig to Aberstone to bring Mr. Falconer. He comes mostly on week days, but sometimes on a Sunday when he could get his own pulpit supplied. I make no doubt he has good and weighty reasons for saying that he will not come after the Rev. Peter Coutts is ordained, though it is a great sorrow to many. But he has been speaking many comforting words about the promised presence of the Lord with his people at all times.”

“Oh, he will come back if he is wanted; no fear of that. I make no doubt Auldearn pays him well for each discoorse he preaches. He is reckoned an uncommon rich man, Auldearn; and having no family and a thrifty wife, he must have gathered plenty of money. Mark my words, we have not seen the last of Mr. Falconer yet”

“Well, that will be proved presently, Miss Pimie,” said Mrs. Irvina “I must say I think it is a trial for the Netherley people to lose such a man. I had no idea he was of that mind,” she added musingly. “Ah, there is my little basket carriage waiting for me at the bridge, Mary. So now you and Miss Margaret will go on to your history reading, and I must go and see what my poor solitary patient has been about”

CHAPTER X
The Ordination at Retberley.

“Man’s work is to labour and leaven,
As best he may, earth here with heaven.”
R. Browning.

Breakfast was over, but Mr. and Mrs. Irvino and their invalid guest still lingered round the pleasant little table, as was the custom at the old manse of Blairton. The morning was sunshiny, and a fragrant scent of sweet spring flowers greeted Kenneth Maxwell from the open window as he went to take the post-bag from the letter-carrier—an ancient woman, bronzed, wrinkled, and freckled to a degree, clad in a brief winsey petticoat and blue cotton wrapper, her broad stumpy figure bristling with bags and bundles. She represented, in fact, the parcels delivery for the little village, and had, during many years, through summer’s sun and winter’s blast, tramped bare-footed along the highroad between Blairton and the nearest post-town, four miles distant “Bide a wee, Maister Maxwell. I hae a bit nottie frae Netherley, forby fat’s i’ the pouch.” After rummaging in the recesses of her ample bosom, where special valuables were generally secreted, she produced an envelope.

“It is for the minister himsel’, and I was bidden gie it intil his verra ain han’. It’s nae ’at I wudna lippen onything til ye, Maister Maxwell, but— ” and the old woman hesitated as she still grasped the crumpled note between her fingers, blinking at Kenneth from underneath her beetling eyebrows and half-shut lids.

“Why, Martha, I wonder who the minister’s suspicious correspondent can be! ” said Mrs. Irvine, now coming forward towards the window. “We are not accustomed to such caution about Blairton, are we! ”

“Ay, ye may weel say that, mistress,” replied Martha with a broad smila “But, ’deed, the factor gied me siccana scowl fan he telt me til tak guid tent o’ the bit nottie, and chargit me nae til lat it oot atween my finggers till I got til the minister.”

“Come, my dear, and relieve Martha of her heavy responsibilities,” said Mrs. Irvine, turning to her husband, who was scanning the contents of his post-bag. “It is clear that Mr. Cr&nstown has never been resident in our part of the world before, or he would have more confidence in his surroundings.”

“Oh, it is from the factor, is it) He is bristling with suspicions just now. I cannot think what is the matter with him. I was telling him that he would require to betake himself to hard work again, to restore his nervous system. Rural leisure does not seem to suit the busy man of law,” said Mr. Irvine with a laugh, as he opened the letter and began to read.

“This is really too bad,” he muttered after a moment “Cranstown is letting his nerves, or something else, carry him too far. What do you think he proposes) That we should ordain Mr. Ooutts by candlelight instead of at the usual hour in the forenoon; and he further suggests that the members of Presbytery should first dine at Netherley House and then adjourn to the church under the cover of darkness. He is in a great panic, evidently. I had no idea Cranstown was a coward. He seems to have heard a vague rumour of some outrage to be perpetrated; as if that ought to intimidate us in the doing of our duty,” he added, drawing himself up with an indignant flash in his keen eyes.

“Well, I am not surprised, Cousin John, that Mr. Cranstown should turn out a coward. Bullies generally are—every schoolboy knows that. And it is quite evident the Netherley factor is a bully, if all tales be true ”

“But all tales are not true, Master Ken; you may be quite sure of that,” replied the minister, as he glanced at his young relative. “I fancy it is that cringing creature, the innkeeper at Netherley, who has been stuffing Cranstown with all this nonsense about the projected resistance of the congregation. Of course, it is quite natural that they should be slightly restive about the whole matter when they have conceived such an unfortunate prejudice against the presentee. But they will give in quietly enough when they see it is inevitable. We are not quite so lawless in these parts as Mr. Cranstown supposes.”

“But why should they have to give in? It does seem so hard,” murmured Mrs. Irvine, as she bent over her knitting.

“My dear Dora, you are really almost as unreasonable about this affair as the Netherley folks themselves. It is not like you. Tou know, besides, that if there were anything against Mr. Coutts’s character, I for one should have been the last to sanction the proceedings,” said her husband, slightly ruffled, as he tore the factor’s note, and throwing the fragments into the fire, he took his stand on the rug with his back to the cheerful blaze as he went on speaking.

“It seems to me, really, that this small rebellion at Netherley is simply caught from the epidemic of insubordination which is raging at present. It will be the ruin of our Church if it is not checked. The fact is, the Wild party do not see where they are drifting to in their folly and imprudence. However, I am far from being in favour of violent settlements. I confess I am sorry that Cranstown has pushed the matter so for, especially in this case, when all the world knows that the patron is quite uninterested, and that Mr. Coutts is the factor’s nominee. It is not good taste in Cranstown, but he defends it by saying that Mb man is the very best the Netherley people could have; and indeed he does seem to be a long-suffering, respectable creature.”

“And that is all one wants in a minister, is it?”

“Perhaps not, Dora dear, for people who have such high ideals as you and the good folk of Netherley. But respectability is a fair enough thing for us to take our stand on. We cannot all be orators and poets, eh, Kenneth?” said the minister, glancing at his young cousin, who sat nursing his knee with a look of deep thought in his expressive eyes. “Cranstown evidently thinks that the Netherley people are being stirred up to rebellion by those gatherings at Auldearn you were telling me of, Dora. He seems to regard them as subversive of all law and order.”

“I do not think that can be, Cousin John,” said Kenneth, rousing himself from his reverie. “ Miss Mary Cassilis told me that Mr. Falconer, who has been holding these services at the barn, has refused to come any more, simply because he does not think it right to put himself in a position of rivalry with the ordained minister.”

“And Margaret Firnie says that he has never once alluded to the disputed settlement; so the factor’s suspicions are ill-founded, as far as that goes. Miss Margaret says that the meetings have done so much good. It must be rather an effort for a delicate-looking woman like her to walk from Asloune all the way to Netherley to attend them. One would think there must be some strong belief in good to be gained,” said Mrs. Irvine.

“Ah, one cannot tell. Novelty attracts many people, and no doubt the love of opposition influences some. Mr. Gordon refused to give them the church for these services, you know. So I fancy the bam orator and his following lay some claim to being martyrs; and I daresay, from all I hear, old Mr. Bruce of Auldearn now regards himself as martyr-in-chief. I am surprised at his developing such troublesome characteristics. I always thought him such a quiet, sensible man; and he is the oldest office-bearer in the church there, and ought to set a good example.”

“And so I am very sure he does. But, John, you surely have not forgotten how earnestly he spoke about this Kirk matter one day here more than a year ago; and I believe he is just the man to brave everything for the sake of principle, as his Covenanting forefathers did.”

O Dora, please do not begin to talk of the matter in that strain,” said Mr. Irvine, shrugging his shoulders. “‘ Our Covenanting forefathers ’ is quite the stock phrase of these agitators now. They are learning to write and talk in the most offensive way. There is no fear of us, I assure you, in these times of rule and order going back to the follies and barbarities of a century and a half ago. ‘The people, as well as the rulers, are wiser now. We must not be intimidated from doing our duty by sensational phrases.”

Mrs. Irvine looked grave, and there was silence for a few moments. Glancing up from her knitting, she said at length, “Well, you may be right, John, as to its not being good taste to use Voluntary watchwords, or stock phrases of any kind; and if ‘our Covenanting forefathers’ is such an obnoxious one to you, I shall try to refrain from using it. But it does seem to me that this forcing of a minister on an unwilling people is a sort of challenge, and that the choice to their minds may lie between being submissive tenants to an absent and uninterested superior, or obedient servants to their heavenly King. Surely all concerned should beware of tampering with the convictions of these people.”

As Kenneth noted the solemnly-speaking eyes which rested on Mr. Irvine, who was turning to go, he was reminded of the story of another faithful wife, who, in a terrible hour of the world’s history, sent the message to warn her husband to beware of doing anything against the Man holy and just.

Was this loving wife of to-day pleading the cause of some of His faithful though humble followers?

The thought seemed to invest with a deeper interest, and to shed a new light over, the present difficulties of the little congregation of lowly peasants.

“Well, at all events we Bhall not attempt to throw the mantle of darkness over our doings,” said Mr. Irvine. “I cannot think why Mr. Gordon and some of the other members of Presbytery have agreed to the factor’s shabby suggestion as he says they hava At all events, I mean to insist that the ordination shall take place before two o’clock as usual.” And the minister of Blairton, with his quick, firm step, walked away to mount his horse, which stood waiting for him at the pleasant trellised porch.

Mr. Irvine was one of the most respected ministers in the district, and one of the best known. His family had held the living of Blairton for several generations. The marquis on whose land the kirk and glebe were, had no house in the neighbourhood. His interest, therefore, in this part of his territory was chiefly pecuniary; and so it happened that the Irvines, who, indeed, belonged to a younger branch of the noble house, were the oldest residents in the parish, and were looked up to with filial trust by the peasant dwellers round. Nor had that trust been misplaced, though perhaps it had found its best fulfilment in the thought and care bestowed on all of them by one who had come to the neighbourhood a young stranger bride —the invalid wife of the present minister.

Mr. Irvine had at all times a becoming sense of the responsibility resting on him as the head of the parish. Its well-being was, in one shape or other, his most stirring life interest The virtuous knew that with him they would always have the commendation dear to their hearts: the lawless dreaded him, and felt it their most comfortable policy to avoid him, except when they belonged to the type skilled in playing the rdlt of the hypocrite; but even they were not generally so successful as they counted on with the minister of Blairton. Not that any intimidation of evil-doers arose from impetuous outbursts of righteous indignation on his part Habitually calm and well regulated, of gracious address and placid manners, the sting of Mr. Irvine’s rebuke never dwelt in vehement denunciations or noisy wrath. An attitude of cold, haughty displeasure and disapproval was the only weapon of punishment which he wielded in the government of his parish, the hardest baton ever used by this revered moral policeman. His words to his flock on the Sabbath day were in harmony with his week-day rule, unimpassioned but always on the side of uprightness and good living: his well-turned sentences were listened to with respect and admiration by all who sat in the high pews of the cosy old parish church. Nor was their admiring affection reserved for the good words alone. It extended to the beloved form of their pastor as he occupied his place Sunday after Sunday in the old pulpit—his stately, benignant countenance, well-shaped head, and finely-developed shoulders clad in the flowing folds of his black Genevan gown— as, with quiet, well-bred gestures, he read his homily, raising occasionally the forefinger of his well-gloved hand when he wished to give greater emphasis to his words.

Though it was far from Mr. Irvine’s habit of mind to be contemptuous or careless regarding public opinion had he been put to the test, yet it did not enter much, or practically at all, into his thoughts to inquire what were his people’s ideas regarding him. A good, well-assured position having been his inheritance, he had never during his rule as parish priest been made to feel that any part of his conduct, opinions or administration, could possibly be otherwise than acceptable to his people. As the adviser of his flock in things temporal as well as spiritual, his authority was unquestioned and his utterances on every subject listened to by the elders of the kirk and its frequenters with unvarying respect “That’s the minister’s opingion, ony way,” was a phrase often used to clinch an argument on disputed points in the social circles of the parish.

Possibly, however, Mr. Irvine could scaroely have defined these amenities of his position, so naturally did they seem to belong to it. Any other attitude on the part of his parishioners could hardly have been imagined either by him or by them; and who shall say that it was not a mutual attitude good and pleasant as the precious ointment upon the priestly head— as “the dew of Hermon that descended on the mountains of Zion”?

But though all was still in a state of gracious decorum and harmony in the parish of Blairton, the social weather in some portions of the surrounding country was, as we have seen, by no means so sunny.

In the contentions which were then pervading the Scottish Church, Mr. Irvine had from the first, both from temperament and family tradition, sided with the so-called Moderate party. A Conservative in politics, he viewed with dislike and distrust opinions which were beginning to be rife in circles social and ecclesiastical. Both in Church and State, they had their rise, according to his view of the matter, in the growing undisciplined craving after lawless liberty by those who would most surely wield it to the molestation of their neighbours as well as to their own destruction. All that had been already conceded to them he believed only served to whet their appetite for further concessions to be wrung from the ruling classes. The passing of the recent parliamentary measures of reform seemed to him like so many sluices cast open, through which there might flow mighty downward currents, that would sweep away, with deadly, resistless force, many a bulwark once reckoned impregnable, and submerge many a fair tract restful to the eye and well beloved.

Specially dear to Mr. Irvine’s heart was that innermost circle of Scottish life with which the fortunes of his family had been interwoven during many peaceful generations. That these revolutionary blasts should rage in the world without was disturbing enough, but that they should invade the sanctuary, come near with their discordant sounds to the ark, borne by the faithful of the race through the tumults of past stormy times till it had reached a haven, as he hoped, safe from all enemies—to live thus to see the Holy of holies endangered, and that not from the rude, destructive handling of those without merely, but more from the mistaken zeal, the impetuous folly of some of those within its pale—was to the minister of Blairton bitter indeed. That he Bhould take his stand against the Wild and now predominating party in the Church, seemed to him his simple duty to society and to God. And since it was not in his nature to take a declamatory stand, he felt all the more that he must with firmness, if with quiet reticence, abide by those who appeared inclined to take the forefront in the opposition to those measures the furtherance of which seemed to his mind so fatal to the future of his beloved Kirk.

Mr. Cranstown, a reputed rising Writer to the Signet, and at the fountain-head of ecclesiastical affairs, was naturally one of those who, when he appealed for support on behalf of the endangered Church, could not fail to find a response from Mr. Irvine. There were, indeed, many traits in the factor utterly uncongenial to the more refined temperament of the minister of Blairton; but Mr. Irvine was too well versed in the history of human affairs not to know that a common cause must rally round its banner many diverse types of men, if in the end it is to be victorious.

That Mr. Cranstown had not been altogether wise in the course which he had pursued with regard to the presentee to the Netherley church, was keenly felt by Mr. Irvine. Still, that law and order must be upheld, however distasteful some of the details incidental on such support might prove, was the Bumming up of his reflections on the point as he rode rapidly towards Netherley.

About the same hour as old Martha, with her blunt faithfulness, was delivering the factor’s note at the window of the Blair ton manse, Mr. Cranstown was seated in one of the rooms of the ancient manor-house of the Gassilises, seemingly deeply absorbed in some correspondence before him. He could not well have fixed on a drearier retreat though he had searched the long corridors with their many unused rooms. To one wing of the old house Mrs. Cranstown had succeeded in giving a comfortable air of habitation, but much of it was still left in an untenanted state,

“We are only camping here, you see,” explained Norah to visitors whom she chanced to sea “ Round about us are great unexplored tracts, as they say in geography books.”

It was in one of these half-explored regions at the end of a long corridor that Mr. Cranstown had chosen his business-room. He gave as his reason for so doing, that he would secure more undisturbed quiet in this deserted part of the housa He did not, however, seem destined to find it so on this particular morning.

As he sat bending busily over his writing, a rumbling sound in the passage appeared to send something like an electric shock through his nerves. “There is that girl coming to torment me again. What an extraordinary notion this is she has taken into her head. I declare I shall bolt her out this time,” he muttered, as he rose quickly. But his daughter’s movements were brisker than his own. Before he crossed the long room the rusty-hinged door was creaked open, and the wheels rattled along swiftly towards him.

Norah was looking paler, and, if possible, more elf-like than on the day when Boston made her acquaintance in the big drawing-room. She had a dishevelled, sleepless aspect, but her eyes were bright and flashing.

“Papa, do they tell me true? Is that ordination to be gone on with—is it to be done in spite of all my warnings? ” she said, in a low, rapid tone, laying her tiny hand on her father’s arm.

“Oh, you silly girl, why do you come to bother me with your nonsense just now? Don’t you see how busy I am? You must go at once; I shall turn you out if you don’t,” said Mr. Cr&nstown in a peremptory tone; but there was a nervous expression on his face as he laid his hand on the back of Norah’s chair. He could divert the course of her wheels, but that glib little tongue might be too much for him.

Twisting herself suddenly round, Bhe continued: “But, papa, have you not promised that you would not neglect my warnings? Is it really true that you are going to do so? I wished to hear the truth from your own lips, and so I came. Papa, let me know the worst at once. This suspense is killing.”

“Don’t be a fool, Norah,” grumbled Mr. Cranstown. “Do you really think I can alter my course of action because, forsooth, you have taken it into your head to get into a panic over it—Heaven knows why! ”

“Yes, papa, heaven does know why—or some other place, perhaps. I—I don’t know where such things come from,” whispered the girl with a scared look, as she glanced round the half-opened-up room; “but you will not—you will not surely have anything to do with that ordination, after all—after what I warned you will come.”

“Be quiet, girl, and go away this moment. Why should my own child come to torment me like this ? It is ungrateful, unnatural of you, Norah. And I always take your part, too.”

“I do not know about that You allowed them to send away Susan, who was my prop and stay,” said Norah composedly. But in an instant she glanced up in her father’s face with an air of genuine anxiety and distress. “O papa, only tell me that this is not to be, and I shall never trouble you any more! Oh, if you knew all that I know you would not think me silly! Do promise to me that you are going to have nothing to do with a thing that is to end so dreadfully! Oh, I cannot bear to think of it! ” and with a sob she covered her face with her hands.

Her father stood biting his lip as he glanced down at her. After a moment he said sullenly, “ Well, you don’t deserve it; but I shall tell you a secret. The ordination will not likely take place this-morning, after all, though the fools are now assembling for it, I daresay. But we are going to cheat them, Norah. It is to be gone through quite quietly this evening after dark. But, mind, you must not say a whisper about it Now, there, I have taken you into my confidence. Be off with you, like a good girl, or I shall complain of you to your mother and have you locked up, as she and Ada want to do.”

“Oh, oh! in the evening, after dark!—as if that would make any difference? I should think it may be all the wickeder! Oh, the curse will come!—it is sure to come!—for you will not listen to any of my warnings! What am I to do? ” she cried, wringing her hands and glancing upwards with pale, quivering lips.

Her father was standing by her side with an expression which betokened that his stock of patience was well-nigh exhausted, when the door was thrown suddenly open and a visitor announced.

“How do you do, Mr. Cranstown? I hope I am not intruding? ” said Mr. Irvine, pausing as he read traces of evident embarrassment on the factors face.

“Oh, by no means—not at all, sir; very glad to see you; though, certainly, Fenton had no orders to show visitors into this den of mine. It is hardly opened up yet I fancied it because it is quiet—Ah yes, that is Norah, our invalid daughter, who has been kind enough to come along to see me in my retreat,” added Mr. Cranstown, glancing nervously at Norah, with whom Mr Irvine was shaking hands.

“You may go now, my dear. See, I shall help you with that heavy chairand so saying he promptly laid hold of its railing and hurried the wheels across the old floor.

As he was closing the door Norah glanced up at him, saying in a tremulous voice, “Beware! ” and then covering her face with her hands, she burst into an agony of tears.

But now a tall, grim-looking woman stepped forward from the shadow of the corridor.

“Here, Mitchell, take your charge; and if you allow her to make such fatiguing journeys so far as this room again, I warn you, it is as much as your place is worth,” said Mr. Cranstown in an angry whisper as he closed the door.

The factor hardly looked less annoyed when, a few minutes after, he and Mr. Irvine issued from the dreary business-room, where seemingly their consultation had not proved of the pleasantest kind.

“It is only half an hour till the service begins,” said Mr. Irvine, glancing at his watch. “ It will be well to be punctual, if there is to be any opposition, as you contemplate. But I really think you will find yourself agreeably mistaken, Mr. Cranstown. I cannot believe the Netherley parishioners will prove rebellious when put to the test.”

“The hounds! you do not know them,” muttered the factor. “However, I expect most of your co-presbyters will follow my suggestion, and agree to defer the meeting till the evening. I really cannot see why you should object to the proposal so strongly.”

Mr. Cranstown, however, seemed destined to meet with opposition this morning. The minister of Asloune had just alighted from his cob, and stood in the old doorway with a broad smile on his face. “Well, here I am, factor; actually ridden all the way from my own parish through the midst of this dangerous territory, none making me afraid. Congratulate me,” he said in a bantering tone, as he strode gaily forward with mud-bespattered gaiters. “But, tell me, what has put all this candle-light nonsense into your head! Are you getting doubtful about your presentee, or what! It is too bad to back out of it now that you have led the Presbytery on the ice—and such a long dance on the ice, too. Eh, Cranstown,” he added with a laugh.

“Who talks of my backing out! ” said Mr. Cranstown angrily. “I only wish to make common prudential arrangements for the maintenance of law and order.”

“Ah, there comes Mr. Brown, looking as scared as possible. You have evidently managed to put the terror of death on him, at all events, Cranstown,” said Mr. Gordon, as he glanced with amusement at a lanky, pale-faced man, who had just slipped out of his gig and came shambling up the broad flight of steps with a pretematurally solemn air.

“Yes; and there are some others of the same mind, Mr. Gordon, though you seem to see fit to make light of the factor’s most prudential arrangements to preserve law and order in this most seditious locality,” drawled Mr. Brown, blinking on the group as he came forward. “I may mention,” he continued, “that Mr. Coutts waits anxiously at the inn for your adoption of Mr. Cranstown’s wise plan; and there are some others.”

“Oh, come, this is too bad. Do not let us have any more of this nonsense,” cried Mr. Gordon, impatiently flecking his gaiters with his riding-whip. “Never did I hear such a ridiculous fuss made about an ordination, and I have been a minister for five-and-twenty years. Let us go and get the thing done at once—the sooner the better.—And then we shall be able to do justice to your dinner, factor. Work before play; that’s my motto.—Gentlemen, I propose that we adjourn this meeting to the session-house,” he added, wheeling round jocosely as he put his arm through Mr. Irvine’s.—“Come, my dear sir, I am glad to see that you do not believe in this thief-in-the-night policy, at all events. I told Cranstown I felt sure that you would not agree to anything so unconstitutional But why has he got so curiously nervous over this affair all of a sudden) I can’t make it out,” he added in a lower tone, as he and the minister of Blairton walked away together.

Presently they met some other of their brother ministers, and after a moment’s parleying all seemed agreed to meet in the church at the hour originally appointed for the long-talked of ordination. Mr. Cranstown, sullenly acquiescing in the frustration of his plans, arranged to follow, Mr. Brown having accepted his invitation to share a seat in his brougham.

About the same hour as the ministers were making their way to the Netherley church, Kenneth Maxwell was taking his morning ride rather aimlessly along a woodland path into which he had strayed. His memorable enforced holiday was almost at an end now. Having been pronounced strong enough to join his uncle abroad, it was decided that he Bhould leave Blairton very shortly.

On the following day he had arranged to drive with Mrs. Irvine to make a farewell call at Mirkwood, but for this morning he had no special plans, and was, in fact, allowing Mr. Irvine’s little sturdy hill pony Duffle to decide pretty much where his airing was to be. He had been strolling on absorbed in his own thoughts till he came to a sharp curve on the road, when, lifting his eyes suddenly, he looked out on a fair scene to which the little upland zigzag path had brought him all unawares.

Beneath his feet slept the winter woodlands; and from their brown bosom rose a big gray house, tall and stately and many-gabled. Some dogs yelping in their kennels near broke the silence, and he could hear the voices of the keeper’s children as they played; but the sounds seemed only to mark the deep stillness which hung over the spot.

“That must be Netherley. It looks melancholy. I don’t wonder she does not like it,” Kenneth thought as he stood looking intently at the scene before him.

Presently his glance travelled across the dense copse which bounded the sloping park and the deserted archery grounds to a sunny upland, where stretched a cheerful white village. Pleasant strips of garden were attached to most of its dwelling houses, with little intersecting paths. The principal and only street told of a fair amount of prosperity in the little burgh, for such had been its rank in ancient times. The old carved stone market-cross of which it boasted was clearly discernible from Kenneth’s point of view; and there were tokens of its present prosperity in the smart signboards which surmounted many of the doors and windows throughout the long steep street On a grassy slope, with some old yew trees standing sentinel-wise round it, was the ivy-mantled parish church, whose fortunes had been more than once the topic of conversation at the manse of Blairton during Kenneth’s convalescence.

“Is the much-talked-of ordination going on there at this moment, I wonder? ” thought Kenneth, as he glanced towards the mossy gray tower; “or have Cousin John and his co-pres-byters given in to the factor, anol agreed to have it done in the dark?” Without any very definite plan he sauntered along the winding path till it merged into the highroad, where a signboard told all wayfarers that they were within a mile of the kirk town of Netherley. Presently he found himself in the centre of the little town which he had viewed from the zigzag path. Its principal street, however, on nearer inspection, presented anything but the cheerful appearance it wore in the distance. The shops had all their shutters on, and not a soul was to be seen about “I really think I must have a peep at this meeting that seems to be swallowing up all the inhabitants of the place. And then you can have some grazing in peace, old Duffle; I am sure you won’t object to that,’ said Kenneth, as he turned his pony’s head towards the rising ground on which the church stood He had just fastened Duffle’s bridle to the paling which skirted the shady road leading to the churchyard when he perceived some groups of people issuing from the old porch. Deciding that the service must be already over, he was about to turn and go down the hill again, when he remembered that by waiting for a few moments he might probably secure Mr. Irvine’s company home; so he took his stand on the green turf which bordered the path, and kept looking out for his cousin.

He was not long in perceiving that there was something unusual in the demeanour of the scattering congregation as they passed along the broad walk of the churchyard and down the shady path leading to their homes. The perfect silence which reigned, instead of the ordinary interchange of friendly greetings, struck him. They seemed also to have slipped into an orderliness of rank and file which, whether prearranged or not, was very different from the straggling, talkative little companies into which country people generally form themselves when they meet after service.

“Is the meeting over, will you be good enough to tell me? ” asked Kenneth, addressing an old man with gray locks escaping from under his broad blue bonnet who happened to be on the line nearest him.

“Ay, ay, sir; for some o’ us the meeting is ower, and the laist leave ta’en o’ oor weel-lo’ed kirk.”

“You do not mean to say that all those people have left the church not to go back again?” said Kenneth with astonishment, as he cast his eye over the coming crowds.

“They hae a’ left, sir,” replied the old man mournfully. His face had been quiet and almost stem-looking when Kenneth addressed him, but now some tears began to trickle down his weather-beaten cheeks. Kenneth noticed that he carried a big worn Bible, and he overheard him say to his companion as he stepped slowly on, “This buik hasna been liftit for mair nor saxty year.”

“Praise the Lord, man, that ye hae gotten the grace til lift it to-day,” replied the neighbour on whose arm he leaned. And now Kenneth observed that it was not the only timeworn-looking church Bible which was being carried out under the blue sky from its niche in the old pew.

An air of sad solemnity seemed to pervade the coming groups, which made Kenneth shrink from putting more questions to any, though he would fain have done so. Turning with the stream, he passed down the shady path till he came to the corner where Duffle stood, snapping some sweet blades of grass, and then he paused, undecided whether to ride off at once or still longer to wait his cousin.

“You will be on the side of the Intrusionists, Pm thinking,” said a man stepping out from the line, evidently with a wish to talk to the stranger.

“Well, I believe I am more mixed up with that side,” said Kenneth, glancing at him. He did not seem quite the sort of person whom he would have chosen for a talk, but since he appeared more conversationally inclined than most of the company, it might be wise to take advantage of it; for he felt his interest considerably more stirred in “these troublesome Neth-erley folks ” than it had been before.

“I heard you asking at Auldearn if the meeting in the kirk was over. It is but beginning, for them that has the hert and conscience to remain to see their holy place trampit under foot But they are few, God be thankit—just the innkeeper and a handful mair. I am thinking they will get a gey coldrife dis-coorse from Maister Broon. He is a bitter Moderate and a terrible slave to the paper. Eh, but it waB a fine sight to see Auldearn when he got up to his feet to speir by what authority they were met to force a minister into their kirk against the will of the people. And when they would not give a derec’ answer, he pickit up his buik and his bonnet, and without another word walked out o’ the kirk, the rest o’ them at his heels—never to gang mair to that door till they get a man that will gie them the gospel The folk were as quaiet as lambs; but that puir creter Coutts was jist shakin’ like a leaf in the win’. Ill warrant he expeckit to be tore limb frae limb like the ill-fashioned callants we read o’ in the Scripter.”

“I expect it must have been nearly as uncomfortable for him as if he had, when you all got up and left But what were the members of the Presbytery about? Did none of them say anything?” asked Kenneth, wondering how hiB dignified clerical cousin would comport himself in the unexpected situation.

“Never a word cam’ frae ane o’ them, though Maister Broon lookit somewhat queerlike through his glasses, and took a terrible pinch frae his auld snuff-mull. That fox o’ a factor jumpit til his feet wi’ a gey scared-like look, and spak’ something about ‘ order; ’ but they were a’ far past listenin’ to the liko o’ him.

“But, mind you, it’s no a lightsome step that the folk of Netherley hae ta’en this day. I dinna belang til the pairish mysel’, but every Netherley man kens that he will stand a guid chance o’ being driven frae his farm and his steading forby his kirk,” said the man, nodding meaningly.

“Oh, surely that is taking too dark a view of the case.”

“Div ye raelly think that factor Cranstown will tak’ rest til his eyes or slumber til his eyelids till he gets the laist man o’ them evicit? ”

And do you think they knew that when they left the church to-day? ”

“Til a man. Couldna ye read that in Bruce o’ Auldearn’s face?”

“So that was Mr. Bruce I was speaking to,” said Kenneth musingly, remembering Mrs. Irvine’s belief in the old fanner.

“Jisfc the same, sir. Ye maun be an unca stranger here, seeing ye are no acquaint wi’ Auldearn. I am awa’ til the meetin’ in his barn. They say this is to be the laist o’ them, but maybe Mr. Falconer will change his mind after this day’s deed, and right gled the folk wad be o’ that And gin it be the Wird o’ Life, what maitter though it be hadden oot intil a kirk or a bam? Good-day to ye, sir; ” and, hurrying away, the man was soon lost among the crowd.

Kenneth still lingered, leaning against the paling absorbed in thought Starting from his reverie at length, he began to ascend the path leading to the church. Once he paused, again to turn and glance at the scattering congregation as they wended their way along the white roads leading to their homes. A silence seemed still to prevail among them, nearly as deep as that among the low green mounds between which he trod now.

“What would these sleeping generations think of this deed of their sons to-day! ” he thought, as he looked at the mossy headstones. “It was a noble sight I think they would say, ‘Well done,” he added, with a flash in his eyes. “Cousin Dora is right: they have still got the stuff of the old Covenanters in them. I shall not soon forget the look on that old man’s face.”

After halting for a few moments in the porch, Kenneth stepped softly into the church.

A dreary, sepulchral air, seemed to pervade the building; the remnant scattered about the forsaken pews only increased the look of desolation. Mr. Brown, who happened to be the Moderator of the Presbytery, occupied the pulpit, his spectacles almost touching his manuscript as he mumbled, with breathless rapidity, through a discourse which Kenneth soon perceived to be “ cold-rife” indeed. Under the pulpit, in a large square pew, the other members of the Presbytery were seated. Mr. Irvine was shading his eyes with his hand, and did not perceive his cousin’s entrance; but he was evidently in no degree overcome by the drowsiness which had attacked his next neighbour, the minister of Asloune. The face of one of their number, Kenneth noticed, wore almost as grieved an expression as old Auldearn’s, and he felt an instant sympathy with him.

“Why did he not leave the church with the other people, if he is so much on their side as his looks indicate?” Kenneth wondered.

With considerable curiosity Kenneth now glanced towards the only layman of the party, whom he concluded must be the factor. He appeared to be even more unhappy than the grave, pathetic-looking clergyman, but his feelings were evidently of a different kind. Anger and mortification, and a look of pent-up vindictiveness, were clearly discernible as he sat with folded arms, his eyes travelling furtively to the still open entrance door and sometimes to the stooping figure, the centre of the group. The Rev. Peter Coutts was trembling visibly. Occasionally he slipped down on his chair, as if he hoped to find a refuge under the table in front of him; and then jerking himself upright, he would glance mournfully at the empty pews, and then fix his blinking red eyes with a look of half-inquiry, halfsupplication on his patron, as if he expected new directions as to how to proceed in this, to him, entirely unexpected contingency.

The sermon being over and the ordination about to be proceeded with, the factor seemed to endeavour to inspire his nominee with a new stock of confidence, his method being a series of stem and almost threatening glances when the moment came in which it was expected that the candidate should get to his feet and reply to the questions which embody the ordination vows of the Scottish Church.

Kenneth had never been present at a service of the kind before. As he listened to the questions now, they seemed to fall with an almost mocking echo on the forsaken pews. Where were the flock whom this cowering shepherd vowed in such solemn phrase to tend?

“Kenneth, you here!” cried Mr. Irvine with startled gesture, very unlike his usual dignified air of repose, as he met his cousin in the old porch. “What brought you, I wonder!”

“Oh, perhaps he is a young David come to see Israel’s battles. Why should he not? I am sure we have a dozen Goliaths to fight against instead of one,” said another of the ministers as he shook hands. “Nice exhibition of insubordination, was it not?”

“I am not sure to what you allude, sir,” replied Kenneth with a flush; “but if you mean the congregation leaving their church, I must say I think they did a very noble thing.”

“Ha! what have we here, Irvine? A young highflier with a vengeance, just newly fledged, eh !”

“Oh do not, I beg of you, get into any of these odious disputes, Kenneth! I am sure we have had enough and to spare for one day. If you had told me that you meant to come here, I certainly should have advised you to change your mind. A day’s fishing in the Aultrie would surely have been more congenial,” broke in Mr. Irvine.

“I do not think so, Cousin John. I am very glad I came. It was a sight that I shall not easily forget, to see those people leaving their old church for ever.”

Mr. Irvine glanced at him quickly, with evident annoyance; but he did not speak, so Kenneth went on:—

“I went into church and heard the sermon, and saw that strange ordination of a pastor without a people. I thought I might as well wait, so that we could bear each other company on our ride home. Duffle is close by.”

“But I do not happen to be going back at once to Blairton, unfortunately,” replied Mr. Irvine coldly as he turned away and glancing round, added, “Well, good-bye for the present, Kenneth; I see Mr. Gordon is waiting for me. The Presbyteiy always dine together after an ordination, you know. I believe they have arranged that the dinner is to be at Netherley House this evening. You shall see nie at Blairton as soon as possible,” he said as he hurried away.

Mr. Cranstown’s groom, at his master’s bidding, was now closing the old church for the night. The beadle had just resigned his office, having, at the close of the meeting, come up to the factor and laid in his palm, with a grieved expression, the keys of which he had been the custodian for more than fifty years. The groom did his duty expeditiously, and the sound of his creaking boots soon died away on the gravelled walk.

All was silent now round the old church; but Kenneth seemed still inclined to linger among the quiet graves. A new fervid impression had come to him during this ramble which had begun aimlessly. The chambers of his heart were stirred, as they had seldom been, by the events of the day, whose sun was setting now on many saddened homes throughout the peaceful valley. It was not of rest that those quiet graves with their lichened headstones seemed to speak to him as he wandered among them in the gathering darkness.

Lights more or less bright flickered from most of the peaceful-looking peasant dwellings scattered along the glen. From one homestead flanked by ample steadings an unusually bright light shone. Some groups of people were making their way towards it An entertainment of some kind was evidently going on. Echoes of singing came across the intervening fields in solemn cadence, and Kenneth remembered that one of the meetings of which he had heard so much lately must be taking place in Auldearn’s bam. A sudden wish to see what was going on there took possession of him.

The manse dinner-hour was long past, but he remembered that Mrs. Irvine had promised not to wait for him, as she thought the attractions of the Aultrie would prove too much for his punctuality; so his fishing-basket had been amply stocked with lunch from the hospitable manse larder. He felt that he might therefore gratify his curiosity without incommoding anybody; so he turned down the deeply-rutted road which led to the steading of Auldearn, and leaving Duffle once again on the wayside turf, he mingled with the people who were still thronging in at the low barn door.

Had he been as unsympathetic an onlooker as Mr. Lewis Cranstown proved on the autumn evening two years previously, he could not have failed to notice a new characteristic on comparing that audience with the present Then, with the exception of the three intruders, the audience wore that air of conventional decorum which usually pervades a Scotch congregation, albeit of rather a drowsy kind, at times. But to-night a feeling of intensity seemed to have taken possession of ail. Eveiy man, woman, and child looked as if they had come with a purpose, a conscious expectation of receiving something they consciously sought The bam was full to overflowing. From ail its dimly-lighted nooks and crannies eager faces looked towards the preacher. A deep silence prevailed as he stood facing his hearers with a little worn black Bible in his hand. He looked considerably older than when Esmae Burnett had traced in him such a strong likeness to the friend who was glancing at him now with an interested air. The expression of deep thought which overspread his pale, intellectual-looking face, the beautifully modulated tones and the well-bred air of repression in which his telling words were spoken, took Kenneth by surprise. He expected to find this popular bam orator a man of a very different type. It was, indeed, as the spectator of a new phenomenon that Kenneth Maxwell had come to his week-day service. Two months previously he might probably have shrugged his shoulders in disdain at such a gathering, and would certainly have thought that he should find little difficulty in deciding to which type its hero belonged. Good taste, culture, scholarship, would certainly be wanting; but this man seemed lacking in none of these. And yet, instead of preaching from an elegant pulpit to well-ordered pews of fashionable and admiring hearers, as the good preachers to whom Kenneth had listened generally did, it seemed this preacher’s choice to be at the beck and call of those humble peasants, to undergo a fatiguing journey, jogging along the dusty turnpike from Aberstone in the old farmer’s gig, and sometimes putting up for a day or two at Auldearn, sharing its homely fare, while nightly he took his place at the deal table in the musty-smelling tallow-lit bam, speaking words which, though eloquent and cultured, were ever adapted to the understandings of the simplest of those humble toiling folk. It was quite a new phenomenon to Kenneth Maxwell. His life in Edinburgh, since he had been sent there from India as a little boy, had been one of healthy, studious routine, and merry leisure. As his mind unfolded under the varied intellectual influences of his university course, fervid impressions of the past, the present, and the future, from many quarters had been coming to it. “Secrets of the spring ” had indeed been moving the “chambers of his heart.” But that great secret of all secrets, which the Psalmist has told us is “with them that fear Him,” had, as we have seen, only come to Kenneth in his recent time of sickness. His thoughts about all other matters were therefore only beginning to group themselves round the great central thought, which, when it takes possession of the heart, flings “its sweetnesses ” round all other thoughts. Surely, after all, in the light of “the greatness of eternity,” the new thought which of late had been illumining Kenneth’s heart, this young preacher’s role, humble though it would have seemed to the ambitious student a few weeks previously, was really a great one. Kenneth thought now, in growing sympathy with him who spoke, and with those who listened. There was a strength offered to meet life’s temptations, a balm to heal its wounds, a courage to face its trials, a deeper joy to underlie all its joys, told of in the melodious, penetrating voice. Old Auldearn was seated not far from Kenneth. He could see that the sorrowful expression had vanished from his face, and was replaced by an air of holy serenity, as he sat with his big Bible on his knees, listening intently as the preacher expanded his subject for the evening, “Peace, not as the world giveth.”

Once or twice a half-smothered sob rose from different parts of the barn, but the sound only served to mark the intense Btillness which prevailed.

Towards the close of the service, the lower part of the bam door had its bolt noisily withdrawn, and the owner of a pair of creaking boots walked along the passaga The sound seemed to fall with a discordant jar on alL And when the possessor of the disturbing boots walked straight to Mr. Bruce, and pulling a long sheet of folded blue paper from his pocket laid it with an ostentatious swagger in the old farmer’s hand, there seemed a sudden tremor to pass over the congregation; even Mr. Falconer’s cheek became visibly paler. His voice faltered for a moment, but he quickly recovered himself and went on to finish his sentence. But with the correct instinct of his sympathetic nature, he decided that it would be impossible for the audience again to concentrate their thoughts on the servica Turning to the Scotch metrical version of the Psalms, he said in tone lower than his wont, “My friends, we will sing now the song of a servant of God when he was in distress and perplexity j and as we sing may Jehovah hear us in this day when trouble He doth send.”

“It is the shirra’s officer,” whispered a man to his next neighbour behind Kenneth as they began to sing. “Did ye no see the muckle letter he gaed til Auldearn? That’ll be the notice til quit at Martimas. The factor has been unca quick wi’ his ill wark.”

And so that was what had blanohed the young preacher’s face, and sent a thrill of dismay among many round him, thought Kenneth with a throbbing heart But what could Auldearn himself be feeling? He had seen him take the paper promptly and silently from the bumptious messenger, and slip it within the leaves of his old Bible without a trace of perturbation; and yet he must know that the document contained the unjust order which was to drive him from his father’s homestead and his own happy home of seventy years. An elderly woman, with a well-cut, characteristic face, sat by the old man’s side; she too had been listening with intentness to the preacher. Her bunch of mint and southernwood, wrapped in her snowy pocket-handkerchief, had not been needed to check drowsiness during this service. Kenneth could see that now her features were working convulsively, and the tears rolling down her cheeks. She, too, knew well what this cruel sheet of paper meant which her husband had been able calmly to lay, for the present, between the yellowed leaves of his sacred book.

Mrs. Bruce’s farmyard, her well-stocked byres, her dainty dairy, her spotless kitchen, all told a tale of loving care; she was a notable housewife, having strong natural sympathies with Martha, the “careful and troubled,” though she had never ventured to confess them to any human soul till a few evenings since, when, in the gloaming, she happened to have a talk with Mr. Falconer. Her tender conscience had been, on that occasion, much encouraged by his views on the lawfulness of considerable devotion to housekeeping. He had even drawn a tiny book from his pocket and read to her part of a new hymn, a great favourite of his own, he said, which spoke of “the daily round, the common task,” leading, not necessarily further from, but, indeed, nearer to God. Mrs. Bruce had felt, since then, as if a new sacredness pervaded the homely routine, and a strange joy filled her homa But the cruel words in that folded sheet would drive her forth before long from the familiar duties and the beloved homa She had not shed many tears in the past, for she had been a happy wife for half a century, but now they were flowing fast.

“Cheer up, Janet woman; the Lord reigneth,” Kenneth heard her “gudeman” whisper after the benediction was pronounced.

Scotch peasants are not demonstrative, especially when their affections are deepest, and it marked an epoch when Auldearn took his wife’s hand in his own, and holding it, they walked out together under the stars, all unheeding of the many curious eyes which were on them.

And now Kenneth’s glance happened to light on a corner of the bam unobserved by him previously. Surely that was Miss Margaret Pimie’s face, pale but elate, which looked forth from the dimly-lighted nook; and beside her there was another face, young and glowing, whose beauty was deepened at the moment by the intensity of feeling which pervaded it “So she has been here all the time! How strange, and how pleasant! It will make another bond between us as strong as our mutual love for her Esmae—our Esmae. How much she must have been wishing that he had been here to-night; I feel sure she must, since our last talk about him,” thought Kenneth as he glanced with a wistful air towards the quiet comer.

Miss Margaret had caught sight of him now. She was telling Maiy of his presence, he noticed, deciding that he might now go forward as they passed out and talk to them. When, however, he saw the quick flush which overspread Mary’s face, as he presented himself and held out his hand, Kenneth felt, somehow, as if he had made a mistake.

“She would rather not have spoken to anybody just now. I have blundered,” he reflected inwardly as he turned to listen to a remark from Miss Margaret “You did not expect to meet Miss Mary here, I daresay, Mr. Maxwell,” she was saying with a smile. “It has all happened so nicely too. Miss Cassilis was made so willing even to giving the big carriage; but Mary and I would not have liked such state. We were very glad when Mr. Carden offered his old dogcart—weren’t we, Mary? It is the first time for both of you,” she added, with a gentle glance from the one to the other that seemed to mingle with an unspoken prayer for blessing on this “first time.”

“Did you see what happened to poor old Mr. Bruce! ” asked Kenneth as they walked to where the dogcart awaited Miss Margaret and her pupiL

“No; I have not seen Auldearn at all to-night I was just wondering where he was,” replied Mary.

“He happened to be vexy near where I was standing, so I saw it all. The noisy man who walked along the passage, just as Mr. Falconer had almost finished speaking, was a sheriff’s officer; and, I believe, the paper which he laid in Auldearn’s hand was the notice to quit his farm. I heard one or two people saying so, and I fear it is quite true,” said Kenneth in a quiet tona “O Mr. Maxwell, surely it cannot ba How dare the factor do such a thing to anybody in Netherley! ” cried Mary, with a flash in her eye which Kenneth had never seen there before.

“I fear it is but too true, Miss Mary,” said her governess with compressed lips.—“Have you heard what has happened at the church of Netherley this day, Mr. Maxwell? ” she asked in a tremulous voica “Mrs. Glendie has just been telling me. Truly our lot is cast in sad times in this land. We have all need to be lifting up our hearts to the Lord, from whom our help must coma”

Kenneth now told them something of what he had seen and heard at Netherley kirk in the earlier part of the day, fully corroborating Mrs. Glendie’s statements.

“It was splendid of them! I was always proud of the Netherley people, but never so proud of them as I am now,” cried Mary impulsively, evidently forgetting her previous embarrassment, whatever might be its source.

Poor little Norah’s difficulties and dangers were not forgotten by Kenneth during his conversation with her friend He decided, however, that it was better to reserve his narration for his farewell visit to Mirkwood on the following day.

Mr. Carden now appeared with his dogcart, which had on this occasion been preferred to the old yellow coach. Having seen Miss Margaret and her charge safely seated, and Mr. Carden’s ancient cob set in motion, Kenneth turned to find Duffle, who had broken loose from his paling and was showing his good taste by his appreciation of Auldearn’s meadow. He felt, however, that for all well-regulated ponies it was quite bed-time, and suffered himself to be captured without resistance.

Glancing, as he passed, at the peaceful-looking home on which such sore trouble had fallen, Kenneth felt a strong inclination to step in at the open door and to tiy to say some comforting words to the old tenants. He could assure them, at least, that they would have the sympathy of all good people. But with a true instinct, which, unfortunately, seems to get blunted in some genuinely benevolent people, he felt that even such a well-meaning visit would be an intrusion at the moment. Perhaps, soon, he might find some link which would make it more in harmony with good feeling and good manners to express his sympathy, but for the present he must repress his inclination to enter uninvited at this lowly door, though no porter stood there paid to protect his employer from such intrusions.

He had not gone far on the way to Blairton when he heard the sound of noisy voices and trampling hoofs.

It was some of the members of the Presbytery coming from their dinner-party at Netherley House. He recognized Mr. Gordon’s deep laugh and husky tones.

Kenneth! you and Duffle still here! you must have been a long time on the road,” cried Mr. Irvine, as he recognized the pony and his rider.

Various adventures have kept me loitering, Cousin John.

But I am more tired than I knew, and more hungry into the bargain. Duffle and I are going to make our way back to the manse as quickly as possible now.”

“Gome along, then. I can join you; indeed I am sorry I did not do so at an earlier stage, for I never was present at a Presbytery dinner less to my mind. I wish I had stood out against its being at Netherley House; or that I had followed the example of Grahame of Whiterashes, who shirked it altogether. It has been altogether a most unpleasant day,” wound up Mr. Irvine with a sigh.

“I think I can guess one unpleasant element in Mr. Crans-town’s dinner. I suppose you began the feast by seeing the notice sent to Mr. Bruce of Auldearn, which will turn him from his farm,” said Kenneth.

“Ha l how came you to know that already! ” asked Mr. Irvine, starting.

“Oh, I shall tell you that afterwards, perhaps; but all I say, Cousin John, is, that it is a very bad thing to have dona”

“‘ Bad’ is not the word for it. It is one of the basest jobs I ever heard of. I knew nothing of it till it was dona It seems Mr. Cranstown got permission from Mr. Densil some time ago to dismiss the tenant, whom he represented as being so troublesome; so he has been able to take, what he thinks, a very fine revenge on poor old Auldearn. It is altogether a disgraceful transaction; and! heard from Mr. Brown, when he went deep into his cups, that the factor wants the farm for his second son. So I suppose it is a case of Naboth’s vineyard, and not so much a part of this unfortunate ordination business, after all; and the fact of its having been tacked on to it shows what an unprincipled man Cranstown must be. I had no idea of it. It is a very ugly affair altogether,” wound up Mr. Irvine with knitted brows.

“Well, I must say it has been a most unsatisfactory day,” again he remarked with a sigh, as they turned in at the gate of the manse steadings, where the “minister’s man” stood sleepily waiting for their coming.

As for Kenneth, he felt that he could not endorse his cousin’s summing-up of the day. It had, indeed, brought sorrow to some faithful hearts; but was it not a sorrow luminous with hope and peace and joy for the stricken ones? And for himself, had it not been a day ever to be remembered—must he not henceforth, “else sinning greatly,” feel himself to be a “dedicated spirit ”?

The minister of Whiterashes rode slowly home in the gloaming. It was he who had eschewed the ordination dinner at Netherley, and it was his face which had worn the grieved expression noted by Kenneth Maxwell when he scanned the old square pew of the little kirk of Netherley, trying to read what the various members of Presbytery thought of the scene which had been enacted under their gaze.

Mr. Grahame belonged to what was called the “Evangelical” party, though he unwillingly accepted the appellation, deeming it a definition unfair to the opposite sida He preferred to describe his position as belonging to the protesting faction. Peace-loving as he was, he held to the standpoint whither his convictions had led him as tenaciously as Mr. Irvine, his old friend and neighbour, adhered to the opposite sida He had, however, as yet taken no part in public discussions on the Church controversy, preferring to devote himself with redoubled though quiet faithfulness, in the midst of difficult times, to all the duties of his rural parish, and considering it his duty to abstain from making the vexed ecclesiastical question a topic in his pulpit Not even in his intercourse with his parishioners had he hitherto been inclined to be talkative about Church matters, thereby falling greatly short of the standard required in the estimation of Mr. Logan and such as he. On his way home now Mr. Grahame spent the afternoon in visiting some scattered members of his flock, had entered with them into their homely joys and cares, without obtruding the subject nearest his heart; but now, at the close of his day’s work, he was letting his thoughts dwell on the heavy underlying care which since the events of the morning had taken a more definite shape. “Yes, these simple Netherley folk have led the way for us. Little do they dream that they will act as pioneers to the protesting party. As they have left their church today, thousands more throughout the length and breadth of the land will have to do. And then a long farewell to White-rashes,” he murmured, with a heavy sigh as he reined his horse and glanced sorrowfully at his peaceful home, as it lay in its quiet beauty lighted up by the sunset glow. At length, rousing himself after a long reverie, he left the turnpike and followed a narrower road which led to a pleasant white gate. A boy sat perched cross-legs on it now, holding in his hand a big turnip, scooped hollow, in the centre of which he had placed a light.

“O papa, here you are at last! I have been waiting for you here ever so long. Mamma said I might go as far as this stable gate and look out; so I made this lantern and came. We expected you home to tea; and there was a nice pair of stoved fowls all ready, because mamma thought somehow you would not stay to the Presbytery dinner to-day.”

“Neither I did, Willie; and I hope you have left some limb of the fowls for me, for I am hungry.”

“Oh yes, mamma took care of that! But we are awfully anxious to know about the Netherley ordination. Tom met a man on the road who told us that the people had all got up together and left their church, just as if it had taken fire, when they saw that Mr. Coutts was really to be their minister. But mamma said we must not believe all the gossip we hear on the road, but wait till you come.”

“Yea Well, it is not a happy simile, certainly, that they fled from the church as if it had taken fire; for then, I suspect, there would have been a good deal of jostling and confusion: but, as it was, they left their pews more quietly than some folks ever do. You know how noisily you and Tom sometimes scramble out of church, to your mother’s discomfort.”

“But they did all walk out, then? It is true! Oh, I must fly and tell mamma and Helen! ” cried the little boy as he disappeared in the shrubberies.

Mr. Graham© dismounted and handed his horse to his servant, who stood waiting, as eager as his master’s son, probably, to carry the news to his fireside. Pausing to fasten the little rustic gate, set in the thick well-trimmed hedges which divided the gardens from the stable premises, the minister slowly followed his son’s flying footsteps. “It is fun to Willie, but it is something else to me,” he muttered with a heavy sigh as he walked along the broad terraced path leading to the housa The dining-room of the manse of Whiterashes was an airy, well-proportioned sitting-room, wearing that continual air of use which of itself gives a charm to all human habitations. In summer it was the drawing-room, with its pleasant French windows opening out on the well-mowed short-grassed lawn, which was the most attractive resort; but in winter nights the cozy dining-room was always the gathering-place for the manse circle. A bright fire burned in the old-fashioned grate, the reflection of the flickering flames dancing cheerily on the shining brass facings and fender. At one end of the table the cover was still laid for the minister’s late repast. A moderator lamp with a shade on it threw a soft light on the group, which were engaged variously. Willie stood in front of his mother pantingly retailing the confirmation of the Netherley news. Helen, his elder and only sister, a girl just opening into womanhood, looked up from the letter which she was writing to listen; and Tom neglected the contents of his fishing-book over which he had been poring, eagerly counting his treasures in hooks and fishing-tackle, so that he might have the full benefit of Willie’s eager narration.

“It is true that they have all left, then,” said Mrs. Grahame as she laid down her sewing and rose to meet her husband.

“Yes, Grace, it is. The Netherley church will have empty pews now. But, after all, it is only the four walls and the benefice they have left with the presentee. The company that walked away with such quiet dignity to-day—they are the true church of Netherley,” said the minister, with a light coming into his wearied eyes as he spoke.

Mrs. Grahame seated herself again and took up her sewing with a heavy sigh.

“0 papa, it must have been a splendid sight to see them all rise and go. How I wish I had been there!” said Helen, her kindling eyes meeting her father’s as she spoke.

“We may see too many such sights, Helen, if things go on as they are doing. These intrusions will be the ruin of the Church. But one thing is certain, the Church of Scotland will never bend to the yoke of the State. The question is thoroughly stirred up now throughout the country, in a thousand ways. It must burn and burn on, till the ancient Kirk is purified from all her dross. But the Lord reigneth, and it is his cause. Let us not forget that, Grace,” said Mr. Grahame in a low tone as he glanced at his wife, who sat with bent head over her sewing.

“Helen, why have you not told papa yet about Alick’s letter to you to-day? That seems the cheeriest thing going to-night,” said Tom, jumping up and going to one of the letter-racks which were on either side of the old fire-place, to fetch it “Oh yes, the dear boy,” said Mrs. Grahame, brightening. “He writes so fully; and he is quite well, I am thankful to say. But— stay, I Bhall read it to you when you are having your supper.”

“Well, let me hear the news from Edinburgh. What does the ‘ but ’ mean, Grace, by the way! ”

“Oh, only that I am a little afraid Alick is rather overdoing it, with all the mission work he has taken on hand. I fear he must be neglecting his studies, and that will be a serious matter.” “Very; but we have no proof of that as yet He stood high at the end of last session, and I fancy he is working at his class work as hard as ever, from some details he gave me in his last letter. And we must not forget that the kind of work he is so much interested in is, in itself, the most precious of education. The living contact with the people he is trying to help sends him back to his books with a much greater stimulus to studjf, because it gives him a higher purpose in it alL What is his news to-day? ”

“Oh, his letter is full of Dr. Chalmers, papa,” replied Helen smiling. “He seems a greater hero with him than ever. He says he has been saying such splendid things to them lately.”

“Alick is a lucky fellow to have the chance of sitting at the feet of such a man,” said Mr. Grahame; “! am heartily glad to hear that he realizes it”

“Oh, that he does. Mr. Falconer was telling us, the last time he came here, that Alick’s letters to him were little else than condolences that he was beyond the reach of the great doctor’s words. You know he was one of Dr. Chalmers’s students at St Andrews, and one of the first members of that missionary society he told us about”

“Yes; and I should not wonder if he goes to be minister in one of those new missionary churches in Edinburgh. I believe they are anxious to have him.”

“Mr. Falconer going to Edinburgh! Oh, that would be horrid,” said Tom. Why, he could never come to the manse if he went so far away; and what should we do without him to play cricket with ? ”

“I suspect he will be a loss to some other places besides the cricket-ground, Tom,” said Mr. Grahame. “The Netherley people will be more in need of him than ever now.”

“But I thought Mr. Falconer had said he would not go any more to Netherley if another minister was settled there,’ remarked Mrs. Grahame.

“Ah yes; but circumstances alter the case. Auldearn’s bam will really be the church of Netherley now. I must say I shall be disappointed if Falconer holds to his former decision; but I do not think he will”

“Oh no; of course he will still go to Netherley, dreadfully overworked though he is. Alick always says he is the best and most unselfish man he ever knew,” said Helen, in a tone which showed that she warmly endorsed her brother’s opinion.

Presently the bell rang for evening prayers—“family worship,” as it was called in the manse of Whiterashes. The dining-room circle now became considerably enlarged. Servants from the glebe as well as the household staff took their places on the chairs which it was Willie’s office to arrange for them; and then he laid the big Bible in front of his father. Mr. Grahame, as was his practice before reading the chapter, gave out to be sung some verses from the Scotch version of the metrical psalms; for there was a sweet-toned choir gathered round the manse fireside. Then came the reading of the chapter, “verse about”—a custom against which Alick, the eldest son of the house, used to chafe considerably before he left for college, but which still found favour with the younger children and the servants of the manse.

Prayers being over, the domestics trooped away into their own regions, with the exception of Kirsty, the old and privileged nurse, who lingered, stepping forward to the fireplace to readjust a blazing log. The minister knew from experience that this little service was merely a preamble—that when Kirsty stayed to “poke the fire,” it did not mean that the fire was pressingly in need of her, but that she had something on her mind she wished to say.

“Well, Kirsty, what is your burden to-night?” he asked with a smile.

“Hech, sir, but I couldna help jist thinkin’ that the psalm ye gied out the nicht was jist terrible appropriate. For ’deed our herts are sair eneuch casten doon the noo. But maybe ye winna hae heard the news. The precentor frae Netherley jist came in aboot a whilie ago, and it was him that brocht it til me. My cussin, John Bruce o’ Auldearn, has gotten notice this nicht that he maun quit his farm at Martimas. The warran’ was laid intil his han’ this verra evenin’ in the bam, when Maister Fac’ner was in the midst o’ his discoorse.”

“That is bad news indeed, Kirsty,” said Mr. Grahame. And there was something in his manner which showed that he was deeply moved by the unexpected tidings.

“Oh, but perhaps the report may not be true, Kirsty. There are so many strange rumours afloat just now. You should try to verify them before you trouble your master with them,” said Mrs. Grahame.

“As true, mistress, as my name’s Kirsty Bruce, and I never changed it for a better nor a worse,” replied the old woman, with wrinkling brows.

“Yes, I fear it is a story that bears truth on the face of it, painful as it is to think on. It did occur to me that, sooner or later, Mr. Cranstown would devise some way of getting Mr. Bruce put out of his farm. He has certainly lost no time about it.—Well, Kirsty,” added Mr. Grahame, as he glanced at the old woman’s troubled face, “it will not be the first time the Bruces and the Grahames have had to find their kirk among the moorlands and mist where the heather grows green.’ It may be those days are coming again for your good cousin John Bruce, and for some of the rest of us. It is for us to go forward to meet the future with clean hands and pure hearts, following where God leads. I doubt not Auldearn will sleep better to-night than those who have planned to turn him out of his own and his fathers’ home.”

CHAPTER XI
The Returned Student.

“Oh, happy if he knew his happy state,
The student!”

One chilly morning, among the first days of an Edinburgh November, as Boston Burnett was walking briskly to his legal avocations in the office of Mr. Cranstown, W.S., he was accosted by a young man with a bronzed complexion and dark-brown beard, whom he did not think he had seen before. His recognition of him was, however, instantaneous as it seemed unwelcome, when the stranger said in a well-remembered voice,—

‘‘How do you do, Burnett? Can you tell me if Esmae is in town? I was just on my way to the Binaultrie land agent’s office to try to get some news of him. It is somewhere in Queen Street, is it not?”

“My cousin may possibly be at the office some time in the course of the day; but you are not likely to find him there at this hour,” replied Boston.

“Then he is in town. I am very glad to hear it I begin to feel veiy impatient to see him after a year’s separation. At first he was a capital correspondent—for him, that is to say; but for six months it has been a case of absolute starvation. The fellow has not written me a scrap since the beginning of summer. He was hesitating then about going back to college \ but I suppose that is all right now, since he is to be found here in November. I am heartily glad he has not given in, and that we shall be £ellow-students once more,” said MaxwelL “He does not go back to the university. That question has been quite settled for some tima He and I are both in Mr. Cranstown’s office now.”

“Esmae gone in for law! Well, that is wonderful news!”

“Oh, it is only temporary; he has not any definite plan,” replied Bostoa “I think I must be going. I dislike being late for office,” he added quickly, as he turned away.

“But you have not given me Esmae’s address yet I must not lose his track again. Where does he live?”

“In Frederick Street; but it is not impossible he may have left the rooms. I understood there was a chance of that,” added Boston, after having given the required information, and the inevitable little smile, which Kenneth remembered well, flitted across his face.

Without more parleying, Kenneth passed on; but his step was not so brisk as before this encounter with his friend’s cousin. “There is some mischief there. That fellow is more sinister than ever. I must find Esmae at once.”

“Why, Maxwell, you are in a great hurry. What is the matter? You look worried about something,” said a pleasant-looking young man about his own age, as he held out his hand.

“Yes, I am rather, Johnstona I am still in search of Esmae Burnett. I did not go to Cranstown’s office after I left you yesterday, as I intended. And just now I happened to meet that cousin of Esmae’s who used to be in our class, you know. He says Esmae is working in the office—or rather he implied that he was not working. Altogether, I did not like his references to Esmaa He gave the address of his lodgings in Frederick Street, and I am on my way there now.”

“Well, to tell the truth, Maxwell, I did not want to vex you yesterday, for I know you used to have a tremendous fancy for young Burnett, and he seemed certainly a very likable fel- low. I never knew him much, and we have quite fallen out of acquaintance now. I am afraid you will not find him what he was. For one thing, he seems to have got into a very fast set, and I heard the other day that he had contracted some heavy gaming debts. But that may be gossip. ”

“More than likely, and it is a pity to retail it, since, as you say, you have fallen out of acquaintance with Esmae, and do not know the facts,” said Kenneth. “As to his having had fellows coming about him, that I can easily believe. He always did allow inferior men to take possession of him. Often enough it clearly arose from his sheer goodness of heart,” he added, after a moment’s silence. Then, changing the conversation abruptly, he began to talk about the coming session and other mutual topics of interest; but he looked anxious and preoccupied, and when they reached Frederick Street, he quickly took leave of his companion.

The serious illness which followed Kenneth’s experiences among the snowdrifts nearly a year previously, had many results; one of the least fortunate of which he felt to be the enforced separation from his old student-life and its many-sided interests. After leaving the manse of Blairton, he joined his uncle, who was wintering abroad. His foreign sojourn had been prolonged for various reasons, and he had returned to Edinburgh only in time to enter on another winter college session.

Mrs. Irvine, who proved at first his faithful correspondent, had been a great invalid for several months, and quite unable to send her usual budgets of pleasant news, and so it happened that Kenneth was at present much in the dark about the ongoings of the little circle which he felt was now so rooted in his thoughts and memories that it must always form a portion of his life.

And Esmae, the bright, the lovable, the pride of many a home among the hills and dales of broad Rinaultrie, the friend of Mary Cassilis, he would see him once again before many minutes were over; and to look into his face once more, to hear his ringing laugh and cheerful talk, would put to instant flight all the insinuations which had during the last half-hour been making him uncomfortable in spite of himself, thought Kenneth, as he hurried up the steps of the house whose number Boston had given him.

Mr. Esmae Burnett did not live there; had never done so, the servant assured him. There were other houses in the street let as lodgings, but she could give no information as to their occupants.

With considerable irritation Kenneth turned away, wishing that Mr. Boston Burnett’s memory had not been so short The next attempt was, however, so far more successful “Yes, Mr. Burnett has rooms here; but he has just gone out,” intimated the boy who opened the door, with a sharp interrogative glance at the visitor. On being further questioned as to when Mr. Burnett might be found at home, he replied, “To-night; for I heard him say he was to have company.”

Kenneth felt obliged to the youth for this piece of information. He should certainly choose an hour when Esmae’s “company” had departed, for he knew of old that its com ponent parts were at times far from being to his mind; nor could he quite banish from his recollection his friend Johnstone’s hints concerning Esmae’s present associates.

“When shall I find Mr. Burnett at home, and alone, can you tell me? Does he generally go out as early as this? ”

“No, sir, not often. Most likely you will find him a good while after this time to-morrow; but I can’t say for certain, sir.”

It was a disappointment, but Kenneth felt at once that he had better give up hope of seeing his friend that day. A meeting in Mr. Cranstown’s office was likely to prove anything but satisfactory, he decided, as he retraced his steps to the lodging which he had selected for himself in the Old Town. It was a quiet upper chamber, smaller and more scanty in its furnishings than his quarters used to be; for Kenneth was to taste the fortunes of the poorer student in these later days of his university lifa His father, Dr. Maxwell, belonged to the Indian medical service, and was still abroad. Kenneth’s mother died when he was twelve years of aga He was their eldest child. Some others had died in infancy, between his birth and that of his young brother, during whose babyhood their mother was taken from them. Dr. Maxwell, though he had been so much separated from his sons, did not fail to take a keen interest in everything concerning them. It was not his wish that either of them should find their life-work in the distant land in which he had never been able to lose his feeling of exila Kenneth’s intention of becoming a Scotch lawyer was in every way satisfactory to his father, the enthusiasm which he had hitherto evinced on the subject being, Dr. Maxwell fondly augured, a considerable guarantee of his future success. Great, therefore, was his chagrin when one mail brought a letter, dated from the Manse of Blairton, to the dusty cantonment where he was stationed, to tell him that his son’s choice of the law as a profession had been renounced in favour of another—that his desire was now to become a clergyman of the Church of Scotland.

It was a decision specially disappointing to Dr. Maxwell just then. Echoes of the troubled state of politics in the Scotch Kirk were reaching him from all sides. He gathered with vexation, from the newspaper and periodical literature which found its way to his club, that an element of disturbance seemed penetrating all the parts of the ancient, steadfast Church of his fathers. With the suggested reforms he had no sympathy, and a strong suspicion that Kenneth did sympathize with these formed the kernel of his opposition.

Many letters passed between father and son on the subject Dr. Maxwell had to bewail what he considered a new trait in his previously dutiful son’s disposition — that of obstinacy. Severe measures were evidently necessary to bring this foolish, Quixotic lad to his senses, to prevent his injuring his life-prospects by such a step, Dr. Maxwell decided.

Kenneth had therefore been informed by his father’s man of business, some time previously to his return, that his allowance was to be considerably reduced, Mr. Inglis concluding the announcement with the remark that Dr. Maxwell could not be expected to aid in a plan of which he so much disapproved.

Nothing daunted by the check, Kenneth selected his rooms suitably to the reduced state of his finances.

On his return from his unsuccessful search after Esmae he found a letter awaiting him under cover from Mr. Inglis, to whom he sent his address on his arrival in town. It was from his father, and contained evidently a final appeal that he should reconsider his position, and abandon his foolish fancy of linking his fortunes with a Church which, by reason of its internecine troubles and the encroachments of dissent, would soon cease to have a fitting place for gentlemen within its borders.

The letter also went on to say that if Kenneth preferred the English to the Scottish bar, an excellent opportunity had just offered itself in a proposal he had from an old legal friend in London, that Kenneth should go and take up his abode with him and make the necessary preparations for being called to the bar.

Kenneth forthwith sat down and wrote a reply, which was styled by Dr. Maxwell more irritatingly juvenile and vex-atiously obstinate than its predecessors, as he read it seated in his long-armed chair in his veranda, quite spoiling the enjoyment of his cheroot “To be sure, my dear father,” scribbled the flying quill, the choice I have made is not necessarily a high one. Talleyrand says truly of the Church that it is the noblest of professions, the basest of trades. As a ‘ trade ’ it may not be flourishing at present; but it is not as such that I desire to enter it” Then followed several eager pages in which he poured forth his hopes and dreams of what he meant it should be.

And when at last he folded the closely-written sheets and turned to enter on his first spell of study among his new sur< roundings, the dingy little lodging-room seemed to the earnest student a transfigured place, sacred to the new dedication which he had made of his life. The light which shone there to his mental vision may have been as the passing golden glamour of the dewy morning, which must soon fade into the light of common day; but if it illumined the young traveller at this stage of his journey—if it served as a lamp to his feet and a light to his path in the fervid hour of youth—who shall dare say that it can be classed among those vain, illusive dreams on which one looks back but to smile!

Next morning found Kenneth hurrying along the streets in the direction of his friend’s rooms.

Mr. Burnett had not gone out, but he could not see visitors this morning, was the information given him by a melancholy-looking elderly woman in widow’s dress who appeared at the door of the establishment over which she evidently presided. She was about to close the door, when, after glancing at Kenneth, she asked suddenly, “Are you one of Mr. Burnett’s friends—I mean one of the young gentlemen who visit him here? It is not often I answer the bell,” she added, seemingly by way of apology for having asked the question.

“Yes, certainly I am a friend of Mr. Burnett’s; but I have never visited him here. I am anxious to do so now, however. He is in, you say. I suppose he is still in bed—that is the difficulty, I daresay; but it does not matter. I shall go and find him in his room. Will you show me the way, please? ” and Kenneth sprang lightly on the doorstep with a pleasurable feeling of excitement at the thought of seeing Esmae once more.

The landlady seemed to look doubtfully at him still, and at length said slowly, “You are not one of the set that comes here in common, sir. I thought as much. You were not here last night?”

“No, I was not. See, let Mr. Burnett have my card, please,” said Kenneth.

The woman took the card; but instead of despatching it at once to her lodger she held it in her fingers, saying nervously, “Perhaps, sir, you will first come and take a look at this room,” and with a heavy sigh she suddenly threw open the door of the dining-room of the house, into which the morning sun was streaming.

Kenneth, who .went forward a step or two unobservantly, had his attention perforce arrested by the sight which met his eye.

The table, on which were strewn traces of the recent festivity, was covered with breakages. Every movable article in the room—chairs, tables, crockery, fender, fire-irons—lay in one mass of broken confusion all about. Not only were some of the window-panes broken and the fragments strewn about, but part of the wood-work was wrenched away.

“It is a sad sight for a widow woman to see; and my best room too,” said the landlady, as she gazed disconsolately at the ruins. “But that is not what touches me most, sir,” she added, shaking her head and wiping away her flowing tears with her apron. “There has been nearly as much breakage and destruction to my property before now, and he always paid up handsome. It is not that I will be out of pocket, that my heart is sorest, nor yet for his good paying that I ke$p him on; but, sir, he is just the likablest of young gentlemen, that Mr. Burnett, that I ever saw; and as my son John says (John is a well-doing boy, sir, and a great comfort to me), and as he says,

Mr. Burnett would be a very different man but for the company he keeps. I make bold to tell you this, for you said you were an old friend. He had a terrible gathering over-night, sir, and this is what the morning light shows. And the noise was frightful. There was not a wink of sleep to be got till the banging of doors came, and they went off to make a disturbance elsewhere; for I’ll be bound they couldn’t rest in their beds, though Mr. Burnett went up to his as quiet as a mouse. It is a kind providence the house next door is empty. Indeed, sir, I’ve lost two good lodgers of my own already, all because of those terrible supper-parties. And yet, sir, it would just break my heart to give him notice, for he is just, as I said before, one of the likablest young gentlemen that ever stepped. If I had not thought that you were a different sort from the bad ones that come here, I would not have thought of giving you a sight of my best apartment in such a state,” sobbed the landlady, with a fresh application of her apron to her eyes as she surveyed her smashed properly.

But now a low, familiar whistle from the opposite end of the room, where there was access by another door, fell on Kenneth’s ear, and looking in the direction from which it came he saw Esmae standing on the threshold, wrapped in his dressing-gown, passing his fingers through his wavy hair, with a half-sleepy, half-puzzled, half-shocked look as he surveyed the scene.

“I declare I shall not have Low and Fergus here together again. They are too much of a good thing,” he muttered, as he came a step forward and looked ruefully round. “Oh, there you are, Mrs. Wood, looking at the ruins of last night,” he said, catching sight of his landlady. “Upon my word, I am ashamed to see you, after all this destruction. I am awfully sorry about itLi hut it can’t be helped now. You had better send for the cabinetmaker, the hardware and the software man, and get everything patched up as soon as possible, and send in the bills to me. Do not look so doleful over it, Mrs. Wood; why, they are only broken tables, and chairs, and dishes, after all. I am sure you are very good to put up with a troublesome, idle fellow like me, as you do,” he added in a penitent tone. Whereupon Kenneth observed, with considerable inward amusement, that Mrs. Wood looked at her young lodger with a benignant expression, as if ready to assure him that her best apartment was in the state she liked best to see it.

It’s not your doing, sir,” she murmured; “we know that If you would only turn your back on these bad, rude young men that come about you.”

“Oh, do not put all the blame on them, Mrs. Wood,” replied Esmae quickly, with an uneasy laugh. “Believe me, your lodger is as bad as any of them, perhaps worse, taking all things into consideration,” he added, with knitted brows.

“But, sir, here is this gentleman who is waiting,” said the landlady, drying her tears. “I was just going to bring his card to you,” she added, stooping down to /search for it among the ruins where she had dropped it, »

“You, Kenneth!—is it possible! You have come back at last, you glorious old fellow!” cried Esmae, as his friend emerged from a corner of the passage to which he had retreated. Hurrying up, Esmae grasped him by the shoulders and looked into his face with a glad light in his eyes.

The landlady went off to confer with her well-doing son John,” and to take the good news that it would not now be necessary to part with her favourite lodger, for a friend of the right stamp had come at last “I must say you have not a very tidy sitting-room this morning, Esmae,” said Kenneth presently, as his friend and he still stood talking in the threshold of the dilapidated diningroom, and then he glanced gravely at him.

All that he had seen and heard now only corroborated his impressions of the previous day. With his own lips Esmae laid claim to a full share of the blame.

“Is it just,” Kenneth asked himself, “any more to throw the weight of Esmae’s folly at the door of others, though the good-hearted landlady’s discernment does not go any further? Was a certain homely but discriminating old proverb about birds of a feather altogether out of place here! ”

“Oh, bother the mesa I had clean forgotten it in my delight at seeing you,” said Esmae, with a careless shrug. “Come, let us get out of it as quickly as possible. As my Cousin Boston says, ‘Such things will happen in the best regulated families.’ Come upstairs.—Mrs. Wood, we shall breakfast in the drawing-room this morning, please; and let’s have a good breakfast, mind,” he added, as the landlady reappeared to receive orders.

Kenneth had a class at ten, and had breakfasted; but he would be glad to ascend to less ruinous regions and have a talk, he said.

It seemed, however, a difficult matter to secure this. The old friends had not been together for five minutes when the door opened and Mr. Boston Burnett was announced.

“Ah, there you are, Boston, just in time to see your old rival Maxwell,” was Esmae’s word of greeting. “But you will not have to struggle with him for prizes any more.—Did you hear, Ken, that my cousin has forsaken college, like me? ”

“Yes, so I understood. We met in the street yesterday morning,” replied Kenneth.

“You do not mean to say, Boston, that you knew Maxwell was come to town, and did not tell me! It was cruel, upon my word,” cried Esmae, looking genuinely astonished.

Boston muttered something about the office not being a place for retailing news.

“Oh, I see, you are anxious to keep up your character for secretiveness, so valuable in old Cran’s eyes. He says Boston has the making of a capital lawyer because he can hold his tongue.”

A poor qualification most people will think, probably,” replied Boston, with a sneering laugh. “Oh, by-the-by,” he continued, turning to Esmae, “I must not forget a message that I got for you from Mary Cassilis, Esmae. I was dining at the Cranstowns’ last evening, you know. She wants you to go to see her to-day if possible, and wondered what had become of you last night. You were due there too, it seems, though you never turned up. Now, there I have washed my hands of Mary’s message. Please mention to her that I was faithful,” he added in a familiar tone, which somehow made Kenneth Maxwell’s pulses beat with the quickening of sudden indignation.

Why should he in such careless tones take a name into his lips which was enshrined in his own mental dreams with a chivalrous halo? Surely Esmae could not fail to resent such familiarity; for was he not Mary Cassilis’s chosen friend? had he not her faithful service, her beautiful love !

But there was no look of quickened pulses about Esmae as he replied, “Oh yes, it is really too bad of me. I have gone so much seldomer to see Mary than I intended; and I was so awfully glad when she came on this visit to town. I meant to go to see her every day, just as we do at home; but really it was not possible last night. Low and Fergus had asked me specially if they would find me.”

“Yes, I see you had company last evening,” said Boston with a smile which revealed that the state of the dining-room had not escaped his notice as he passed upstairs. There was no disapproval, however, indicated by either his words or smile, Kenneth observed.

What then was the attitude Boston held towards such ongoings which Esmae had evidently allowed to stand between him and an evening that surely would have been intensely pleasant? Kenneth pondered, as he sat silently listening to the rather animated talk which Boston contrived to keep up about trifling daily ongoings, to which the returned traveller was, of course, a stranger.

The intercourse between the cousins had evidently become much more familiar than of old. Boston seemed indeed to have taken his place in the Rinaultrie circle on a much more intimate footing than he would have guessed from his manner and words on the previous day, IJow did Mary Cassilis view his increased intimacy, he wondered, remembering her old prejudice against the new cousin?

“By the way, Boston, was your bite noire, Norah, visible last evening? I thought you made a vow that you would not go near the Cranstowns till she had gone off to her German cure,” said Esmae laughingly.

“She was at dinner, but I am thankful to say she was not in my neighbourhood. And after, Mary and she went off— Mary to help her with her packings, they said. No accounting for taste! ”

“Oh yes, Mary is devoted to Norah. It was only to Bee her before she went away that she came to town. Aunt Gruel likes Norah too, so she was quite willing that Mary should go; but I am afraid living with the Cranstowns must be awfully slow work for Mary after the country,” said Esmae with a sigh.

“If you appreciate the oountiy so much, why are you in town since you have forsaken the university, and if, as you say, you do not mean to study law?” asked Kenneth. “Remember I am a poor returned wanderer who has not heard a scrap about you for months, Esmae. Pray do become biographical, for I have a class at ten,” he said rather ruefully, making a last effort to retrieve this long-dreamed-of meeting from utter failure and disappointment “Well, to tell the truth, I am sorry I left college now. I do not believe I would ever have done it if you had been here, Ken. If only I could have pulled myself up to do some work, it would have been better for me now. But really I was dreadfully idle after Christmas last session, and I could not bear to have the governor think that I was grinding hard at my classes when I was as idle as possible.”

Like your friend Low,” chimed in Boston, “who never attends a class, but somehow manages to persuade his pious provincial parent that he is an exemplary youth, and gets pages like a tract of beautiful expressions of thankfulness that Providence has bestowed on him such a son. One of his letters was going the round lately. Such a joke it was.”

“It will not go the round any longer,” said Esmae bluntly. “I put it in the fire before Low’s eyes the other day. I told him he had not a word to say; that he had forfeited all right to it It was a black shame to use his father’s letters so.”

“Well, I can’t say I see much good in doing a thing like that,” said Boston dryly. “Besides, one really felt indebted to Low for giving one a good laugh at his expense. The young man, you know, is such an entirely different person from the estimable youth of his father’s dreams.”

“Well, do you know I think it was the reading of the poor old man’s letter that had a good deal to do with giving up my college classes,—it seems such a shame to deceive one’s father so. Mine did not write me letters in old Mr. Low’s style certainly, but I could see that he counted on my being fairly diligent. Indeed, it was hard work to make him believe that I had not been so when I went up to Binaultrie for the express purpose of confessing what a black sheep I was; but I thought at all events I would not repeat the deception. Now there, Ken, is a little bit of my biography that you were asking for. But I cannot understand why that piece of news— about my having given up college—never reached you. I am sure there must be several editions of it lying half finished in my desk for you. And you want to know what the black sheep has been about since you last heard of him? Well, you see the case is changed now. I have actually a grievance against the governor to excuse myself with now—have I not, Boston! Here I am, stuck down in this horrid hole dead against my own will”

“But which do you call ‘a horrid hole’—the fair city of Edinburgh, or Mr. Cranstown’s office? ”

“Oh, either, or both. I know you adore Edinburgh, Kenneth, and have all kinds of romantic notions about its beauties; but one bit of the Binaultrie deer-park is more to me than all the beauties of Edinburgh. And as for old Cran’s office, I hate the place. I only go for an hour or two occasionally, just to please my father. He suddenly took a tremendous fancy for my getting some knowledge of business; though I really can’t quite see how that is to come from copying unintelligible rigmaroles from one sheet of blue paper to another, only more untidily than before. But come, let us change the subject. Let us be merry for one day at least, now that you have come back.”

“Yes, killing the fatted calf is a favourite occupation of yours, Esmae,” said Boston with a laugh; and then turning to Kenneth, he remarked, “You will not sympathize with my cousin’s dislike to law. You mean to go in for it yourself, do you not! ”

“Yes, by the way, that used to be your great idea, Kenneth.”

“And nobody ever told you that I had changed my mind, Esmae?” said Kenneth in a tone which Boston noticed had a ring of disappointment in it. And he guessed aright. Mary Ca8silis knew of his changed hopes and plans. Surely she might have made some mention of them to his friend in the many conversations they must have had during the months which had elapsed, was the thought that flitted across Kenneth’s mind, though he felt half vexed with himself for entertaining it for a moment “I suppose you mean to enter the army now,” suggested Boston.

“0h you lucky fellow, are you really? That is what I wanted to do beyond all things, but my father would not hear of it. You remember that was always my old idea, Ken t ”

“But I think you have quite grown out of the ‘On, Stanley, on! ‘Charge, Chester, charge!’ stage now, Esmae,” said Boston patronizingly. “I was telling your father so in my last letter. I am not sure, indeed, that I did not hold out hopes, as Low does in his correspondence with his pious parent, that you were in training for a parson. Your father once was kind enough to offer me the family living on the next vacancy; but seeing I declined it with thanks, I think you cannot do better than combine it with your other recreations when you go to settle on the family estate,” said Boston, in a bantering tone.

It was not certainly the time and way in which Kenneth would have chosen to share his plans with his friend, but something impelled him to speak at this juncture. “It is not the army I am thinking of, Esmae; I hope to find some work in the Church. But I shall tell you more of my plans another time. I must go now.”

“The Church! You are going to be a minister, Kenneth? Oh, I do not like the idea at all! ” cried Esmae with vigour. “But, Kenneth, do you really mean it? Are you sure you are not joking? I hope you are> for I have no fancy for parsons— when they are young, especially. Old Gordon is a dear old fellow, of course; but then I don’t fancy you mean to be exactly of that type,—and there are other Boris I have come across I do not relish at all. Besides—perhaps you do not know, Kenneth, you have been so long away—but the Scotch Church is in a very bad state just now. I cannot tell you much about it, but I heard them talking about it last time I dined at the Cranstowns’. Do you know, they have allowed ever so many other ministers—those who have chapels of ease ‘-“-into the Church. Mr. Cranstown says they are only dissenters, and that it will be the ruin of the Church. And then they have had tremendous rows in the Town Council about Church rates lately. They want to cut down the number of ministers. You should hear old Cran on the subject.”

“Yes. He was on it again last night,” said Boston; but somehow Norah with her sharp tongue silenced him. She seems to have a good deal of power over her father, that young person. I suppose she wanted to change the subject, as she knew it would not be agreeable to Mary;—seems she has taken the side of the Netherley people in their quarrel with the factor about their kirk affairs.”

“Oh, she does so still,” said Kenneth, with an eagerness which did not escape Boston’s notice.

“Of course she does, and so do I! ” cried Esmae warmly. “Old Cran has behaved abominably to Mr. Bruce and to all the Netherley tenants. And really his favourite, Mr. Coutts, was not fit to be a minister at alL You never saw the man, Kenneth, I suppose?—But don’t you remember, Boston, he travelled on the coach with us the first time you went to Rinaultrie with me, and what a dreadful fright he was in when I took the reins from Bauldy? Poor man, I felt rather sorry for him when he lost his sermon, though. He was in a dreadful state of mind about it.”

“And you helped to victimize the Netherley people by finding it for him. I should not wonder if you are most to blame in the troubles of the Netherley kirk since then. I told you at the time you had much better have left it on the road, so great was my consideration for others.”

“Oh yes, Boston, you always like to be credited with far-seeing wisdom. You are almost as bad as Mr. Cranstown with his constant ‘Mark my words.’ But what do you think of Kenneth’s idea of being a minister? I don’t fancy you will give up the Law for the Kirk in her troubles, eh, Boston ? ” “Each one to his taste,” replied Boston, shrugging his shoulders.

Esmae’s friend would fain have lingered longer in the hope of a teU-drt&te, and of dissipating more than one painful impression which this morning’s visit had created in his mind But Boston seemed to have forgotten his usual punctuality, and showed no disposition to take leave; so it happened that Kenneth had to go, with an increased growth of anxiety on his friend’s behalf and a new crop of injured feelings on his own. Nor did Esmae’s affectionate rejoicings that they were again within reach of each other, and his gay plans of frequent meetings, as they parted, dispel the sense of keen disappointment with which Kenneth left him.

Was it to be henceforth a divergent life-path they were to tread? he asked himself sadly, as he took his solitary way to the familiar class-room.

CHAPTER XII
Boston Lends.

“‘Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus;
Another thing to fall.”

“My dear mother, you have not a head for finance; you must trust me. Just think how much more comfortable we have been since you allowed me to have sole charge of our business affairs,” Boston was saying in his blandest tone.

Near him sat Mrs. Burnett, her face wearing an expression of mild perplexity as she looked up from her sewing. Judging from her present surroundings, Boston’s boast that his good management had brought more domestic comfort than formerly was true to fact The old rooms in the High Street had been exchanged for others, which, if they were not all that her ambitious son desired, were at least not so jarring to his sensibilities as the corner of the old tenement so near the sky. Boston had made the recent discovery that the family finances were not so scanty as they were reckoned by his mother. A careful inquiry into them had been one of his first occupations when his business interests were sharpened by his new work. He found that, by better investments, their income, though still small, might be rendered considerably more elastic.

Mrs. Burnett accepted the increase of means with mingled feelings. Though not miserly by nature, old, self-denying habits of saving had become a second nature; and, moreover, she could not always lull her anxious mind to entire trust in Boston’s alleged good investments. He had as yet, however, shown himself patient with her fears, and dutifully explanatory of each step he had taken with regard to her capital Mrs. Burnett was beginning at length to think more complacently of their increased domestic comfort, regarding it as another gratifying proof of the talent of her masterful son.

Her dormant fears had, however, been again roused. With the tendency to suspect which usually belongs to weak natures, she was wont to interpret barometrically Boston’s words. When he was most bland, she would forecast some coming difficulty. During the evening meal he had been in the most complaisant of moods, so it was not a surprise to her when, instead of seating himself at his writing-table, which arrears of office-work seemed to exact ordinarily, he took a chair by the fireside near her, evidently bent on having a talk on some matter specially interesting to him, while Mrs. Burnett instinctively girded on her feeble armour.

“Iam sure, Boston, I have never shown myself mistrustful of you,” she said complainingly. “ Have I not put every penny of the savings I brought with me from America into your hands? But, I must say, I do think it iB only right that you should tell me how you are laying it out You seemed always to have a mind to be quite frank about it till this night; but now you come asking me to lift whole three hundred pounds from that company where you told me only a week ago it was so safe, and you keep refusing to tell me what you want to do with a single penny of it Do you think such closeness could be pleasant to any mother’s heart! ” wound up Mrs. Burnett, with something like an incipient sob.

Boston frowned. That sound had on previous occasions proved a signal that he must eventually wave the white flag. He decided that it would be best to do so gracefully at once. “Well, mother, I think you will be sorry that you have made Buch a fuss when you hear what I really want the money for. But since you insist upon it, I shall tell you, though it is rather a breach of confidence to my cousin. The three hundred pounds is wanted as a loan for Esniae, your favourite.”

“For him! impossible; most astonishing! ” cried the widow with uplifted hands. “Why, Boston, you have taken leave of your wits. The idea of people like us parting with our money to gentlefolks who could buy us all up I Dear,’ dear! it seems to me a great deal more foolish to lift the money than it did before, now that I know what you were going to do with it Boston, you are a silly lad. I wonder you had so little sense as ever to listen to such a proposal,” she added, with an energy and courage which she seldom evinced This was by no means the result of his confidence which Boston had intended He bit his lip with vexation as he said slowly,—

All right) mother; it is well to know your views. I gave you credit for more generosity than you seem to possess, that is all You always professed to admire Esmae and take such an interest in him, and I really took for granted you would be quite charmed to have the chance of helping him. As for that nonsense about the unfitness of our helping gentlefolks, we are a younger branch of the same family. It is really quite trying to notice the spurious humility you indulge in, in Bpite of all I can say,” added Boston.

“Iam truly sorry to hear that the lad has need to borrow money from you or anybody else,” said Mra. Burnett after a moment’s silence. “It is a bad road to begin to travel on. You are a year older, Boston. You should warn the poor boy faithfully against the dangers of debt and the ways that lead to it”

“That is Christian charity all over, mother: plenty of solemn warnings to the poor sinner to stop and think; but when you are asked to put your hand into your pocket and help the said sinner out of the miry clay, then the case is different. It is a wonder you have not offered me a tract instead of the cheque to enclose to him. I have seen a good many about that would suit your purpose very well since you have put yourself under the Rev. Alan Falconer’s spiritual jurisdiction. You had better consult him what kind of leaflet is most adapted to the case of a young man pressingly in need of three hundred pounds.”

“O Boston, I do wish you would not speak so bitterly about things. And as for your pique at Mr. Falconer, I am sure I don’t know where you got it A more earnest preacher and a better man I never knew. And I am sure he is a real gentleman—not of the kind easy to make sport of, I assure you. If you would only come and hear him just once, my boy, there is no saying—”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, mother, do not let us have another diet of the Rev. Mr. Falconer; and, mother, let me beg of you to keep to the Queen’s English. You have such an odd way of sticking in a mispronounced French word into your conversation, and the effect is anything but satisfactory.”

“Ah, but you see I had not the chance of so much schooling in my young days as you have had. You must not be too hard on your old mother, my boy. But, Boston, I am real troubled about that winning lad Esmae having got into debt I don’t understand how he can have managed it You told me a while ago that his father gave him what seemed to me a perfect fortune for his pocket-money.”

“Of course, mother; don’t you see that is just the reason he has got into debt? But surely it is fair enough that there should be some snake in the flowery path for such a spoilt favourite of fortune as he.”

“Poor young man, I feel truly sad at heart to think of him in want of such a sum; I fear it bodes no good. If it were a little money he needed, I am sure I would willingly make a present of it to him. Would a five-pound note be of any use?

I’ve got one lying by in my box just ready, and could give it without putting wrong our weekly bills. You could just send it to him in an envelope through the post, and never say where it came from.”

“Thank you; I have not the least intention of making my cousin such a handsome present. If there is a five-pound note to spare, we have plenty to do with it Besides, he is not the sort of young gentleman to whom such a sum would be of much use. Why, his late-supper friends would make an end of it at one sitting. No, mother, if you had only been willing to listen to me with more trust and more patience, I should have gone on to explain to you that this is entirely a business transaction. Don’t you see, Esmae’s allowance is paid to him every month, and, for any sum lent, he will be obliged to pay larger interest than you are getting anywhere for your money. Of course I shall not tell him where the loan has come from. There is no use in blabbing everything. But you may be quite sure I shall take care that we are not losers in the matter. As to that, his allowance happens to have to pass through my hands at present. I certainly shall not be such a fool as to let it pass into Esmae’s without deducting what belongs to us. Now, my dear un-financial mother, does light begin to dawn on you at last?”

“I see what you are planning, Boston, but I can’t say I like the look of it. You may boast of knowing more of the world than your mother, but she has seen some bits of life that you have not, my boy; and I tell you I don’t like the look of all this. Why does not the lad tell his own father that he has need of this sum, and not go about things in such an underhand way? It does not seem to me like him, he looked such an open-faced young man. And I am sure you have always told me that old Mr. Burnett was such a kind-hearted gentleman; and as for his goodness to you, Boston, it has really been most extraordinary.”

“And notwithstanding, you are unwilling to do his son the small favour which will be no loss but a gain to you financially.”

“Boston, have I not just been telling you that I do not reckon it for the lad’s good that we should do this for him? I am sure I would not thank anybody if they were to lend money to you without my knowledge. You must try to coax the lad to make a clean breast of all his debts to his father.”

“Lovely morality that, mother; quite after the pattern of the prodigal son. But you see that is just a course of action which Esmae will not adopt, nor any young man busily engaged in sowing his wild oats. And I really do not wonder at him. My unde comes down with a handsome allowance every month, and fancies he is making Esmae quite easy; and it would not be a pleasant thing for him to hear that every penny of it was forestalled. I know it would put him out horridly. I do not wonder at Esmae saying that, whatever he does, he will not tell his governor. Besides, he could not help him; Rinaultrie is swamped in debt”

But your master—Mr. Cranstown, their law agent—is he not the person to consult? ”

“Oh, that would be letting the cat out of the bag altogether. It would be far worse than telling the laird himself. No, mother, you have not hit on any plan so good as mine for helping your favourite, so you had better consent to the change of investments. That is all you have got to do,” said Boston as he pulled a paper out of his pocket The sight of the blue business-looking document seemed to scare Mrs. Burnett She rose hurriedly from her seat, saying angrily,—

“I will not be a party to the transaction, Boston. If the lad will borrow in that underhand way, he must go elsewhere than to the purse of a poor widow woman. I cannot understand why you should go in with such folly, Boston. If I did not know you to be a correct, regular-living lad, I would set you down as going the same road yourself. ’Deed, I will not be so comfortable about you after hearing all this. I will not have the sin laid to my door of encouraging such ways.”

You may make your mind quite easy, mother; I am not 6uch a fool as to get myself into the mess Esmae has. I cannot afford it, for one thing; besides, it is not to my taste. But stop, before you go to that prayer-meeting we must really settle this matter. Just listen to me one moment more,” he said as his mother moved away; “you say that Esmae can go and borrow elsewhere. True; and so he will if we are so hardhearted as not to come to his help. But if he does, he may get among bad people; and besides, who is so suitable to help him as his own relations? You may trust me, mother, you will be richer, not poorer, by the transaction; and it is not the gain of money alona To be plain with you, it will be a good thing for my prospects to have some power over the future laird of Binaultrie, for his good as well as mina Why, mother, even Uncle Burnett suggested that Cranstown’s post would fall to me some day. Surely that is a very small ambition for a Burnett, to be a servant on his ancestral lands; and yet you interfere with my plans on all hands. You will repent it some day if you thwart me like this,” he added with vehemence.

“Well, if it is true that the poor foolish lad will just go and borrow from worse people if we do not lend him that money, then I shall give in, Boston; but I do not like the look of it,” said Mrs. Burnett, shaking her head as she took the pen into her fingers which Boston held out to her, and proceeded to sign the blue document; and then she hurried off to prepare for the weekly prayer-meeting.

Boston seated himself at his writing-table and took from the little black bag the bundle of business papers which he had to go over that night before he slept: he was a hard-working assistant, and was already much valued by his principal. Boston’s thoughts, however, seemed wandering this evening. He smiled once or twice as if highly satisfied with the course which recent events had taken.

“It is a game worth playing; I must strengthen my power over him somehow now that Maxwell has reappeared. It strikes me he, too, looks harder up than he used to be, so he will not be able to help Mr. Esmae to the one thing needful Very likely he may cut him altogether as a black sheep now that he is going in for being a shepherd of souls like the Reverend Falconer, my mother’s pope. He looked a little queer yesterday morning in Esmae’s lodgings. I fancy he must have got a glimpse of that nice mess in the dining-room as he passed. He will have some more glimpses of the same kind, I guess, as long as the Low and Fergus reign lasts.”

So disturbing to business routine were Boston’s reflections that, after a time, he impatiently tossed his papers into his bag, and buttoning on his greatcoat went along the lamp-lit street It was in the earlier part of the same day that Esmae had made the discovery out of which Boston’s financial proposal to his mother had sprung. While idly seated at his office table that morning, his eye chanced to light on his pass-book, and he had been startled to find such a formidable balance against him. Boston happened to come up to speak to him when his perplexity was at its height, and Esmae, with his usual frankness, confessed its source. Not only were the arrears formidable, but he was in pressing need of a sum which he could not get without a special application to his father, from which he seemed to shrink.

“How can the money have melted away, Boston?” he said, passing his fingers through his hair. “I do not seem to have anything to show for it either. I have never played for high stakes at billiards, just for fear of losing more than I could pay. I did not want to get into the mess that Fergus has, for instance. There was only that one bet on Lightning at last race, for which I had to stump up pretty heavily, you know. Yet my money seems to Lave melted away like the snow in the spring-time from the Rinaultrie hills. One thing is quite clear, I must not bother dear old daddy about it, nor ask him for another penny. He has got expenses enough at home with all his ditching and draining. See, here are a whole file of unpaid bills that have been knocking about my cheroot-box for months; and they have been swarming like bees at my lodgings for the last few days. There’s Griffiths, my wine merchant, sent me in his bill for the second time; I cannot think why he should be so pressing.”

Boston smiled, remembering the promiscuous company of empty bottles which he had seen strewn about Mrs. Wood’s dining-room.

Much to Esmae’s relief, Boston seemed, however, to take in the situation at once, and there followed a prompt offer of a loan without much difficulty, which he said he thought he could secure from a certain quarter, which he did not mention. At all events, he would make the attempt to obtain it without delay.

This sudden suggestion of a hitherto unthought of but seemingly easy way out of his dilemma was at first eagerly grasped at by Esmae, for he had indeed had an uncomfortable quarter of an hour over his financial difficulties. “It will be awfully good of you if you can get the money for me without much bother. It is tremendously clever of you to have thought of that plan all in a moment Of course, it will be easy enough for me to pay my creditor, whoever he may be, the interest of the loan each time I get my allowance, and three hundred pounds will clear me of all that is pressing. I had no idea it could make a fellow feel so horribly uncomfortable to be in debt By George, I really must take better care in future.”

With this light vow Esmae seated himself to copy a conveyancing deed which had been his office work for some time. Presently, however, it was again impatiently pushed aside.

Glancing at the dead blank wall which formed the window landscape where the sunlight was playing, he said: “It is awfully dull work for a fellow to be shut up in this dingy hole on a sunshiny day like this; and, after all, what can a fellow learn by this stupid copying, except to fathom the depths of dulness? And yet old Cran talks with such sublime bumptiousness of the business training I am gaining here. You should have heard him expatiating on it to dear old daddy last time we were at Binaultrie; and my father seemed to take it all in, for he said, with one of his big sighs, that such a training was what he had missed much in life. And yet here I am learning literally nothing. Oh, what a lot of humbug there is in life! It seems to me that one set exists just to humbug the other. Boston, I wonder if you are as great a humbug as the rest of them,” he said lightly. Their eyes happened to meet at the moment, and he noticed that Boston’s impassible face twitched strangely. “I am just disturbing you, you plodding old fellow. I had better take myself off I can never settle to work indoors, somehow, on a bright day like this. Just think what it would be to be flying over Delfro with the greyhounds this morning. I think I shall go and have a stroll in the Princes Street Gardens; not that I expect them to satisfy my hunger for the country, but they will be better than this. I wish Kenneth Maxwell were not so desperately busy. That was such a jolly climb we had up Arthur’s Seat yesterday. I thought he was much more like his old self than the day before when you saw him. He is not a bit changed, just as nice as ever. Now, Boston, don’t forget about the money, there’s a good fellow.”

“No; I may possibly go along to you this evening and tell you whether I can get it for you or not”

“All right I shall expect you,” said Esmae as he sauntered away.

Boston glanced after him as he left the room. He made a movement as if to follow, but turned again to his work, muttering, “Why should I remind him after all! It is no business of mine. I have given him Mary’s message; and if he chooses to forget i^ it is his own affair. How anxious she seemed to see him though. The fellow, it is the same in everything,—all the good things of life at his feet, and he does not take the trouble to pick them up.”

If, however, Boston could have seen the joyous look which came into Esmae’s face a few minutes afterwards as he caught a glimpse among the green windings of the garden of a small group which he recognized, he could hardly have accused his cousin of indifference to his early playmate.

“Ah, there goes my happy hour! And I had been looking forward to this last walk together so much. Here comes young Rinaultrie, Mary. As for me, I shall be thrust forth directly to the thorns and thistles of the wilderness; that is always my fate when I come to these gardens with Ada or any other girl who has the use of her legs,” said Norah Cranstown as she was being wheeled along by Mary’s side, her quick eyes having been the first to catch sight of Esmae.

“Oh, where is Esmae! I want so much to see him. I do not believe he knows that I am going back to Asloune the day after to-morrow; and I have hardly seen anything of him since I came, somehow, and we looked forward to so many meetings. I have actually seen much more of your friend Boston, Norah. Yes, it is Esmae; oh, I am so glad! ”^cried Mary, her face brightening as she saw him coming hurrying along a cross-walk to meet them.

“Of course you are glad. But how can I be expected to be anything but sad when it drives me out of my Garden of Eden?— Jane, you had better trundle me home at once,” said Norah in a half-mocking tone of distress. “Only, Mary, I must say I am glad to hear you confess that you are glad. Ada generally pretends that she has not even eyes to see the young men who oome bowing and smiling, with all sorts of pretty speeches ready made to flatter her with; and yet I know it is just for the express purpose of meeting her admirers that she deigns to bestow herself on me when I am taking my airing. But I did hope that to-day, at least, you would not have any ‘ followers,’ as Jane calls Ada’s young gentleman friends. But all the same, I am glad to hear you say that you are happy to see this one.”

“Why, of course I am happy. We see each other every day at Binaultrie,” said Maiy simply, as she went forward to shake hands with Esmae.

“This bright morning is making you think of Binaultrie too, Mary,” said Esmae as he caught the last word. “lama truant, you see,” he added turning to NoraL “You must not tell your father, Miss NoraL”

“Not I; there are plenty of sneaks without my taking to that form of wickedness,” retorted the girl. “Jane,” she said, turning to her maid who was pushing her chair along, “you’d better turn me into this walk at once,” and she pointed to a dull, damp-looking cuLdesac which branched off the broad walk at this point The maid who had replaced the bellicose-looking Mitchell, shortly after Norah’s churchyard experiences, prepared to obey her young mistress’s orders. She knew from experience that an adjournment to this damp retreat had anything but a salutary effect on her young mistress’s spirits and temper.

“But, Norah, why are you bent on leading us into this dismal-looking walk that does not lead anywhere)” expostulated Mary, who had followed a step or two without perceiving whither she was being led. “We like breezy heights best, don’t we, Esmae!”

“Yes, girls and boys who have the use of their legs generally do; but damp valleys are good enough for me.”

“She don’t like that dismal hole no more than you do, Miss Cassilis; only it is her custom to wait there for Miss Crans-town,” volunteered Jane.

“And it is not good for you to be in such a damp walk as this, Miss Nor ah; I shall take the reins myself and mount you into the very nicest place in the whole garden. I do not believe either you or Mary know it Come along,” said Esmae gaily, as he began to wheel the chair in the opposite direction, while Jane retreated, walking at her ease with a delighted grin on her face.

“Yes, that is the thing, Esmae. Do not fear, Norah; he will wheel you very carefully. I remember he used to give me such nice rides in the old wheelbarrow at Mirk wood when I first came from India,” said Mary, replying to a half-doubtful interrogative glance from Norah. Then there followed some merry reminiscences of the wheelbarrow period which Norah seemed to enjoy to the full, though from time to time she glanced questioningly at Mary, as if to assure herself that she was not in the way, which, in similar circumstances, she felt sure she would have been with Ada. As she sat in the sunlight with folded hands contentedly being wheeled along by Esmae’s strong arms, there crept into the face a serene expression that was new to it How often she would remember this morning in the gardens when she was at the German Bad, where she was about to be sent as a last hope of stronger health for her. And how good it was of Mary to look so kindly at her every now and then, just to make her feel that she was not interfering with her happiness.

But there was a shadow crossing her friend’s face now which did not escape Norah’s quick eye. It deepened as Esmae went on, in a half-jocular, half-bitter tone, to tell her how idle he had been of late, and how much he hated being kept in town, and what a mistake it was that he did not prepare for entering the army as he had wanted to do for so long, if only his father had not been opposed to it Norah was a strong partisan. She turned and looked up at him with a glowing face. “Oh, I think it is very hard that you should not have the life you want I know how hard it is for a girl, and it must be ever so much worse for a man. I do not wonder it makes you feel idle. I think if I were you I should run away and enlist”

“Not a bad suggestion, Miss Norah.—What would Aunt Griz say to that, Maiy ) I think I should be more afraid of her criticisms than anybody’s else.”

But Mary looked grave and troubled, and made no reply.

Presently, to Norah’s keen vexation, she perceived her mother and her graceful sister Ada coming along one of the walks to meet them. Mrs. Cranstown’s face wore its most smiling aspect, which did not seem, however, to mitigate in the least degree her younger daughter’s discontent.

“Mr. Esmae Burnett, what do I see ) You actually wheeling Norah’s chair along with your own hands!” said Mrs. Crans-town, bowing gracefully as she approached. “Why, Norah, my dear, you ought to feel much flattered.—But I fear my little daughter has been imposing on your kindness, Mr. Esmae.! am sure you must have had more than enough of her. The maid will now return to her post—Jane,” she added, with a considerably less benignant air, as she glanced at the attendant off duty, “return, at once, to your work. This child must not be allowed to impose, as she is apt to do.”

“There you are, mamma, talking of me again just as if I were an infant in long clothes. You really do not look on me as the child you say.—Do they now, Mary)—It is just an expression—a mannerism, it would be called in my English composition book,” said Norah, fairly at bay now, as she glanced at her mother.

“Oh, my dear, how you do talk. I do trust that you will acquire better manners as well as better health at the German cure.—Is she not incorrigible, Mr. Burnett) The fact is, this kind young lady has been quite Bpoiling her,” added Mrs. Crans-town, with a gracious inclination to Mary. “You are by far too good to her, my dear. She has quite monopolized you since you came among us, exacting little puss that she is. In fact, I have hardly seen anything of you, and you are going to leave us so soon. Do allow me to make up for lost opportunities, and come and have a walk with me now.—Jane, did you not hear me tell you to return to your work without delay!” wound up Mra Cranstown, in such an authoritative tone that Esmae felt obliged, at once, to resign his post By this little strategic movement Ada was left tete-drtete with Esmae, while Mrs. Cranstown took firm possession of Mary.

Ada had hitherto been standing by her mother’s side in silence, her share in the conversation being confined to a series of little musical outbursts of laughter at Norah’s remarks. She had been absent from home for several months, having gone on a long visit to friends. It was therefore a considerable time since Esmae and she had met—not, indeed, since she had merged into a young lady with elegant plumage. She had grown extremely pretty in the important interval, he at once decided. Nor was it only the lovely colouring, the sparkling eyes, and graceful figure that were attractive. There had certainly come to Ada a frankness and pleasantness of manner which was not a characteristic of the rather selfish, sulky little girl whom he used to contrast with his bright, loving Mirkwood playmate. The flow of talk seemed to glide on with charming ease, and Esmae began to feel much better pleased with himself than he had done a few minutes previously in Mary’s society. His pecuniary troubles and other grievances were forgotten for the time, as he walked gaily on by Ada’s side in the sunshina For a little they kept pace with Norah’s chair, but though Jane’s propelling of it was monotonously equable, Esmae and his new companion were gradually left behind, and presently a side-long glance revealed to Norah that they had turned down another path; whereupon that young lady indulged in a low peculiar whistle, a remnant of her brother Jack’s education which she adapted to her necessities of expression, and with which she occasionally summed up her observations. In the present instance, it was followed by a frowning reverie, which Jane was severely snubbed for venturing to interrupt by a commonplace remark. Nor did the result of Norah’s cogitations seem to leave her in a serene frame of mind.

“Wheel me to the low walk, Jana I shall take my stand there till they choose to come and fetch me,” she said in a lugubrious tona “La, miss, you might sit there till you took root, if it’s Miss Cranstown you mean to wait for, now that she has got hold of one of her followers.”

“Be quiet, Jana How dare you talk of Mr. Esmae Burnett in that odious, vulgar manner I” cried Norah, with flashing eye turning on the instantly-cowed Jana “Wheel me into that walk, I tell you. I have a method in my proceedings which you cannot understand,” she added loftily.

Jane knew from experience that when “missy got on her high horse” further remonstrance was useless; so she sulkily trundled her charge to the insalubrious comer. Norah, however, seemed supported by some sense of having a mission to accomplish, as she sat with a resigned air among what she termed the thorns and thistles of the wilderness.

Her lively imagination, quickened by her lonely life, in which the love-fortunes of the heroes and heroines of her story-books became very real to her, had caused to spring up in Norah’s mind a little romance concerning Esmae and her friend Maiy, which during their walk had grown with the rapidity of the fabled Jack’s beanstalk. Her sharp eyes had not, however, failed to note Esmae’s gaze of undisguised admiration towards her pretty sister when they were reintroduced to each other. As for Ada, Norah knew from past observation that her fas- cinating smiles and glances were hitherto pretty equally distributed among her male admirers, and among them only. There certainly seemed to be more than a usual store of such light artillery for this new acquaintance, she observed; and her heart beat wildly at what she regarded as a base attempt to steal away what belonged to another.

Mary Cassilis came hurrying along the damp walk, little guessing what a volcano of indignant feeling on her behalf was surging in her friend’s heart She did not, certainly, have the look of a forsaken damsel which Norah would haye judged suitable; but then girls like Mary did not wear their hearts on their sleeve, she reminded herself, as she held out her hand to her friend. Her spirits rose instantly, however, when she saw Esmae also hurrying along the walk to meet them; but it turned out, to her chagrin, that he was only the bearer of a summons from Mrs. Cranstown to return home. Ada was again gliding peacefully along by her mother’s side; so the original two were left together. But Norah now declined with some asperity Esmae’s offer to wheel her chair, adding,—

“Of course you think how disagreeable I am. What a contrast to my charming elder sister! Yes, you do. I know it But never mind. I am used to being misunderstood.”

Esmae laughed good-naturedly at this retort Mary, meanwhile, took her friend’s hand caressingly, and held it as they walked along.

“Do you know, Mary, you always remind me of Una in the ‘ Faerie Queene,’ ” said Norah, glancing up in her friend’s face. “She could tame the lions by her touch, you know.—You are quite safe now, Mr. Esmae Burnett You need not be afraid of me. I shall snap at you no longer. She has tamed me.” Esmae lifted his hat in playful acknowledgment of gratitude from deliverance from leonine rebukes, as he went on to say,— “Talking of the ‘ Faerie Queene ’ reminds me of Kenneth Maxwell; it used to be such a favourite of his. By-the-by,

Mary, do you know he has come back? He has been in town for three or four days—come up for the college session. It is so jolly to have old Ken back.”

Norah, whose little fingers still lay in Mary’s soothing clasp, suddenly felt the slightest tremor of the hand which held her own as Esmae gave this piece of news. She did not even steal a furtive interrogative glance at her friend’s face, but looking straight in front of her with a complete air of abstraction, she indulged in one of her low whistles.

“That is the second, to-day. What can Miss Norry be plot-tin’ about now?” soliloquized Jana Esmae glanced at Norah with a quick air of amusement “Ah, you are shocked at my bad manners, I see; and not much wonder, Mr. Esmae Burnett,” she added, imitating to the life the maternal tones and frown. “It was that horrid Jack who taught me. They hoped I would get over it when he went to school; but it is not so easy to overcome bad habits when once they have been formed. I am a warning to all.”

“And is Mr. Maxwell quite strong now, Esmae? Does he look much changed since he was at Blairton?” Mary asked.

“I think he must be changed somehow, for I stared at him for a minute before I recognized him; only, certainly, I was not expecting to see him at the time and place,” replied Esmae, as he recalled his first glimpse of his friend among the ruins of Mrs. Wood’s dining-room. He would have narrated the circumstance to his old playmate without hesitation; for Esmae had not yet lost the innocent frankness of his earlier days, not yet realized the full danger of the riotous follies in which he took part, nor dreamt whither they might lead him. Suddenly, however, he caught Norah’s scrutinizing glance. Somehow it seemed to bring to him a new sense of discomfiture and self-reproach with regard to the scenes in which he had been an actor during the past six months. After all, a description of any one of them was not what he could comfortably share even with Mary, the sympathetic defender of many of his wildest boyish pranks. Perhaps it was this reflection which made him reply to her next question with a sadness in his tone which did not escape Norah’s notice, though Mary seemed unobservant of it “Yes; Kenneth has come back for the winter session, and is hard at work already. He is not the man to lounge about doing nothing—worse than nothing. When I went to his den in the Old Town to see him, the other day, it almost made me wish I were still a student; he looked so happy. But what do you think, Mary? he is not going to be a lawyer after all. I was so surprised to hear that he had given up the old idea. He has actually decided to be a minister. His governor is not pleased, it seems, and has cut down his allowance. I heard that from a friend of his, and his version of it is that Ken is very poor. But Ken does not seem to mind it a bit, if he is so.” “Oh, then he has not changed his mind since he was at Blairton; he is really going to be a minister,” said Maiy.

“Then you heard the news before, Mary? I wonder you never remembered to tell me. I never heard a word about it. Somehow, it seems odd to think of Kenneth being a grave parson. If he had turned out a soldier, like so many of his relations, I should not have been the least surprised; but a minister! Think how different he will be from the ministers we know, Mary.”

“And from that most estimable humbug, the Reverend Peter Coutts—that most deserving of all the benefits of providence, and specially of the Nether ley living,” chimed in Norah.

“Oh, that is exactly how he speaks. You are a first-rate mimic, Miss Norah,” cried Esmae, laughing. “But, indeed, I have met even more unpleasant specimens than the Reverend Peter. I must say I am sorry that Kenneth is throwing away his prospects by mixing himself up with the Kirk.”

“Oh, but if there are so few good ministers, don’t you think there is all the more need for some nice people going to the help of the good old Church? ” said Mary. “Donald Reid was just saying, last time I saw him, that he did wish our minister would sometimes talk about other things besides his cattle and his fields and the prospects for shooting. I do like old Mr. Gordon; he is quite a bit of Asloune; but, you know, there are always jokes going among the people that he grumbles about Sunday coming round too often.”

“Oh yes. I remember when I was a small boy my nurse tried to teach me a hymn that she thought very fine, about heaven being a place ‘ where congregations ne’er break up, and Sabbaths have no end.’ I sat thinking how awfully bored Mr. Gordon would be when he got to heaven, because I had heard him saying to my father how glad he was always when Monday came.”

“Yes; that is one of the nice, cheerful little hymns they give us to make us like heaven,” said Norah in a bitter tone. “But I suppose you and Mary were quite strong and well when you learned it. It was administered to me along with a good deal of nasty physic, when I was lying in the comer of my room, with the shutters closed, as if I was dead, and all the big people creeping about like cats, whispering that the doctor said I would die before summer. Oh, these horrid whispers, how I hated them! If they had only allowed Jack to come and howl, as he knew well how to dp, I feel sure I should not have minded it half so much. I remember I used to turn my face to the wall and wonder what I should be doing when summer came, if I was to be ‘ away,’ as they said. And then somebody would come and offer to read something suitable, and that hymn about imprisoned congregations was often the thing fixed on.”

“Oh, but there are much nicer and truer hymns about heaven than that. I remember Donald Beid saying that he kept himself often from reading those passages in Revelation—beautiful hymns they really are—because they made him too impatient to be in heaven.”

“Yes, perhaps that good old man might feel so; but I am not good enough to have such thoughts, and besides I want to live, oh, so much! I should like to try, for one thing, whether I cannot grow much better than I am; I do so hate myself just now. Then it would be so happy to be of real use to somebody; and that is what I have never been, for, as mamma says, I am a source of annoyance to all my friends. But, you know, the doctor says this place in Germany will do me a world of good. He has been to see it, and knows; and somehow I think it will make me quite strong; and when the thought comes I get so frantically happy that I nearly upset my wheels. Oh, surely, Mary, God cannot be angry with us for wishing very much to get very strong and well, and to live a long time in this dear, delightful old world, where so many fine things have happened, and so many grand things must happen still,” cried Norah, with a glow on her cheek and a light in her dark eyes which transfigured her pale face for a moment “How pretty she is! I never noticed it before. Her face is like a little, quiet, shady corner when her eyes are bent down; but how it lighted up just now. I really think she is prettier than the beauty Ada,” thought Esmae, and his eye met Mary’s after their mutual admiring glance on the lame girl But Norah was unobservant now. Her thoughts were still wrapt in the vision of the world and all the wonders that were to be.

They had now reached one of the gates of the gardens, where Mrs. Cranstown and Ada waited for them with some impatience. Norah was leaving for the Continent next day, and there were still many travelling preparations, Mrs. Cranstown explained in excuse for her haste, as she bade good-bye to Esmae, and hurried her guest and her troublesome daughter towards their home in Charlotte Square.

Esmae turned away, feeling considerably adrift as he sauntered along. The recollection of his unpleasant discovery of a few hours ago concerning the unsatisfactory state of his finances now came back to him with redoubled discomfort Neither did the idea of Boston’s proffered loan bring that relief which he had felt before. Indeed, the thought of such borrowing only added to his burden now. Was it the purer atmosphere into which he had been drawn by the sight of his old playmate, by the revival of home memories, which made him now view the step suggested by Boston in a very different light? be asked himself after his return to his lodgings, as he leant his forehead against the marble chimney-piece of his room and looked into the fire with a troubled expression on his face.

The table was covered for his late dinner, and the widow’s well-doing son John had given warning some minutes before that the soup was getting cold. Still Esmae remained absorbed in his reverie.

“Would it not be better, after all, to make a clean breast of it to dear old daddy) Suppose I take a run down to Rinaultrie with Mary and tell him everything. It seems downright sneaking to set about getting this loan without talking to him. I declare I shall soon be as bad as Low if I go on like this.”

A knock at his door interrupted his reflections, and B9ston Burnett walked in. The loan was offered pleasantly. Esmae, in his own preoccupation, did not observe the scarcely-repressed eagerness of his cousin; nor did it seem to weigh with him at all that Boston announced, to begin with, that for the present the name of the lender must remain a secret.

The offer was tempting—a much easier way out of his difficulties than that which he had been planning a few minutes previously. His father would be saved the inevitable vexation and worry incident to such a disclosure; and there was nothing really wrong in arranging for this loan, he argued, his scruples melting away.

But as he walked upstairs to his room that night, after having accepted Boston’s offer, Esmae’s face wore a more haggard aspect than it had ever done in his life before.

CHAPTER XIII
Wibiterasbes.

“The hues of bliss more brightly glow
Chastised by sabler tints of woe,
And blended, form with artful strife
The strength and harmony of life.”—T. Gray.

“Well, Mrs. Bruce, how are things going with you? I am afraid that you must still have a good deal of the stranger and pilgrim feeling in your new quarters,” said the minister of Whiterashes, as he walked up a trim garden path belonging to a cottage in his parish, where an elderly couple were seated together on a rustic bench.

“’Deed, sir, you are richt there; we are peelgrims eneuch in this onconvenient hole where we hae been whomled by the factor,” replied Mrs. Bruce.

“Say whomled by Providence, Janet woman, gin ye wad speak the truth,” interposed her husband.

“Weel, that’s maybe fat I ocht til say, but it’s no that easy for a boddy, especially wi’ the hairst cornin’ roun’, when it was aye sae shortsome at Auldearn. And ye was jist Bayin’ yestreen yersel’, John, that the bumie rinnin’ at the end o’ the kailyaird there, was like Babbel’s streams til yersel’ and me.”

“Yes, indeed, I am sure it must often seem so to you, though I confess that Brownie Bum is a great favourite of mine, and often sings sweet songs as its brown waters pass near my study windows.”

“And it will maybe sing sweet sangs til her yet, when her hert’s blythe eneuch to listen til its lilt; but ye see, sir, she isna richtly reconceeled to the leavin’ o’ the auld hoose yet, an’ it isna muckle wiinher she feels lonesome like, the noo. Ye see, I was maistly outby i’ the fields and the moss and a’ that; but she was aye inby, taen up wi’ her bits o’ jots i’ the hoose, and takin’ a pride in ilka board and ilka stane. Fuir creter, it’s but little wunner she’s unca casten down,” said the old man as he glanced towards his wife, whose hands, once so full of cheerful, hospitable work, were now folded idly on her lap.

“It’s no a’thegither that, John, though I wad fain think that is at the boddom o’ it’—Deed, sir,” she added, turning to the minister, “it’s jist that besettin’ sin I hae aften telt ye aboot, that gets the better o’ me—that temper o’ mine.”

Janet was apt to write bitter things against herself; but that she was subject to an infirmity not uncommon to Scotch Christians of her type could not be disputed. She had a way of talking about this said infirmity as if it were an attack of measles or smallpox. The minister was duly consulted as to its phases, and Janet was wont to gather up recipes for its cure from various quarters.

“But ye hae been a bittie better this laist day or twa, Janet; and, ‘deed, there’s a hantle wimmen a deal waur than ye,” interposed Mr. Bruce.

“Haud yer tongue, John; I wunner til hear ye, man, as gin the deevil himsel’ didna tell me that aften eneuch. There’s nae need for ye til be sayin’ wi’ Aim,” retorted Janet sharply. “ Elspet Watts was inby no lang syne,” she continued, turning to the minister, “and she was jist tollin’ me about a wumman— Haud yer tongue, John; we’re no needin’ the name,” she snapped, as her partner in life mildly endeavoured to help her memory by suggesting the name of the “wumman ” in question.—“Weel, sir, as I was tellin’ ye afore he interrupit me, the wumman had an unca dreadfu’ temper. Whiles it begude here,” explained Mrs. Bruce, laying her hand on a region where conventional parlance does not generally localize the emotions, though Holy Writ gives some sanction to Janet’s diagnosis. “An’, sir,” she went on eagerly, “she telt me that the ill-temper reese and it reese, jist like mine, till she thocht it was clean to get the better o’ her; but she jist grippit it, and syne she lifted her een to the hills that oor help comes frae, and it gaed oot” There was an exulting flash in the old woman’s gray eyes as she recorded this victory.

“Ah, there you see, Mrs. Bruce, is good hope for us all To these same hills of strength we must turn in all our temptations. If you persevere in Elspet’s friend’s plan, I feel sure you, too, will have to record a great many victories. By the way, how is good old Elspet? I have not seen her for some tima Are her rheumatics cured? ”

“Oh, ’deed they are but middlin’, sir; for she’s hirplin’ sair. But she says little aboot hersel’, Elspet; and never did. She’s a rael fine wumman, Elspet,” said Mrs. Bruce warmly.

By the way,” said Mr. Grahame, “young Miss Cassilis was telling me the other day that it was Elspet’s influence which had made Mr. Cranstown’s invalid daughter so much interested in the fortunes of the Netherley church. She must be a very interesting girl, from all I hear of her.”

“Ay, that’s Miss Norry,” nodded Mrs. Bruce, with a beaming smile. “She’s jist a terrible fine bit crater that It was aye a pleesant soun’ to hear the rumlin’ of her wheels when she cam’ inby til Auldearn, when they were stayin’ at the Hoose. Puir lambie, it’s richt sore upo’ her that she hasna the use o’ her legs.” “Jist ye bide a wee, Janet,” said John with a smile, for Norah had got round the old man’s heart as well as his wife’s in her visits to the farm. “Ye will see Miss Norry will come walkin’ in ae day, lookin’ as stracht and as bonnie as ane o’ yer lilies there,” he said, pointing to a group of graceful narcissus growing near.

“Ay, he’s gotten it intil his heid that they furrin watters Miss Norry gaed til will be the curin’ o’ the lassie. I’m thinkin’ it maun be a place like fat wi read o’ i’ the Scrippter—the pool o’ Bathsheeba.”

“Bathesda, good wife,” interposed John.

“Hoots, man, the tane’s jist as good’s the tither. Ye’re aye that ready pickin’ up a boddy. I’se warrant the minister, wi’ a’ his buik leamin’, kens fine my meanin’. But efter a’,” said Janet reflectively, “I’m no thinkin’ the watters far they hae sent Miss Norry will be the marrow o’ the New Testamen’ ane. They surely will no be shovin’ ane anither the same gait as fan the world was a heep youngger, and folk cudna hae had sae muckle wit”

“That is right, Mrs. Bruce; I am glad to Bee you hold the theory that the world is getting better and not worse, as many good people would have us believe now-a-days.”

“Ay, that’s the pessimys,” remarked John, who was of a philosophical turn of mind and was widely read, familiar with some of the best writers, though his grotesque pronunciation was sometimes apt to excite a smile. “The gude-wife’s gey often jist a doonricht pessimy; but it’s maybe your cornin’ inby, sir, that gared her tak’ a blyther thocht aboot things.

“Have ye heard, sir, that the Cranstown folk are cornin’ til the Hoose for the shootin’? ” said Mr. Bruce, changing the subject, for he perceived that his worthy partner’s besetting infirmity had again been roused by his criticism. “But there will be less luck than eiver aboot the place now that Miss Norry’s awa\ Would it had a better laird! I winna cease to pray for its peace and its prosperity as lang as I am spared, though they hae drove me oot o’ the auld placet”

“I am sure you will, Mr. Bruce. But I hope better days may come to Netherley yet. I wonder if there is any truth in the report that young Miss Cassilis is to buy it when she comes of age. There are always floating rumours to that effect Do you think that is a likely thing to happen? ”

Na, na; there will never be a Cassilis at Netherley nae mair,” said the old tenant of Auldearn, shaking his head sorrowfully. “I ance thocht that Miss Mairy wad tak til the auld place fan she cam’ til years, but I hae kent for lang that wasna to be. Miss Mairy has a richt kin’ hert for a’boddy belangin’ to the pairish o’ Netherley, but I’m thinkin’ she likes ae stane o’ Rinaultrie better than a’ the biggin o’ her forbears.”

“Yes. Well, that was rather my impression; but I must say I am disappointed. I should have liked to have seen a Cassilis in the old place again; and Miss Mary is such a nice thoughtful girl, so much in sympathy with all that is good and trua”

“Ay, is she; but, ‘deed, if a’ tales be correc’, young Rinaultrie) that they say is to be mated wi’ her, is no better than he sud be. Logan was tellin’ me when he was inby yestreen that the puir lad was jist growin’ intil a perfect proodigaL”

“Ach, Janet, I wunner til hear ya As gin ye didna ken that the soutar’s aye backbitin’ at the gentry jist because they are gentry. I canna go in ava wi’ his raidical opingons. There’s good stuff i’ that bonnie, heartsome lad, or I’m muckle wrang,” said the old farmer, as he called to mind the scene in front of the bam at Auldearn, where Mr. Lewis Cranstown had played such an unheroic park “He’ll come oot o’ his sair temptations yet, like mony anither that is stan’in’ roun’ the great white throne, this day,” he added solemnly.

“Well, young Mr. Burnett has certainly many good friends and well-wishers. I know his great friend Mr. Maxwell better than I do him. He is a splendid young fellow. I only wish that we had more like him coming out for the Church. Young men like Mr. Falconer and Maxwell give us good hope still for our poor down-trodden Bark.”

“Ay, he seems a lad o’ pregnant pcrirts, Mr. Maxwell; but) ’deed, minister, yer ain son Maister Alick isna far ahin.—That minds me, gudwife, we were gaen to pit in a good word for that puir laddie we brocht wi’ us frae Auldearn.—We pit him to the pairish school, sir, but I’m thinkin’ he maun be unca blate, and the maister is some sair upo’ him.”

“Ye needna be sae meally-mou’ed, John; there’s nae manner o’ doot that Mr. Shanks is deed set against Saunners. I fun’ the puir lad wi’ his buik in that oothouse yestreen, and he grat that sair I couldna be ongreetin’ mysel’. He’s that set upo’ leamin’—it’s ill-dene o’ Shanks to be sae sair o’ the mitherless bairn; but he’s a dour man, the maister. Maybe a word frae you, minister—”

“I am glad you have mentioned the matter, Mrs. Bruce. I shall look into the schoolhouse as I pass now,” said Mr. Grahame, as he rose to take leave of the old couple.—“I suppose- you and Mrs. Bruce will both be with us, to-night. I think we shall have a good meeting. I only hope the long journey and the meeting after it may not be too much for Mr. Falconer. My son Alick was going to Asloune to fetch him. Alick reports that he has been far from strong lately.”

“He didna complain i’ the laist letter ye had frae him, John, did he? ” asked Mrs. Bruce anxiously.

“Na, niver a word. But Mr. Falconer would be sair for-fochten or he made a moan, the gallant, gracious lad,” said the old farmer warmly.

“That he is,” said Mr. Grahame as he rose to go.

The parish, school to which he now directed his steps was a low gray building a little off the village street No enclosure railed in a prescribed space for play. When the hour for dismissal came, the merry groups sought their playground among the velvet knolls of the hillsides or the green winding haughs of the Brownie Burn.

At one end of the old house the schoolmaster had his abode. On a little signboard above one of the lozenge-paned windows appropriated to his use “Post Office” was written, Mr. Timothy Shanks adding a small sum to his income by receiving and sorting the mail-bags for Whiterashes. There had been times in the village annals when it was hinted that it would be more acceptable to the small community, for various reasons, if the “maister ” would have gracefully resigned his postal functions in favour of the general merchant. But Mr. Shanks clung to his privilege as postmaster with tenacity. Having no domestic ties, it was supposed by some that he liked the work to fill up lonely hours; others, less charitable, credited him with a gossiping interest in his neighbours’ affairs as his ruling motive. We must not omit to mention that Mr. Shanks had the right by courtesy to prefix the title of “Reverend” before his name, though it was a fact more generally ignored by the public than was pleasing to him.

Since he became a licentiate of the Kirk, his benefice had been the parish school, none other having come in his way. Occasionally, however, he had an opportunity, by which, the people round alleged, he set great store,—“that of wagging his head in a pulpit.” Mr. Gordon, when in charge of the Netherley church, during the long vacancy engaged him several times for its services; but his ministrations had not proved more valued than those of the Rev. Peter Coutts. Occasionally, in extremities, Mr. Irvine had requested his services; and when he did so handsome remuneration always followed, so that a summons to fill the Blairton pulpit was peculiarly acceptable to the schoolmaster.

But there was one pulpit which Mr. Shanks was never invited to enter, even when the greatest emergency arose. It was that of the church in his own village. People said he owed Mr. Grahame a deep grudge for this perpetual slight, and certain it is there was not much mutual confidence between the minister of Whiterashes and its schoolmaster. There were, of course, certain business transactions concerning the management of the parish which necessitated their frequent meetings, and none had ever observed on the minister’s part anything but the utmost courtesy in his intercourse with Mr. Shanks. Neither was the schoolmaster’s attitude by any means that of open hostility; but somehow Mr. Grahame felt now, as he not un-frequently did when he walked towards the schoolhouse, that it was not the pleasure it should be to visit this corner of his diocese. Personally acquainted, as he was, with all the young folk of his congregation, and ever watching with a protective interest their progress, he felt that in their school relationship he had little association, and was, indeed, frequently compelled to doubt whether the hours spent there were either so morally or intellectually helpful as they might be made under more fostering care. As he had long been in the habit of discouraging gossips, little of that commodity reached him; and so it happened that though complaints of the schoolmaster’s shortcomings floated about the village, few found their way to the mansa Mr. Grahame paused now on the threshold of the schoolroom to put his hand kindly on the curly head of an urchin, and as he did so he overheard Mr. Shanks’s voice raised to an angrier pitch than he believed it to be capable of. Glancing in at the open door, he perceived that the culprit was none other than the protege which the Bruces had brought with them—a friendless farm-boy whom the kind people had not the heart to turn adrift when their own reverses came. Moreover, Sandy had shown some enthusiasm for “buik leamin’,” and to the lad’s intense delight Mr. Bruce offered to send him to school. “Keep at it, and ye’ll be a scholar yet, Saunners, lad,” had been Auldearn’s advice when he sent the boy forth on his new and thorny path. Sandy seemed to have grasped the counsel to the full, and was unwearied in his assiduity. He had, however, much leeway to make up, and in spite of all his efforts was still sadly behind many younger pupils round him. An agony of effort was traceable in his honest face as he stood now, a head and shoulders taller than the boys buzzing round him, reading his lesson with evident care, though haltingly.

“If you mispronounce that word again, you blockhead, I’ll knock your head against the wall,” roared the schoolmaster from his desk at the end of the room, where he stood with the sunlight playing on his grizzled hair and long-tailed black coat.

With painstaking intonation, Sandy repeated, for the second time, his mispronunciation. Then Mr. Grah&me saw a vision of flying coat-tails striking across the room like lightning. Bang, bang went poor Sandy’s head against the wall near which he happened to be standing.

In his flying passage towards the culprit, Mr. Shanks had fluttered some loose leaves from an unfortunate boy’s class-book. “Your book, sir; pick up those sheets. I’ll make you suffer in the flesh for your destructiveness,” he roared as he passed by. In his return to his desk this threatened punishment was duly administered, but this time the cane superseded the wall.

As he scurried breathlessly back to his seat Mr. Shanks suddenly found himself confronted with the minister, who said, I came to make inquiries after ydur pupil, Alexander Grey. Mr. Bruce was anxious to hear how he was getting on, but after what I have chanced to see, I shall not trouble you to report on him. Neither should I like to interfere with the discipline of the school in any irregular way,” he added pointedly; “but I should like to have some conversation with you in my study this evening, Mr. Shanks, if you will oblige me by coming to the manse”

“At your service, sir, always at your service, Mr. Grahame,” replied Mr. Shanks, rubbing his hands and bowing obsequiously, though the young eyes round him discerned traces of evident discomfiture in his manner. Along the benches there passed whispered comments of, “The maister niver look it sae anggered afore; ” or, “It’s Timothy that will catch it noa Cheer up, Saunners, man; he’ll get his ain licks i’ the study the night,” addressed to the victim, who, however, did not seem to draw any comfort from the thought of the impending vial of wrath for “the maister,” but cowered in his comer, hanging down his head in deep despondency at the thought of his own deficiencies.

If the blows on the hard wall could have imparted a glib tongue, a clear head, and a retentive memory, how gladly would he have submitted to the ordeal, he thought with a heavy sigh, as he passed his hand across his bruised, aching head, and picked up his well-thumbed “ Collection.”

Mr. Grahame had various other parochial visits to make. The afternoon sun was beginning to glisten yellow on the upland fields when he turned his footsteps homewards. The church of Whiterashes adjoined the manse grounds, separated from it by a thick, well-trimmed thorn hedge. It was a gray, weather-worn square building with a belfry. A belt of spreading plane trees surrounded it, their broad green leaves making a pleasant shade, under which the frequenters of the kirk loved to linger and talk before and after service, according to Scotch peasant custom. The church had been opened up in preparation for the meeting in the evening. Mr. Grahame looked in and glanced down the aisle as he passed. Seemingly satisfied that everything was arranged to his liking, he walked up the little flight of steps cut in the old hedge, which made a short way to the private grounds.

The manse was a comfortable, unpretending house, standing in its pretty garden, which somehow seemed to make part of the living-rooms; for there were many windows, and the bright parterres almost mingled with the chintzes. Rustic chairs were scattered about the lawn, and there was a cheerful hum of talk from various nooks. Guests were expected at the hospitable manse on this afternoon. Some of them, indeed, had already arrived. Mary Cassilis sat chatting with Helen Grahame on the steps of the sunny terrace on which the French windows of the drawing-room opened. Mrs. Irvine, who had driven across with Mary to be present at the meeting that evening, lay resting on one of the couches of the drawing-room, while Mrs. Graham e sat by her side, the two old friends engaged in earnest talk in their quiet comer.

And now other guests began to gather. As the minister came along the shady walk leading through the orchard from the church, he was met by Mr. Irvine and Kenneth Maxwell, who had just ridden across from Blairton, Kenneth having arrived on a visit to his cousin a week previously—the first return to Blairton since his memorable coming through the snow.

But neither Mr. Irvine nor he was the visitor for whom Tom and Willie were on the outlook. They had hurried round the house at the sound of the tramping of horses, but now returned to the terrace where the girls were seated. “What a bother! it is not he after all. He is so late, there will be no time left for us,” growled Tom.

“Who is Tom looking out for so eagerly? ” asked Mary.

“Oh, it must be Mr. Falconer, I suppose. The boys are very fond of him; and no wonder, he is so good to them. He used to play cricket with them, and all kinds of things, when he came round this way from Netherley; but since he has gone to Edinburgh they have never seen him, so they are in great delight at his coming to the meeting to-night,” explained Helen, with a bright smile, which indicated that the delight was not confined to her younger brothers.

“But, Willie, Mr. Maxwell can play cricket too, and all kinds of things. Why don’t you ask him ? I see he has just come,” said Mary, glancing at Willie, who stood near her disconsolately with his hands in his pockets.

“Gan he, though? But do you really think he would, Miss Cassilis? because Alick used to say, even before he went to oollege, that it was not worth while playing with chits like ua. —Tom, do you hear! she says Mr. Maxwell can play cricket Gome, let’s ask him,’ cried Willie, running up to his elder brother, who leaned against the trunk of a tree, still on the outlook for the tarrying guest.

“I don’t think he looks as if he would like to,” was his rejoinder, as he glanced at Kenneth, who was walking up the terraced steps where the girls were seated. “Don’t you see he wants to talk to them? ” he added, with the ready scorn of his age, as he took his brother by the jacket and pulled him to the cricket-held, to do the best they could without the hoped-for presence of their old hero.

Tom’s discernment was not at fault in this instance. Kenneth did very much want to do something else than play cricket at this moment. Only once for a few moments, since his arrival at Blairton on the previous week, he had found the opportunity for a talk with Mary Cassilia Since the beginning of their acquaintanceship, nearly two years previously, there was a change in Mary which Kenneth quickly perceived. It was not the physical change which struck him most—at least he thought not Mary, it is true, had merged from girlhood into a beautiful woman since their last meeting. But there was something more, which Kenneth could only define as yet as a perplexing change, which half-fascinated, half-awed him. In his memory there dwelt a vivid recollection of the kind, frank maiden on her black pony, whose bright girlish face had peered with curiosity at the traveller making hiB bed among the drifted snow; and Esmae had always, in any mention which had been made of Mary, described her as “just the same as ever; ” but his friend instantly felt, when he began to talk to her, that such a description was undiscriminating. Singular new suggestions of sensitiveness and depth lurked about her whole expression. Her mouth seemed, somehow, to have become more delicate and tender in its curves; there was a placidity and meekness traceable on her low, sweet forehead, and in the look of the deep, gray-blue eyes, which gave her a new and un-definable charm. Perhaps not the least of her attractiveness lay in the mingling of a certain wistfulness with a quiet dignity of manner, which prompted quite unconsciously a sort of deference that one would not think of according to the girl who sat by her side on the old steps. To some, possibly, Helen Grahame, with her pretty round face and smiling abundance of good health and spirits, would have proved the more attractive of the two. But Helen had not precisely the sort of beauty which captivates a romantic imagination—at all events, in early youth. She was too frank, too confiding, too kind, altogether too much without the charm of mystery. “The nicest lassie in the country side,” she was often characterized; but the very qualities which made her such a favourite with many, somehow obscured that halo of the marvellous which a youth like Kenneth craved in his beau ideal For it was altogether in ideal regions of admiration that Mary must now and always take her place with him, Kenneth felt, in unswerving loyalty to his friend Esmae, whose name seemed throughout the neighbourhood more associated even than formerly with that of the young lady of Mirkwood.

Mrs. Irvine, he perceived, was, from some cause or other, more reticent in any talk about her girl-friend than she used to be. She rather dismissed the subject, by saying that she did not now see quite so much of Mary as formerly. She seemed to have a good many engagements, and also her aunt’s increasing dependence on her kept her more tied to hornet To Kenneth’s disappointment, she had not paid a single visit to the manse since he had been its guest His impressions had all been gathered from the short call which he had made at Mirkwood in company with his hostess. The parish of Asloune lay between Blairton and Whiterashes, and Mrs. Irvine had driven with her little pony carriage to fetch Mary on her way to the manse, and had done so without giving him an invitation to accompany her, which he would have been nothing loath to accept.

It happened, too, that as he and his cousin rode together on their way to Whiterashes Mr. Irvine mentioned that it was now pretty generally understood that there was to be a marriage between young Rinaultrie and Miss Mary Cassilis. Report said, he added, that the elder representatives of both houses were eagerly bent on its accomplishment; much to his regret, he went on to say, for he and his wife were both so fond of Mary, and they had grave fears that young Mr. Burnett would make anything but a satisfactory husband. Not that he knew much about the matter first hand, he acknowledged; for Mary, though so frank and friendly on other points, had been quite reserved about this matter even to his wife, who was certainly the most intimate friend she had.

Kenneth, forthwith, began to expatiate warmly on Esmae’s beautiful disposition and many good points, finishing up with some lofty words about the wretched detraction on all hands to which a high-spirited young man was invariably subjected. But underneath his loyal defence lurked the sad consciousness that while he had, during the past months, been absorbed with congenial student toil, Esmae had been drifting further into idleness and pleasure-seeking, the details of which were only vaguely known to him; for there are times in the lives of those we love well when it is not given to us to help even when help is sorely needed—a waywardness which alienates loving human succour, as it rejects the help divine.

Through such a perilous epoch Esmae Burnett was passing now. Kenneth’s old boyish love for his friend had still deep fibres in his manly, affectionate heart A glad smile crossed his face as Mary Cassilis said,—

“Esmae is so oveijoyed that you are to be here this autumn, Mr. MaxwelL I parted from him just before we left Mirk-wood. He was obliged to go back to Netherley this afternoon; but he says he will not stay another day there, now that you have coma He evidently did not get the note you spoke of having sent to him thera It must have gone astray somehow.”

“Then there is some prospect of finding him at Binaultrie to-morrow. I am delighted to hear it I was surprised to find he was not there when I called,” added Kenneth, glancing questioningly at Mary. He wondered whether it was altogether to her mind that her friend should now be so intimate with the people whom, with the exception of the absent Norah, he knew that she both distrusted and disliked. There was, however, no trace of any vexed feeling in her manner as she replied simply,—

“Yes; he has not been much at the castle yet. You see Uncle Burnett was not quite well a little while ago, and the doctor said he was really not able for all the fatigues of the big shooting-party Esmae and Boston had invited; so Mrs. Cranstown asked them all to Netherley. The shooting is vexy good there this year—much better than on the dear old Bin-aultrie moors, they say, because Mr. Cranstown’s gamekeepers are so strict. So they seem to have been enjoying it I think Esmae had half a mind to come with me to the meeting here this evening; but he said he must go back and make polite Balaams to Mrs. Cranstown, and then bring his visit to an end. I believe he would have come, though, if he had known that you were to be here, Mr. Maxwell. I don’t think you and he seem to have been seeing nearly so much of each other as you used to do. Perhaps it is not possible, since Esmae is not at college. He says you have such hard work that you have no time to see him,” said Mary in a half-reproachful tone; and then she sighed, and there was a little pause.

Kenneth suddenly felt vexed with all the world; but in a moment a tide of generous feeling set in, which made him acknowledge that, after all, under the circumstances it was only natural that Mary should be very anxious about poor Esmae’s welfare; nor was it desirable for her to realize how well-nigh impossible it would be for him to be so close a friend of Esmae’s as in the old days.

“Mrs. Irvine never told me you were to be here, or I should certainly have used you as an inducement for Esmae to come here to-night I did want him so to hear Mr. Falconer speak. I am sure he would listen to him,” Mary added wistfully.

“I think Esmae did once hear him preach, long ago,” said Kenneth, remembering a description of the scene in the bam; and then he added after a moment, “I have never heard Mr. Falconer sp^k, nor even seen him—though I believe he is in Edinburgh now—since that evening at Auldearn. Perhaps you have forgotten it, Miss Cassilis.”

“Forgotten it! no,” said Mary, quickly glancing up, half-pained and half-surprised at Kenneth’s suggestion. “There are some things one never can forget,” she added in a low tone.

“O Tom, here he comes at last; hurrah! ” cried Willie, darting from the post of observation at which he had again taken his stand. “But how tired he looks—does he not, Tom? I am afraid he will say he is not able to play with us, after all, or they will be making a fuss about letting him do it,” added Willie, at the thought of the probable disappointment in store.

Mary and Kenneth both looked quickly towards the broad gravel walk, skirted by its glossy evergreens, to which Willie pointed. Coming along it was Alick Grahame, the eldest son of the manse, and on his arm leaned a man with a tall, slightly-stooping figure. His face was paler and more worn than on the evening when they saw him last, but it brightened into a cheerful smile as Mr. Grahame went forward to receive his guest with the gracious courtesy which was never wanting. Helen also rose, smiling her kindest smile on the new guest; and Tom and Willie became vociferous in their glee.

Mr. Irvine, who had been pacing up and down the broad walk of the old terrace deep in ecclesiastical talk with Mr. Grahame, was now introduced to Mr. Falconer. That their meeting was mutually interesting one could see, though at first only some polite words about the journey and the weather were exchanged. The barn orator,” whom he now saw for the first time, was certainly a man of a very different type from that to which Mr. Irvine expected him to belong. Though not of long descent, there was about him an air of high-bred courtesy which instantly commended itself to the punctiliousness of a gentleman of the old school. The combination of gentleness and manliness, of devoutness and geniality, were all traceable in this stranger, Mr. Irvine was obliged to acknowledge.

Presently, as they stood talking on the lawn, Mr. Falconer’s eye lighted on Kenneth. have seen that face before. Who is he, Alick?” he asked, turning to the minister’s Bon, who stood by his side.

“Oh, that is Maxwell. I was telling you about him,” said Alick glancing at Kenneth, who still lingered on the old steps talking to Mary. “He is first in everything this year, and the most popular fellow in the Dialectic.—Has he not done splendidly, Mr. Irvine; are you not awfully proud of your cousin? ” cried Alick, who had a warm appreciation of his neighbour’s merits always ready at hand, though modest where his own were concerned.

“Yes; Kenneth has done well—much better, I am bound to say, than I expected, seeing he was fickle enough to renounce his long-cherished idea of becoming a lawyer. He used to be so infectiously enthusiastic about law when he was a boy; and then all of a sudden, two years ago, he changed his mind. I confess that I have my doubts whether the Church will prove as comfortable a profession for you younger men as it has done for your fathers, if the revolutionary spirit spread as it has been doing,” said Mr. Irvine.

“But Mr. Maxwell is still inclined to link hiB fortunes with the poor troubled Kirk, is he?” asked Mr. Falconer, as he glanced with renewed interest at Kenneth. “Yes, I was sure I had seen both of them somewhere, Alick. I never forget faces. I know where I saw both the one and the other It was at Netherley.”

“Yes, to be sure, I recollect perfectly. Maxwell told me long ago in Edinburgh that he had heard you preach one evening in the bam at Auldearn.”

“Kenneth, you remember Mr. Falconer, do you not? ” said Mr. Irvine, who had walked forward to the terrace.

Mr. Falconer held out his hand with a pleasant greeting.

“And here is Miss Cassilis also claiming acquaintance,” said Mr. Irvine, as Mary rose from her seat—“Yes, I remember now, Mary; you and good Miss Margaret did once make a pilgrimage to poor Mr. Bruce’s farm, to be present at one of the —what shall we call them, Mr. Falconer—conventicles, eh? ” said the minister of Blairton.

“Oh, Mr. Falconer is quite hardened to having his meetings called all kinds of names, Mr. Irvine. He will think conventicle quite an appreciative one in comparison to some,” said Mr. Falconer’s faithful lieutenant with a merry laugh, his familiar daily intercourse having bred a knowledge of what was likely to pain his chief; while Mary and Kenneth, in their young hero-worship, felt as if their sacred ark had been touched as they listened to the bantering allusion to the eventful meeting.

“It is strange that we never happened to meet in Edinburgh,” said Mr. Falconer, after a little talk with Kenneth.

“Oh, I don’t think there is much chance of you and Maxwell knocking up against each other,” said Alick. “You are always wandering about lanes and alleys, mission schoolrooms and working men’s institutes; while Maxwell walks straight from his classes to his grinding den, and never stirs till he goes to his classes again.—Don’t you, Maxwell? ”

“Indeed, Grahame, I suspect that is too true a picture of what my life has been since I went back to the university. It does seem rather a joyless one to look back upon, I know,’ said Kenneth.

But now there was an increased gathering of the forces for the projected meeting. Mr. Stringer, a neighbouring minister, who was to give one of the addresses, had just driven up in his gig-

Miss Joan Pimie and her sister, who had also been invited to share the hospitalities of the manse, now appeared. Miss Pimie, always ready to join in anything which gave some promise of social intercourse, seemed quite ready to endure the meeting into the bargain, and had procured “ a lift ” for herself and her sister in Mr. Cardew’s dogcart.

Such a meeting as the one about to take place in the church of Whiterashes that evening was a considerably rarer phenomenon than they shortly became in Scottish parishes. When Mrs. Irvine and Mary first intimated their desire to be present, Mr. Irvine looked very doubtfully on the proposal. The meeting was out of due course, and was apt to be associated in his orderly mind with the clamorous popular gatherings which in his youth were held by well-regulated people to be subversive of the public peace. With special disfavour he looked on the growing taste for such meetings throughout the country, regarding it as clearly springing out of seditious agitations in matters political and ecclesiastical. The “soirees,” where tea, buns, and speeches were to be had for so much a head, though the special delight of Mr. Logan the village shoemaker, whose rhetoric was in great and increasing demand on some of the platforms at such gatherings, were the abhorrence of the minister of Blairton. He deplored their dangerous tendencies with grave concern, and expatiated on their vulgarity with more warmth than was generally visible in his manner. Having, however, been duly assured that no unconsecrated cups of tea or bags of buns were to be dispensed in the kirk of White-rashes on this occasion, Mr. Irvine consented to be present The purpose of the meeting was not, indeed, ecclesiastical, he had assured himself, but simply an opportunity for the people, whose lot was cast in peaceful rural districts, of receiving some information about the wants and woes of the world beyond their mountains.

The feeling of the minister of Blairton seemed more or less to have penetrated the little parish circle, if one could judge from the fragments of conversation which were going on among the folks who gathered under the plane trees to wait for the meeting hour to arrive.

“Maister Stringer is to be upo’ the Jews, I understand that will be a rael fine subjec’. ’Deed, we dinna think sae muckle about the choosen people as we ocht,” remarked old Mr. Bruce, who was being questioned as an authority on what programme was likely to be followed.

“Indeed, Mr. Bruce, I am not so sure that you will think it such a fine subject when you know more about it,” said Mr. Shanks, who had just arrived among the gathering groups. “I happen to know exactly why Mr. Stringer is going to discourse to you upon the Jews to-night,” he added, clearing his throat and raising his voice to a higher pitch as he glanced round the circle. “The object of it all is, my friends, to get you to put your hands deep into your pockets for that new mission to the Jews they have been making such a noise about in the town of Edinburgh. It’s my humble opingion, my friends, that there is too much of this now-a-days. Charity begins at home,” wound up the schoolmaster as he buttoned his coat tightly round his spare figure.

“Hoot I; I ken fine they are needin’ a hantle o’ siller to start the mission to tho Jews But til fat better use cud ye pit siller, Maister Shanks, than til help wi’ the conversion o’ they puir blindet craters! ” said an old farmer.

“Siller to convert the Jews, man! I wunner to hear ya Fse warrant they hae eneuch o’ siller to convert themsel’s. But are we to ha’e nothing the night but about they craters! ” asked another comer.

“Hoots I; I am thinking our ain minister is to gie us a word about the sooperstition o’ that mighty lan’ o’ India, for his ain brither is ane o’ the labourers,” said Mr. Bruce.

“Well, now, there is another of the hallucinations abroad in these times,” remarked Mr. Shanks oracularly, winning over some partisans fond of words which they did not understand. “In my opingion, neighbours, it is as useless to give of our hard-earned pence for the conversion of India as it would be to send watter to the sea.”

“Ye sud jist mak’ a speech, the night, yersel’. It would set ye rael weel, maister. We will be ha’ein’ ye o’ yer legs mair than ance, I’m thinkin’,” said the man with a leer who had taken such a depreciatory view of missions to the Jews.

The conversation threatened to take too personal a turn to be acceptable to Mr. Timothy Shanks, seemingly. He shambled away, and slipping up the little steps through the thorn hedge, he walked towards the manse to the interview which the minister had requested.

Mr. Stringer was not a specially interesting or eloquent exponent of his cause, though Mr. Grahame thought it good that his people should get some information on the subject of the new mission which their Church had undertaken. His address was lengthy as well as heavy, and he was followed by another speaker, who also considerably taxed the patience of some of his audience.

When, however, Mr. Falconer rose to speak, it seemed as if a cool breeze from the heathery hillsides came wafting more vivid life to his listeners. With all the charm which dwells in the cadence of choice and tender words, he told his story. Never before were the hearts of those dwellers in peaceful glens stirred to such interest in and sympathy with those whose lot was cast beyond their encompassing mountains in grim city lanes and alleys. In burning words he spoke of the gray heads which were sinking into the grave beneath the weight of exhausting toil and of hopeless penury; of tender heartB that were growing hard for want of a hand to save.

To some of the audience these thoughts seemed evidently to bring sad memories: they hung down their heads as they thought of some relative who had drifted away to city haunts, and got lost in the dangerous vortex.

It was as a pioneer that Mr. Falconer spoke. In days when the many-sided wants and woes which beset the neglected populations of great cities received little thought from the Christian Church, he had enrolled himself among the faithful band who, amid the wranglings within the Church and the attacks from without, turned themselves steadfastly to the blessed work of reclaiming those outcasts for whose souls no man had been caring. Mr. Falconer was indeed a bom communist. His deep realization of the brotherhood among men was such that he could not bear the idea of their suffering without his intervention, of their sinning without his trying to help them.

Such service, he went on to remind his hearers now, was the truest and best method of defence in the warfare which the Church had to wage against her enemies; for would not the bringing back of scattered forces prove, one day, the surest rampart round the beleaguered Church! Then followed an eloquent passage in which he ^argued that it was for such work the Christian Church existed; missionary effort at home and abroad was surely its rightful aim and end.

“All very well; but what is to become of the moral government of parishes, for instance—of the pastoral office altogether, indeed—if this young dreamer has his way? ” whispered Mr. Irvine to Kenneth as they stood together in the doorway of the crowded church.

Hitherto the minister of Blairton had been listening with evident appreciation to the fervid speaker, in whom he discerned a strength that was as “the strength of ten because his heart was pure.” But now Mr. Irvine drew himself up with a defensive air. The spell was broken for his Erastian mind by what he considered a visionary and untenable theory.

With Kenneth it seemed to have the opposite effect “It is a grand idea, a perfect illumination to me,” he murmured as the speaker ceased. “And here have I for the last year been grubbing among my books close to these very places, living in the past and in the future, while that glorious fellow has been toiling in these crowded closes so near me. He is right; such work as his is the proper vocation for the clergy. How his ideas stir the blood! ”

“Oh, that is all very well, Kenneth; but what is to become of the parishes, of the keeping of respectable folk up to the mark, and of all the amenities of religion, in fact? He would sweep away the pastoral office altogether, I believe, if he had his way, the young revolutionist But I acknowledge he is a very fine fellow, though an enthusiast “Yes, Miss Mary, I can see you are looking triumphant You think I am entirely won over to the ‘ barn orator’ at last I confess I am glad to have made his acquaintance, and to have discovered him to be so superior to my expectations,” he said as he offered his arm to the young lady of Mirkwood, and they walked together towards the manse.

Kenneth joined Mr. Falconer. As Mary drove homewards she caught sight of their two dark figures as they paced arm-inarm up and down the moon-lighted bank of Brownie Bum, evidently engaged in earnest, absorbing talk.

CHAPTER XIV
A Heavy Secret.

“In all our loneliest pains
Thou hast the largest share;
And that which is unbearable,
‘Tis Thine, not ours, to bear.”—Faber.

It was a bright, breezy November morning. The sturdy oaks alone held on to the last remnant of their summer dress; all the rest of the trees in the vast sheet of wood which clothed the overhanging slopes round Rinaultrie had changed the bright colours of autumn for the more subdued but not less beautiful tints of winter. Below, in the park, the deer were feeding in the yellow fern-brakes, and rabbits hopped about in the narrow patches of slanting sunlight which streamed through the leafless boughs. Nor was the cheerful twitter of birds wanting on this winter day. On the warmest heights of the crags the gallant woodcock led out his wife and family to have an airing, and a whole chorus of blackbirds trilled in the copse close by, as Mary Cassilis walked towards Rinaultrie along a little foot-track which wound round the side of an open knoll. She had chosen this path on this bright morning in preference to the more direct one.

Mary’B walks happened to have been most frequently towards Rinaultrie of late since Mr. Burnett had been ailing. The experience of illness was as new as it was unwelcome to the old laird. Mary had been devoting herself to efforts for en- livening him during his imprisonment, and was having rather a busy time of it between Mirkwood and the castle.

Mr. Burnett was seated in his library in his gray duffel dressing-gown and slippers, still looking much less robust than formerly. On this morning, for the first time since his illness, his easy-chair had been wheeled into the massive oriel, where the pale winter sunlight streamed in on him, reddened by the rich glow from the stained glass of its windows.

“Come, Mary; yoii are as welcome as Bunshine in November,” said the laird, holding out his hand to his young visitor with his kindliest smile. How goes it with Aunt Grizel to-day? ”

“Oh, she is quite in her usual health; only she is always rather fidgety till she has heard the report of your progress. She is so beautifully willing to be left alone now. The clock seems to tell her quite different tales about the time I spend here than when I go to Blairton or Whiterashes,” said Mary with a smile.

“Ah, you see, there is no friend like an old friend. Grizel knows how lonely I am now. She has been like the best of sisters to me, Mary, since ever we were children. She was a good sister to her own brothers, too; and just as good a one to me,” continued the laird, who had been much more given to autobiography since his illness than Mary had ever known him, a phase particularly attractive to her, though she had no history of the Burnett family in view, such as her friend Norah used to contemplate.

“We were such friends then that people always thought we should end by marrying each other, but neither Grizel nor I ever thought of that, somehow; and fortunately the gossip did not interfere with our friendship, as it often does in such cases. Indeed, I doubt whether Grizel ever heard a whisper of the report—I did not, till after I was a married man. And Grizel took Esmae’s mother to her heart, too, and proved just as good a sister to her as she had been to me. How she leaned on her before the end came, poor dear. It was always ‘Grizel, Grizel, ’ about everything. Nobody could smooth her pillows or handle her little baby boy like her, she thought” A soft, dreamy light stole into the laird’s gray eyes, as he went back on those memories of the past.

“But they must have been very different—very unlike each other, surely,” said Maiy, remembering the gentle, delicate lineaments of the face with which she was familiar from the portrait which hung in the old gallery where Esmae and she used to play together in winter days when she first came from India. It was a slim young girl that looked from the tall canvas, dressed simply in white muslin, and with a single rose in her fair rippling hair. Sometimes, Mary remembered, her little boy-friend would check his glee as they happened to pass near the portrait in their games, and, with a deepening look in his beautiful blue eyes, would glance up, saying, “Hush, Mary; we must not make a noise. She is looking at us.” And there were times when, to her childish imaginings, it seemed as if the sweet eyes in the picture were wistfully following the fair-haired little boy as he made the old corridor echo with his innocent glee, forgetful in a much shorter time than his small playfellow of the shadow which had momentarily subdued his mirth.

“You are right, child. Grizel Cassilis and my Mary were cast in a very different mould—as unlike as the oak is to the ivy. Grizel was always strong to lean on; but she was a clinging plants my gentle Mary.”

“I can’t help always thinking that Esmae is like that portrait,” said Mary softly. “I know most people say he takes after the Burnetts—is very like what you used to be. Even Aunt Grizel, who remembers you so well, says that he reminds her so often of you when you were a young man; but I still think Esmae’s eyes are so like those beautiful deep blue eyes in the picture.”

“You are quite rights Mary: few people have so much discernment Esmae’s eyes are the image of his mother’s,’ replied the laird. “But I seem to have been cheated out of my little lad for so long. I hardly saw anything of him this autumn. That shooting party at Netherley quite monopolized him; and I cannot wonder at it, there is such capital sport to be had on these moors now; and then this troublesome breakdown of mine made home so quiet for him. It was really most unfortunate that! happened to get ill just when the busy time came; so many things outside have got behindhand too. Well, it is the first time for half a century and more that I have not been able for the moors, so we can’t complain, after all;—can we, old fellow,” he said, stroking an ancient staghound whose face rested on the arm of his chair, as he wistfully watched his master’s every movement—“I think poor Gordon felt my not being up to shooting more than I did myself. He used to come and sit by me with his gaiters on and his game-bag all equipped for the moors; but it seemed as if he had not the heart to tread the heather without his old friend. I believe he hardly fired a shot this year.”

“But you would not let Esmae stay and keep you company. I remember you sent him off again to Netherley. One day he arrived with his portmanteau, saying he had had quite enough of the shooting party, and wanted to stay with you.”

“Oh yes, the dear boy, but that was just his goodness of heart Why should I have kept him moping here alone with me? I would not for anything have interfered with his sport after his long spell of office work. Besides, his health really wanted the freedom of the moors. He looked quite pale and haggard when he came up first Indeed, I did not think he was sufficiently well when the time came for him to go back to town; but Mr. Cranstown was so strong that I should give him a longer trial of his office, that I thought it was best not to interfere, especially as Esmae seemed much more willing than he used to be to return to his town Ufa And then, you know, I was not badly off, for I had Boston with me most of the tima He does not seem to care for country pleasures, at least not in the same way as Esmae, though he is interested enough in some of the rural work connected with the estates. I really found him very good company, though you know he has rather too old a head on young shoulders to be exactly to my taste—I like boys to be boys. But, poor chap, I daresay his early life bred that fault He told me more about it than he had ever done before, last September, when we were so much alone together. He and his mother must have had very hard lines. His father—my poor younger brother Richard, you know, Mary—I daresay you have heard of him,” added the laird, —“died soon after he was bom, and they must have had a great struggle even before then, for Richard had squandered all his money long before he married this woman. In fact, we wondered what could have tempted a good woman like her to have married him; for Mr. Dyraock, who was our lawyer then, wrote to an old legal acquaintance of his, who seemed to get the highest character of Jier from the clergyman whose church she went to, and from others. She was quite in a humble rank of life, I believe—they all mentioned that—and I can see Master Boston’s proud spirit chafes against that part of it He has a deal more family pride than my little lad,” added Mr. Burnett laughing.

“Yes; he is so self-conscious about everything,” said Mary.

“But really Mrs. Burnett seems a very worthy woman; and there is no doubt she has behaved with great tact in not forcing herself into our circle, as your aunt prophesied she would be sure to do; and I can see her son is mortified that she will not attempt to take any place in society. She does not seem to have much idea of managing money either; but Boston has taken that into his own hands since he became a man of business, and has been ablo to double their little income by his good investments. He evidently has a head for figures. I could see that from the way in which he took some accounts of mine in hand that were all in a muddle. He has a great fancy for burrowing among old documents too. I let him have the key of that paper closet there, and he gave me great amusement.by unearthing some musty old annals of the Burnetts.”

“Yes,” said Mary with a laugh. “I remember when Aunt Grizel and I came to see you one day, we found that big round table covered with dusty yellow papers. Mr. Duff was furious about it, I recollect, and complained to aunt as she was getting into the carriage that ‘Maister Boston was guttin’ the verra closets o’ the hoosa’ ”

“Oh yes, Duff has taken one of his bitter prejudices against poor Boston. I have noticed that from various signs. Certainly, Boston has not the kind, frank manner with his inferiors which makes my little lad such a favourite; but he has many good points. Even Aunt Grizel, who was so opposed to his being brought here, seems to have quite golden opinions of him now.”

“Yes, she admires him because he is so hard-working. But there is something about Boston I do not like,” said Mary musingly; and then glancing up quickly, she added, “I cannot help thinking, somehow, that he is not so good and true a friend to Esmae as he might be.”

“Oh, that is quite unfair, Mary,” cried the laird emphatically. “Much as I like and believe in my own little lad, I know he has not half of Boston’s steadiness of character in anything. In a way, I think his cousin is all the better a friend because they are so unlike. I suspect some of Esmae’s acquaintances are by no means so exemplary as Boston. He happened to tell me of a young man, Fergus, of whom he seems very fond, who has been losing large sums by gaming. I have my doubts whether my lad manages his money well either,” added the laird uneasily. “He seems always so hard-up before his allowance is due; and from something the factor said one day I fancied for a moment that he knew Esmae to be in debt; but it was evidently only a vague suspicion on Mr. Cranstown’s part If it were so, surely Esmae would trust me; it is not like him to be underhand. I thought of cross-questioning him a little this autumn, but I was afraid he might be hurt at my even suspecting him of any concealments from me. And I was glad I did not, for next time I had an opportunity of talking about the matter to the factor I discovered that my suspicions were unfounded. But why should I be troubling you about all this, my dear girl? though I must say, Mary, before we leave this subject, I think you are mistaken in imagining that Esmae has not a good friend in his cousin.”

“Well, I may be; but Esmae is so frank, so trusting, and—” “Oh, I see how it is: you are prejudiced, just like old Duff,” said the laird with a smile, not altogether ungratified that his son should find such a warm though, as he considered on this point, mistaken partisan in Mary Cassilis. “I am counting the days, as if I were a schoolboy, till Esmae comes back to take up his abode here for good,” he added, after a little pause. “It will not be long now; and it is high time, as Gordon says, that he should be getting into training for the laird. I have serious thoughts of abdicating in his favour. I can see that the factor thinks that an excellent idea. He caught at it eagerly one day when, I must acknowledge, I was only joking; but the idea rather grows on me, and Cranstown maintains that Esmae has gathered a great deal of business experience in his office which will be very useful to him. However, my little lad stoutly asserts that He has learned nothing.”

“Yes; Esmae has always said so. I remember his talking about it when I was in Edinburgh a year ago, seeing Norah Cranstown before she left,” said Maiy gravely, recalling that morning in the gardens when her anxiety about her old playmate had taken the chronic form it now held.

“Yes, he does,” said the laird slowly, and with a troubled look. “But, Mary, I do think there is something in what the factor says, that Esmae makes rather a boast of his having learned nothing, and is quite unfair to himself, just as some lads of a different stamp brag about their acquirements. After all, perhaps it was a pity to keep the boy tied to a town life against his will; but I thought it might cure him of his wish to wander still further, and Rinaultrie would certainly have been too dull for him all the year round, though he does not think so. It is strange how, with the best of intentions, one makes so many mistakes in life of that kind. However, when he comes back he will have plenty to do round about, if the woes of age are to gather round me as they have been doing. But really, Mary, I find myself beginning to talk to you as if you were Aunt Grizel herself, my confidante of fifty years. It is ridiculous of me. That comes of being so kind to an old man like me.”

It was strange, Mary thought, that her old friend, so little given to apologies, should never almost of late have talked to her on a topic so interesting to them both, without seeming to feel regret at having been betrayed into it She did not guess that it was the fetters of a certain talk in the Mirkwood oak parlour which still lay on his generous heart, and made him shrink from discussing with her the future of one so dear to them both.

Mr. Burnett was obliged to acknowledge to himself that in his heart of hearts he longed increasingly that his son should have the best love of Mary Cassilis; but in proportion as the desire strengthened he felt fearful of being betrayed into taking advantage of Mary’s daughterly feelings to himself to press the union for which he now felt quite as eager as his old friend at the dowager-house.

All unconscious of this, Mary was disappointed that the opportunity for a talk about Esmae seemed so seldom to come now-a-days, and that when it did it was invariably brought to an abrupt conclusion like the present. Her anxiety about her old playmate had been lately increased by a conversation—part of which she happened to overhear a few days previously—between Mr. Gordon and the minister of Blairton on the subject Mr. Gordon had said, in his gravest tone, that he was beginning to be very uneasy about young Burnett—had heard rumours from Edinburgh which made him so. He had once thought of mentioning the matter to his father, he went on to say, but the laird was so perfectly believing in his little lad, and besides the reports he heard were most likely highly coloured, and he still hoped that the young laird would settle down quietly on his paternal acres after a little experience of life. More conversation on the subject followed; but Mary had hurried away from the little arbour where she was reading, not, however, without being haunted by new fears concerning Esmae.

The shadow of trouble seemed to vanish from Mr. Burnett’s face as the conversation flowed into other channels; for Mary and the old laird were never at a loss for a topic—the pleasant glen, so dear to them both, had for both varied, familiar interests, which made an ever-strengthening bond.

It was indeed a fact not forgotten by the tenants on the Binaultrie lands, that the young lady of Mirkwood—who was a welcome visitor in their homes, and took such a helpful interest in all that concerned them—had the ear of the “laird himsel’,” and could, in urgent straits, carry their suits to him. Great as was their admiration and profound their loyalty to the kindly lord of the soil, they did not fathom all the protective interest which he in his turn felt for them, nor how pleasant to him was all the news of their simple households which Mary shared with him from time to time. Had they known, when denials to their requests were surlily conveyed to them through the factor, how much it cost their landlord to accede to such denials, they would indeed often have endured without one grudging thought the discomforts of the tumble-down cottages and ruinous steadings which they had to put up with.

The sweet young exponent of the laird’s kindly heart had done a great deal of good service in his cause. Donald Reid’s unswerving loyalty, too, had spread among the dwellers far and near along the strath, and during Mr. Burnett’s recent illness, evinced itself in many eager inquiries and warm wishes for his complete recovery. And now he was so well that the doctor, who chanced to arrive on his daily visit during Mary’s call, said that his patient would now be able to take his long-talked-of first drive, which was to be with his old friend in the ancient yellow chariot—so seldom in request now, that Esmae used to call the pair of horses reserved for it Aunt Grizel’s one bit of extravagance.

The good news which Mary was able to carry back to Mirk-wood of Mr. Burnett’s convalescence made the early dinner there a much more cheerful meal than it had been of late. The afternoon hours generally were devoted to her aunt: reading aloud, or sitting with needlework or drawing by her side, if Miss Cassilis preferred conversation. But to-day a message had come from her aunt’s special protegee, Meggy Durret, who was bed-ridden now. It gave such a doleful account of her state that Miss Cassilis suggested that Mary might take a ride to the little cottage and inquire into the real state of the case.

Meggy was by no means a favourite of Mary’s, though she claimed a good deal more benevolent attention from her than some of the dwellers in the glen whom she admired and loved. She was not an old woman of the type who make old age lovely, but was given to querulous complainings of everybody and everything. “Jist a rank pessimy,” Mr. Bruce characterized her; and Mary thought he was not far wrong as Bhe emerged from her cottage with a depressed feeling.

The weather, too, appeared now to combine with Meggy in casting a gloom over her spirit The early brightness of the day had faded, and the familiar scenes looked as if a disconsolate mood had crept over them. With an eerie sound the Aultrie seemed to take its winding way; there was a doleful sough among the pines, and a chill breath in the air which betokened a rising storm. The Rinaultrie hounds possibly felt the depressing atmosphere, for low, mournful howls were travelling from their kennels down in the hollow. Mary shivered as she hurried on, regretting that she had discarded her aunt’s suggestion of riding to Meggy’s cottage, for then, at all events, she would have had Jet for company; and now even Grip was not in attendance, having preferred the after-dinner allurements of the butler’s pantry.

She had not gone far on her homeward way when she heard footsteps behind her; they were more elastic than those of the wearers of boots manufactured in the village generally proved. It was a sharp, measured tread, which did not belong to a rustic. They seemed to quicken, too, as Mary redoubled her pace with a beating heart; for the dreaiy afternoon was darkening fast, and the path was lonely. In a moment a voice said, “How do you do, Miss Cassilis? ”

Mary started, scarcely less perturbed than when she was ignorant who was the owner of the creaking boots. The tones belonged to a person whom she believed to be some hundreds of miles away, though he had been the subject of her meditations as she hurried along, recalling the little jar which had occurred that morning in her usually pleasant visits to the castle. Mr. Burnett evidently disapproved of her smouldering prejudice against Boston. Was she, then, mistaken, ungenerous—as bad as old Duff—as the laird told her, in thus distrusting Esmae’s friend and cousin, she was pondering, when the very person whose claim on her belief she had just been weighing suddenly stood before her.

“Surely, somehow, he must have divined my thoughts,” thought Mary, as she noticed the quick, scrutinizing glance Boston cast on her as he held out his hand.

“Tou are surprised to see me, I daresay. I have just arrived by the coach. I thought it was you I caught a glimpse of as I was going to turn into the beech avenue; but I was doubtful, as you are not often out at this hour, I think. I am glad, however, that I acted on my first impression, and came here,” added Boston, with less composure of manner than was usual to him. “ You did not expect to see me here again so soon, I daresay,” he said in a hesitating voice.

Whereupon Mary promptly acknowledged that she did not; and that she was not aware that he was expected at the castle, though she had been there that morning, no mention having been made of his coming.

“No, I did not write to announce my visits as I generally do. The fact is, I found that I had a leisure day or two, and I thought I might as well take a run down to see how poor uncle is getting on,” explained Boston in a gentle tone.

“Everybody else will think it so kind and disinterested; why should I doubt the presence of the best of motives? ” thought Mary with self-reproach.

“It must have been very dull work for my uncle, having to keep in-doors so long. That relapse he had after I left was very provoking. But I hear you have been doing the good Samaritan. He was telling Esmae in his last letter how good you had been,” said Boston with a smile. “You are very fond of my uncle, are you not? ” he added with a curious, absent air, which was new to him.

“Of course I am. I have known him ever since I remember. He has always been like a father to me.”

“Just so; that is exactly the feeling I have to him, poor, dear uncle. May I walk along with you? I suppose you mean to go straight back to Mirkwood, since the afternoon has turned out so uninviting.”

Mary acquiesced; and as they walked along together Boston reverted to his last remark. “Yes,” he said with a slow, decided tone; “I am so fond of my uncle that I shall take care his happiness and peace are not disturbed.”’

“What could be the meaning of this beautiful sentiment! ” Mary pondered; and then a sudden fear took possession of her. Could there be anything threatening Mr. Burnett’s peace! How is Esmae? ” she asked, glancing quickly at Boston.

He returned her glance, and then said in a careless tone, “Oh, Esmae seems all right; but really he does not give a hard-worked poor relation like me any chance of cultivating him now-a-days. He is such a much-sought-after young man in gay circles; I had no idea Esmae would develop into a ladies’ man as he has dona But in some ways, I think, it has been uncommonly good for him this new development. For instance, he has no time now for his old intimates Fergus and Low, he is so much taken up with archery parties, fancy balls, and dancing attendance on young ladies in general or in particular,” he added with another quick look at Mary.

“I am so glad to hear that Mr. Fergus has ceased to be a companion. I have heard a little about him, and I feel sure he never deserved to be a friend of Esmae’s,” said Mary eagerly, without any trace of a momentary jealous feeling, for which Boston had scanned her face as he expatiated on this new development in her old playfellow.

“I only hope he will not find us too dull up in this quiet comer, after all his gay doings. You know we are expecting him to settle down here after Christmas. Uncle Burnett is counting the hours; and Donald Reid has been crooning a song to himself several times lately when I have knocked at his door, and when he does that it is a sign of his being extra cheerful, and I know it is just the thought of Esmae’s coming to settle among us, once more, that is making him so bright”

“Tea; Esmae has many friends and admirers, has had lots of privileges—Buch as few fellows have had—all his life,” said Boston in bitter tone, not unnoticed by Mary.

“Had the laird never noticed such an accent? surely if he had done so he would not feel so confidingly satisfied with his son’s friend,” thought Mary now; but again she felt ashamed of her suspicions, as Boston added heartily,—

“But Esmae really deserves all the liking he gets. You have no idea how fond I have grown of my cousin. I am not demonstrative, as perhaps you may have noticed; but I must say he has a warmer corner in my heart than perhaps anybody else. The fact is, I had occasion to—well, to measure my affection for him lately from a strange thing that has happened—that has been discovered beyond dispute. Perhaps it will be best to tell you at once that it was really a wish to consult you,—to share this with you,—that brought me north to-day,” he added nervously.

“To consult mcl” echoed Mary in a tone of surprise.

“Yes. Of course I wished to see my uncle too; but you may rest assured I shall never disturb him about this discovery. That would be a piece of ingratitude I should consider very heartless, very black, after all his kindness to me.”

“Oh, tell what it is at once; please do,” cried Mary with sudden fear. “I think I can guess,” she added as Boston glanced at her. “Do not be afraid to tell me the worst It is about Esmae being in debt—that is your secret But we have had fears of that for some time back.”

“In debt! I should just say he was,” said Boston. “Since you have mentioned the subject, I don’t mind making a confidence to you, but I should not like it to go further. Esmae owes me £500; and I suspect he has contracted other debts lately, of which I know nothing.”

“Oh, I am very, very sorry. Uncle Burnett would be terribly distressed if he knew. Besides, there iB really not much money to spare at Rinaultrie, Aunt Grizel always saya The estate costs so much, and there have been heavy losses. But Esmae must not remain in debt for a single day longer. It must be very bad for anybody to feel they are owing money which they cannot pay. I do wish he had been more careful; but I daresay he did not guess till the mischief was done, he is so impulsive and so kind-hearted. But that can be put right Esmae has friends who love him so well that it would be a deep pleasure for them to be allowed to help himand Mary drew herself up with a half-defiant air and looked Boston straight in the face.

“It happens not to be a confidence concerning my cousin’s debts that I came to make to you, Miss Cassilis,” he replied with a return glance which was unmistakably defiant “I think I see Miss Joan Pirnie hopping along in front of u& She does not seem to have discovered us yet, but if she does, there will certainly be no more opportunity for confidences. Suppose we turn aside here for a minute, if you don’t mind,” he said, making his way to a little clearing in the firwood which opened into the path along which they had been walking.

It had been made for a sawmill, and still bore traces of its former use in the damp, mouldy planks which were strewed about among the rotting sawdust Boston seemed quite oblivious to the dreary surroundings as he drew aside the straggling boughs which half hid the enclosure from the path and showed the way into it Turning quickly round, he faced Mary, saying with evident agitation, “The fact is, I grow rather nervous. I confess it to you, Miss Cassilis. I feel as if I must tell my secret to somebody. It can do no harm, and it may be best that you should know it at once.”

“Does it concern Esmae!” asked Mary faintly.

“It does,” was Boston’s laconic reply; “and somehow I have an increasingly strong inclination to share my secret with you, though I fear what I have to tell may prove very unwelcome news,” he added bitterly.

It was not a pleasant preamble wherewith to be ushered into the darkening enclosure on this dreary November evening. And there were the hounds baying piteously from the kennels, and the rising wind was swinging the tall dr-trees round them with the dreariest cadence. Half-mechanically Mary stepped forward into the little clearing. A sudden faintness seemed to seize her, and she seated herself on one of the old logs with a blanched face. There was trouble coming, and she shrank from it; but she felt that she dared not avert this new burden by any wilful decision of her own. With bent head and throbbing heart she waited.

“Not a bad idea. I think I shall take a seat also, with your permission,” said Boston in forced, light tone as he placed himself by her sida “I am sure there is no possible reason for my feeling so shaky, but I do, nevertheless. In fact, I could hardly feel more nervous if I were the injurer and not the injured ona Just listen to what has happened, Miss Cassilis, —to what I have discovered. But I must make a long story —a very long and intricate one—short I shall give you, in fact, the well-ascertained facts without the premiss. To prove what I have to announce would need a whole cart-load of dusty documents. I have diligently waded through them, and to some purpose, as you will hear. I made the discovery one eventful midnight two months ago when I was at the castle, and everything is now confirmed. I took care of that before I abandoned myself to the new hope. Mary, my secret is that I—I only—am owner of Binaultrie! Even now all these broad lands belong to me,” he said, waving his trembling hand and glancing round with an elated air.

Again a wild gust of wind swept through the forest with a dreary, wailing sound, and the waters of the Aultrie seemed to chime in with a sudden muffled echo as they rolled on their way through the green haughs to the wider strath.

“You—Binaultrie belong to you!” faltered Mary, gazing at him for a moment as if spell-bound. “But—but what do you mean! I do not see how that can be, either now or after. Uncle Burnett was the last laird’s eldest son,” she added after a pause, in which she had evidently been making a strong effort to collect her bewildered thoughts.

“Exactly so; Uncle Burnett was the last laird’s eldest son, and my father the younger, and that is just why I happen to be laird of Kinaultrie at this moment I am afraid I should weary you, as I said before, if I were to give all the proof; but if you like I shall put you in possession of it It is a legal point that has done it There are a good many eccentricities, you know, in the law of Scotch entaiL I took to examining the old original title-deeds of Rinaultrie, just for amusement at first, and because I am intensely interested in everything connected with us Burnetts; and I found a clause which signified that at a certain point, in the entail, the estate goes to the second son. My father was, therefore, the legal heir; he did not know i^ of course, and neither should I, but for my inveterate fancy for burrowing among those musty deeds. Old Cranstown has not a ghost of an idea of it, sharp though he thinks himself.”

But are you quite sure that there is no mistake on your part?” asked Mary suddenly, with an evident lightening of her fears coming with the suggestion.

Yes; I don’t wonder at your asking that It was the question which rose so unceasingly to my mind, even after I had proof positive, that unwilling as I was to have the matter known even as a legal secret, I felt obliged to take advice. I consulted the first lawyer in Edinburgh, putting of course into his hands all the papers necessary. He says there is no doubt whatever as to the fact I had a letter in reply to mine, which I should like to show you if you will not think me vain. Of course the words are very pleasing, especially coming from a man of such high reputation, professionally and socially. He says some very flattering things about my decision to waive my rights, eta”

“Then you do not mean ever to—”

“Oh, I do not say that,” interrupted Boston with a little smile. “To forego one’s right for ever is more than can be expected from any man, especially from an unheroic, commonplace person like me. But, as I said, my uncle shall have peace during his time. Far be it from me to disturb his declining years,” he added with a fine air of generosity which irritated Mary, though the next moment she felt that her feeling was unfair. After all, this Burnett, kept out of his right so long, had certainly his side of the question, though it was one which she felt she could not face just yet. How full it was of many-sided pain to some she loved best was only beginning to dawn on her as she glanced at the complimentary letter which he had asked her to read. Handing it quickly back to him, she covered her face with her hands, and bending down on the old log where she had seated herself, she gave way to her grief.

As for Boston, his nervousness seemed to have vanished now. An air of elation was traceable on his face as he stood silently with folded arms looking down on the bent figure.

It was Mary who first broke the silence. Looking up with a tear-stained face, she said impetuously, “They must, know this at once,—Uncle Burnett and Esmae both. Why should you keep it from them? They are not mean souls who would choose for a single hour to rob another man of his rights. For their sakes, you do them an injustice if you keep this secret from them. I feel sure you do.”

“Well, I must say it is rather a surprise to me to hear you talk in this strain, Miss Cassilis. I do not think it is quite kind to your old friends. If you just considered quietly what the change would bring to my uncle, I think you would surely hesitate before you urged me to such a step,” replied Boston.

“Oh, but not to tell him is to deceive him, and that can never be right I do think it is the best kindness to let him know all, at once. You forget how generous, how brave, how good he is. Besides, he might be able to clear the matter up somehow,’ murmured Mary with another gleam of hope crossing her sorrowful face.

“The sooner you get rid of that idea the better for you all,” said Boston with some severity. “There is not a loophole. My uncle would soon have to accept the fact if it were told to him. It is all on black and white. So if that is your reason for wishing me to make this discovery public at once, I assure you you will be quickly disappointed by the failure of your plan.”

“But then for Esmae—how hard it is for him to be going on thinking that the estate will belong to him, and that he is going to settle there for life, when you do not mean—when it will pass from him altogether. Besides, if he were to know the real truth, I do think it would be a stimulus,—I believe he would begin to work hard at something, and just accept what had come. Esmae has still a brave, simple heart.”

“Ah, I see how it is: you would like to sacrifice poor Uncle Burnett for Master Esmae’s sake. No thank you, Miss Cassilis, I cannot accept your suggestion. I have more gratitude in my composition than that, I hope. Besides, you do not understand what utter ruin it will be for them. You know everything about Rinaultrie is entailed, and poor uncle has so muddled away his money that he will not have a penny to leave. If he had to give up his estate, it would be to live on charity—to be plain with you, on my charity.”

On Boston Burnett’s charity! the noble-hearted gentleman who from her childhood had been to her the embodiment of all that was fine and generous and strong. How could he brook such a lot, bend to such a yoke) But, after all, might there not be another helper for him in this strange reverse of fortune, one who would be proud to lay all her gold at his feet, thought Maiy, with a thrill of content which she had never experienced before in remembering the fortune that lay waiting her coming of age. “Even if he has to give up everything, there are ways—and besides, it is wrong to keep him in ignorance,” she said again with decision.

“Well, I must say it seems to me rather an odd view of the case. I can see what you mean as far as Esmae is concerned But, after all, he has had his time of good things; why should I not have mine? And I shall have it too,” he muttered with an expression which to Mary seemed to reveal new and terrible traits.

Had it come to this! While Boston had been the confiding Esmae’s trusted friend, the recipient of many a kindness, was there all the time lurking under his quiet, unobtrusive manner, the root of fierce jealousy? Surely there was a revengeful echo in his tones. Surely this hour, so terrible for her, was one of more triumph for him than it could have been had not the evil passion of envy been growing rank in his heart.

With a cold shiver Mary rose from her seat This old sawmill, which had once been a favourite bit of playground for Esmae and herself, would for ever be a place of painful memories, she thought as she glanced mournfully round And it would not be a memory only, but a terrible present load, which must go with her where she went, must interweave itself, henceforth, with all her familiar daily life. The thought came to her with that sudden, intense vividness of perception, which sometimes maps out, in an instant of time, to the mental vision the full weight and bitterness of a new sorrow which must henceforth be a life companion.

Again the sound of the dreary baying of the Binaultrie hounds travelled through the air. It seemed to have a new meaning now. Was there given to those dumb creatures any premonition of the calamity which was about to fall on their masters, old and young, whom they loved so well? Surely some mysterious wave of sympathy was sweeping over their faithful dog hearts, while the heart of the young man who stood by her side seemed to have turned to stone.

“You are going, Miss Cassilis. Well, I suppose there is nothing more to be said. I shall consider what you have suggested about sharing my secret with my uncle; but I think you will see reason to regret your advice. I must say, too,” continued Boston, after a pause, as he glanced eagerly at Mary, “I think you might have bestowed a single word of congratulation on a poor fellow who has discovered his rights after having been kept out of them for so long. Esmae Burnett is certainly a fortunate man to have so strong a champion in a young lady so beautiful, so affectionate. Shall I make another confession to you to-night, Mary, and tell you that I envy my cousin still, even though these broad lands are mine,’” he murmured in a low tone, with glittering eyes, as he offered his hand to help her across a plank over which she had to pass.

“Oh, please, I had rather not talk any more about it at all,”‘ cried Mary, shrinking back; “it is all too sad, too dreadful. You must excuse me, Mr. Burnett, if I cannot congratulate you,” she added, gathering courage again. “I wish to go home at once; it is getting late. My aunt will be wondering what has become of me. Good-bya No, please, I would much rather be by myself; I am used to walking alone,” she added hurriedly as Boston seemed preparing to accompany her along the path.

With the fleetness of a roe she sped away, leaving him standing at the entrance to the sawmill considerably discomfited. Leaning against one of the tall fir trees, he seemed to give way to a gloomy reverie.

“I am a fool to feel it so much. I might have known she would take it as she did. But I must have patience; time works changes, and its whirligig is in my favour now. It is fortunate that the proof is so conclusive, and that I shall have no more trouble in establishing my claim than Esmae would have had—but for my discovery—except, indeed, trouble of the kind I have met with in Mary. However, the laird of Einaultrie can dispense with congratulations. She is a nice girl, though; and how handsome she has grown!—ever so much prettier, to my mind, than Ada, whom that idiot Esmae is dangling after just now. By the way, I should have communicated that little bit of information to Mary. It might have cooled her feminine ardour—turned it into spite, perhaps. But no, Mary Cassilis is different from other women. There is something very fine about her. She is worth a good deal of trouble in the winning. And she will be so rich, too! Well, this scene must make a bond between us, in spite of her, and there is no saying what time may bring. But I must hurry on to the castle and try to cheer poor old uncle with some trumped-up good news about his young hopeful. I certainly shan’t take her advice, and I guess she will change her mind when she sleeps over it. No, Miss Mary, I am of a patient disposition; I can bide my time, and perhaps it won’t be for long. The old man is evidently breaking up,” he muttered; and rousing himself from his reverie he began to hurry through the darkening fir-wood with rapid strides.

The Mirkwood oak parlour was all cosily curtained in when Mary entered it The tea-table was spread, the shining brass kettle made music on the glowing fire, and Prince Charlie, the old cat, purred from his warm station on the rug where he and Grip dozed in harmony.

Miss Cassilis had also been lulled to sleep. She sat up in her chair when Mary walked into the room.

“How late you are, bairn! You have surely stayed too long at Meggy’s. The tea has been infused till it must be quite spoilt. I am sure, I don’t know for how long, I must have been asleep. Yes, I remember; and I have had such a strange dream. I don’t think I ever dreamt about Esmae’s mother before. It is most extraordinary, but in my sleep I saw her coming in at that door, and she laid her pretty soft white hand on my arm, and in the sweet, gentle voice she had, poor thing —for she was aye a winsome creature Robert’s wife—she said,

‘ Quick, quick, Grizel; go to my baby boy. Did you not hear him crying as if his heart would break! ’ I think it must have been your opening the door that wakened me, Mary; but I declare I expected to find Mary Burnett, who has been dead for twenty years, standing there beside my chair.”

“It seems a night of strange dreams, Aunt Grizel,” said Mary with a shiver.

“How pale you look, bairn! ” exclaimed Miss Cassilis, suddenly glancing at her anxiously. “ You are surely not feeling well. Take off your things quickly, and have some tea. It will warm you. There was surely no use of your staying so long at Meggy’s. Never mind about her now, my dear. Make haste and come back to tea. I wish you had taken your pony, girl, as I wanted you.”

“Oh no; I think it was better I did not, Aunt Grizel, for then I should not have come through the fir-wood,” said Mary with a dreary, wistful look as she turned away, her aunt not observing her seemingly irrelevant remark.

The troubles of a lifetime seemed to have gathered round her since she left these familiar surroundings a little while ago. But she must learn to bear this new burden bravely for the sake of those she loved, as brave women had borne their burdens in all times of the world’s history, she thought with a sad smile as she climbed the old staircase to her room.

CHAPTER XV
Cross Purposes.

“Oh, had we ne’er as children played together,
Never waded in the bum, nor plaited rushes on the lea,
Never busked us with the bluebells, never chanced on each to
Till we looked on one another when love had eyes to see.’’
Walter Smith.

“What ails the bairn, Miss Marget? There is a great change come over her of late. I have no doubt that your own eyes have noticed it as well as mine,” said Miss Cassilis as she glanced at the visitor who sat near her one afternoon in early spring.

“Yes, I will not conceal from you that I have noticed it,” replied Miss Maigaret Pirnie slowly as she looked up from her sewing. “It was a great trouble to my spirit for a time; but of late I sometimes think I have got a look into the child’s heart that throws light on the matter.”

“And what is that? ” asked Miss Cassilis with eagerness. “Well, maybe what will best speak my meaning is a fine sentence in a book which Mr. Maxwell lent to Mrs. Irvine, and she to me, not long ago,” said Miss Margaret dreamily. “Mr. Maxwell had the passage underlined, or it is more than likely it would have escaped my notice; for I never was such a careful reader as I ought to be. But I think I can tell you the very words of that remark; and I do believe that they give a key to Miss Mary’s heart. I think I can give it to you, word for word,” she added as, with the air of sharing a treasure, she repeated slowly the cherished sentence:—“Deeper and more elevated feelings, where they exist, must cast at least some shadow over the soul which possesses them.” A kindling light came into her faded eyes as she spoke, and her sewing was neglected for a moment, while she glanced with something of a triumphant air towards her hostess.

An absent “Humph!” was Miss Cassilis’s rejoinder. Miss Margaret’s preamble had raised hopes of an explanation of a very different kind.

Her eager-hearted visitor, all unconscious of the keen disappointment which she had given, continued,—

“Now, Miss Cassilis, I take it that feelings like these have had a good deal to do with the shadow that has been so often resting on Miss Mary’s bonnie brow. Indeed, these few years back have been growing times for most of us, as Donald Reid was just remarking the other day. As for the interest that Mary has taken in the people of Netherley since they have been turned out of their church, it is just the Lord’s doing and nothing less, as many of them feel. I make sure it was Mary who, with His help, prepared Mr. Burnett’s heart to look kindly on the plan to grant them a site on his land, that the stranger at Netherley has refused; and I must say it speaks well for our own minister that he had no ill-feeling to the plan. And before long, I hope we will see a new house of God rising in that sweet comer that the laird is going to offer to his Lord and Master. Indeed, Miss Cassilis, this struggle for Christ’s headship and crown that our beloved Church is carrying on with those who would rob us of our holiest liberties, is eveiy day getting more earnest. It makes a stirring time to live through, and one that might well light with thought many a young face through the length and breadth of this land of Scotland.”

“Well, maybe,” replied Miss Cassilis, as she resumed her knitting. “But, you see, Miss Margaret, you are a bit of an enthusiast about these Kirk politics,” she added, after a moment’s pause. “For my own part, I think these reformers are going too far. If they make a split in the ancient Church of our fathers, it will be a bad business for our country. As for myself, I hate schism. I must say I think the young folks mix themselves up rather too much with these public questions now-a-days. It is not becoming. I don’t say you will ever go too far, Marget, for you are a modest, prudent creature— always were; but I do believe that this taking of themselves up with questions beyond their depth is the reason that girls are not nearly so light-hearted to all appearance as they were in my time. There used to be a blithesomeness about them that I miss now. Helen Grahame has more of it than most. She is a bright, hearty lassie. I am glad that she and Mary are such close friends.”

“I do not deny, Miss Cassilis,” began Miss Margaret, after a pause, during which she had evidently been so absorbed in her own train of thought as to be unobservant of Miss Cassilis’s criticism on the girls of the period, “that there may be certain other wistful thoughts at work with Mary that come to the hearts of young, sweet creatures like her in the spring-time of their lives; but into that we must not be prying,” she wound up, with a mysterious little smile.

Again Miss Cassilis’s head was raised from her knitting. “Yes. Well, that is just exactly what I have been thinking. You are right in saying that we must not pry. You were always a prudent woman, Marget,—not like your sister, I must say that. But, you see, my niece is next of kin, and the only one left, and I her guardian, too; it surely behoves me to keep my eyes open to what may be going on. To speak between ourselves,” she continued with unconcealed eagerness, “do you not think that my Mary has a tender glint in her eyes when she looks at Esmae Burnett, and a gentler tone in her voice when she speaks to the lad—rare to her—and that more than she used to have? There has been no word spoken between them yet, or I am sure she would not have kept it a secret from me, nor would Esmae from his father; but maybe it is some thought of this that has made her so absent and downcast at times.”

“Oh—no—it was not that I meant,” faltered Miss Margaret, her pale face flushing as it rarely did; “it was not Mr. Esmae at all. It was— But, indeed, as I said before, I have no right to be prying—no right whatever; ” and Miss Margaret bent her head low over her embroidery with unmistakable traces of vexation.

At this point the conversation in the oak parlour had an unexpected interruption. Mr. Boston Burnett was announced. Three months had elapsed since his last visit to Binaultrie, when he had divulged his secret to Mary. He was not one of the Christmas guests that year.

The fact that Esmae had brought his friend Kenneth Maxwell to fulfil his old promise of paying a visit to the castle possibly accounted for Boston’s sudden discovery that arrears of work imperatively required his presence in the office.

After Kenneth’s brief holiday-week was over he had returned to his studies; not, however, without carrying with him more hopeful feelings regarding his friend.

Esmae was now settled at Rinaultrie, and had begun to throw himself with energy into all the duties of the laird, his father not yet having quite regained his old strength, and being joyfully willing to allow all business affairs to devolve on his son.

Kenneth had more than once in his frequent talks with Mary, during this visit, expatiated glowingly on what an ideal country gentleman Esmae was in a fair way to become, interspersing his talk with a little philosophizing as to how mother Nature moulded her sons for the life-work to which she destined them. He little guessed what pain those remarks gave to Mary, who felt increasingly the crushing weight of the secret which had been confided to her on that dreary November afternoon. It shadowed all the familiar daily life, and there was always the haunting knowledge that the shadow, instead of dispersing, must cast a deeper gloom ere long. To observe Esmae’s hearty delight in his present life made, indeed, part of her deepest pain; nor could she see any way of helping him for the present She and Boston had not again exchanged words on the subject of his discovery. Sometimes she felt a desire to discuss it more fully with him; but always when an opportunity offered, she shrank from availing herself of it A fortnight previously Esmae had gone south on some business connected with the estate. Boston and he had returned together to the strath on the previous evening. In reply to old Miss Cassilis’s inquiries regarding Esmae, Boston told her with emphasis that his cousin happened!6 have come back in an extreme state of happiness.

“So much so, indeed,” he added with a smile, “that Bauldy and I had enough to do to keep his exuberance within bounds on the top of the coach yesterday. Bauldy told him flatly that he was much too ‘cairried to be lippened wi’ the ribbons the day,”’ narrated Boston chuckling.

“Well, I am glad to hear, at all events, that Esmae has come back to us with such good will and in such spirits. We are always a little afraid that he will come to think the glen rather dull; and we would all miss him sorely now, our bright young brevet-laird, as Mr. Gordon calls him,” said Miss Cassilis, in her gentlest tone. “I hope he has been able to carry the piece of business he went about well through. It lobks like it, when he is in such spirits.”

“No, I am sony to say that scheme has smashed up; but that does not affect Esmae’s spirits. They come from another source,” said Boston, and then he glanced round. Was there no prospect of an addition to his audience before he gave this piece of news? Where was the beautiful young face whose image had often been in his thoughts! He would fain have scrutinized it now, as he made the announcement on his lips; but she must hear it soon, and that would serve his purpose.

“Miss Cassilis,” he began, “what do you think Esmae has been and gone and done? He has got himself engaged to Ada Cranstown. I left him seated on a corner of his father’s arm-chair telling his tale of love with a radiant face when I left them.”

“Esmae Burnett going to marry her — Mr. Cranstown’s daughter! ” muttered Miss Cassilis after a moment, and a deadly pallor overspread her wrinkled face as she looked up.

“Yes, Mr. Cranstown’s eldest daughter, — the pretty Ada who has been the belle in her circle all this season and the last I thought it was clearly on the cards some time ago. Then Esmae seemed to change his mind, for some reason or other. But he has been staying with the Cranstown s since he went to town, and I suppose that is how the happy consummation has been brought about The alliance seems much to the satisfaction of Madam Cranstown.“Everything is our young laird’ now.”

“And what does Robert Burnett say to this piece of—to this match? What is Esmae’s father thinking, I wonder?” asked Miss Cassilis incoherently.

“Oh, I did not presume to interfere in such an entirely domestic affair. I did overhear the laird saying, as I was leaving the room, that, if it was to be a Cranstown, Norah would have pleased him better, or something to that effect I certainly don’t admire his taste. I do not fancy uncle will like the idea at first But Esmae was raving about Ada’s pretty eyes, her hair, her teeth, and all that, when I left; so I expect Uncle Burnett will be pretty well talked over before dinnertime. Cranstown was wise. He took care to put a letter into Esmae’s pocket to assure the laird that he had had no hand in the making of the match, and had even declined, notwithstanding Esmae’s entreaties, to give his consent till he had conferred with his father on the matter. I must say poor uncle looked as if he had got a pretty hard blow when Esmae made his announcement He shaded his face and did not speak for a minute, and then he said, with something like a groan, What is this you have done, you foolish boy!”

Boston seemed inclined to enter into a longer narration of his news when he perceived the intense and troublous interest which it seemed to excite in Miss Cassilis’s mind. He still glanced restlessly about, however, and, at last, with an evident effort he asked, “How is Miss Mary! Is she not at home to-day? She is well, I hope.”

“Yes, Mary is quite well, I thank you. She has gone to spend the afternoon with Mrs. Irvine, and Miss Margaret is keeping me company,” replied Miss Cassilis absently.

Boston turned suddenly to the silent visitor with a scrutinizing look. Does Miss Margaret ever talk at all! Miss Joan was certainly sometimes amusing enough; but what manner of person was this still, meek-looking woman who had flitted silently about the glen with her teaching-bag on her arm ever since he knew it! He remembered now that Mary had once said enthusiastically that there were few people so good and high as Miss Margaret; but now she suddenly inspired him with dislike. Why did she sit like a mute there? If she would only go away the conversation might take a much more satisfactory turn. This was certainly an opportunity that might be made much of on behalf of some wishes which were eveiy day bulking larger in his heart—or rather in his calculations. This news of Esmae’s engagement to Ada was a heavier blow than he had expected to Miss Cassilis. He knew, of course, that the factor did not stand high in her esteem,—that not on any grounds could the connection be acceptable to this faithful friend of the ancient house. But that it should be such a keen personal shock as it evidently was, showed that the public had been right in supposing Miss Cassilis’s heart was set on an alliance between her niece and the supposed heir of Rinaultria How far this had been the case he was never till now able to discover. There had certainly been no scheming, no matchmaking attempt among the guardians that even his quick eyes could detect And Miss Cassilis’s armour of proud reserve was very difficult to pierce in ordinary times. He knew, too, that though she loved Esmae with hereditary affection, she by no means approved always of him; and for his part) he had never been able to believe that she would deem him the fittest of husbands for her precious charge. And as for Esmae himself, much as he loved and admired his old playfellow, it was quite evident that he had never looked on her in the light of a possible fiancee. Such blindness to a prize that might once have been within his easy reach was certainly to his mind another of Esmae’s many infatuations; but it was clear that no feeling towards Mary Cassilis, except that of a brotherly kind, had ever been in Esmae’s heart Whether Mary had any such hope hidden away, it had been Boston’s eager quest for some time back to discover. His recent observations had uniformly inclined him to decide that she had not, and on that foundation he was now building his own hopes. It was a wish to connect the families by relationship as well as by ancient friendship that had fostered the idea of an engagement between Mary and his cousin. That might still be carried out by her engagement with another Burnett, he whispered to himself with growing hope. The prize which Esmae had not striven to win might, with some other things, one day be his own portion. Since their meeting on that dreary afternoon in the old sawmill, Boston was obliged to own that this hope had been even a more absorbing preoccupation than his discovery concerning the ownership of Rinaultrie. And this love-secret was fostered by his having confided it to his mother, whereas about the other he had hitherto been silent to her.

Mrs. Burnett was evidently content that her son should have such a happy preoccupation, and basked in the increasing suavity which it brought into his relationships with all round him, though, of course, her “disease of humility,” as her son was pleased to call it, suggested some anxieties as to whether he had not been a little presumptuous in “setting his heart on the young heiress.”

Mary’s reception of his secret confirmed him in his decision not to share it for the present with his mother. A good deal of comfortable self-commendation had come to him from feeling how unswerving his resolve was that he should not disturb Mr. Burnett in his possession of Rinaultrie. It was more than he would have expected of himself, he frequently acknowledged with a smile, as he went on diligently with his daily avocations in Mr. Cranstown’s office; his apprenticeship there was now over, and he held an important post as a paid clerk. He was of a patient disposition, as he frequently congratulated himself, and he could afford to wait Still, there were opportunities which he had every right to make the most of, and he felt now with keen disappointment that the piece of news which he had been so eager to bring to the oak parlour had not been so successful as he counted on.

With the slowness of age to grasp new situations, Miss Cassilis sat looking in front of her with a dazed expression, while Miss Margaret silently stitched her thoughts into her embroidery.

“You need not go there, my boy,” he greeted Esmae, on his return to the castle, finding that he was just setting out for the old dowager house. “Aunt Grizel is as grumpy as possible over your news; and Miss Pimie, the automaton one, is sitting by her, making dulness more dulL”

“But Mary, where is shel”

“She seems to have gone to spend the afternoon at Blair-ton,” replied Boston.

“With the Irvines, I suppose. Oh, then, that will suit me capitally; I want to get rid of some of my superfluous energy. I have managed to talk dear old daddy over, and I am so happy! I shall walk across and meet Mary. She will just be starting from Blairton Manse now. Aunt always likes her to be home before it gets dark. I feel as if I could not rest till I had shared my happiness with Mary. I am sure she will like Ada when she knows her. Ada says they have been very unfortunate in never having had a chance of getting intimate, but that she is prepared to take Mary or anybody else to her heart for my sake. Is it not sweet of her?”

“Extremely accommodating, I should say,” laughed Boston. “I have observed that Miss Cranstown and Miss Cassilis were not great friends. Miss Ada says it is because they have not had a chance of being intimate, does she? It was certainly that imp Norah that Mary seemed to take to.”

“Yes; only think, my father told me just now that Norah was his favourite too. He actually said that if it had been Norah, he would have been almost satisfied, even though she was a Cranstown. But he came round to Ada a good deal, I think, after I had talked to him. I know he will be delighted with her when he sees how pretty she is now. I am sure I do not like old Cran any better than he does; and, fortunately, I do not think Ada is much bound up in either her father or her mother.”

“Oh no; it is easy to see that Miss Cranstown does not worship her parents,” said Boston, as he recollected several instances in which Ada had exhibited anything but a spirit of beautiful daughterly submission.

“Of course not; how could she like them when she is so nice?” rejoined Esmae, as he went off towards Blairton, leaving Boston with a cloud on his brow.

How foolish he had been not to take advantage of this opportunity. Why did it not occur to him that instead of returning to the castle he might have gone along the Blairton road, have been the first bringer of the news, and the observer of its effects?

Mary was looking unusually jaded and grave, as she walked into the Mirkwood sitting-room, on her return from the Manse of Blairton. In answer to Miss Cassilis’s quick, scrutinizing glance, she said,—

“Yes, Aunt Grizel, I have heard the news. Esmae walked across to meet me, and I have heard all about it from him-self.”

“And does it please you, Mary?” asked her aunt, with a half-puzzled expression, as she scanned Mary’s face, which was now being lit up by the bright glow from the fire.

“Well, no; I am afraid it does not,” replied Mary slowly, as if she were trying to analyze her feelings about the matter. “Esmae could see quite well that it did not; but that could not be helped. I do not think he will allow it to make any difference to our friendship that I was not able to be enthusiastic; and when I do get to like Ada, as I hope I shall, then he will know it too,” she added in a more cheerful tone. “He seemed quite to understand that I could not be much satisfied. The odd thing was, he told me that Uncle Burnett had said just what I could not help thinking when he told me of his engagement to Ada—that if Norah had been well, how much nicer it would have been if he had fallen in love with her.”

“Well, I must say I don’t think it shows much sense either on your part or the laird’s making such a remark. The girl is an object; and, besides, she has been as badly brought up as she can be. One is always hearing of some of her pranks.”

“Oh, but Norah’s pranks had generally something lovable about them. But what I meant, auntie, was that it does not seem to surprise or to vex Esmae in the least that Uncle Burnett, that we all, are not over-pleased with his choice. I cannot help thinking that if he felt as deeply about it as I believe he could about such a matter, it would not then seem such a light thing this want of cordiality on our part I feel sure it would trouble him a great deal more. Somehow, I do not believe he will ever marry Ada I believe that is what I am comforting myself with at least,” said Mary, with a smile that seemed checked by some troubled thought as she sat looking musingly into the fire.

Miss Cassilis glanced searchingly at her niece.

“That is a strange idea, Mary, and one which I would think there can be very little ground for on your part—no ground for at all,” she added, shaking her head. “Boston has just been here, and he was saying that his cousin was very much in love with that girl Cranstown. Esmae is a heedless lad; he might have looked about him a little more before he took the serious step of getting himself engaged, and mixing himself up with such people too. It is little wonder that his father should be heart-vexed. But as for Esmae’s drawing back now—”

“But what were you saying about Boston, aunt?” interrupted Mary with a startled air. “He did not come north with Esmae surely!”

“Dear me, Mary, how excitable you are. There is nothing very out of the way in Boston being at Rinaultrie, is there! I suppose Esmae will be too much taken up with this new folly to be interested in his cousin now, or he would have told you that they came north together.”

“I suppose so,” assented Mary absently; and resting her head on her hand, she seemed absorbed in thought. She roused herself suddenly at length, as if she had come to some decision on the subject which had been perplexing her. Kneeling down beside her aunt, she laid her hands on her lap, and said in a voice tremulous with eagerness,—

“Aunt Grizel, I am going to ask you something—to propose something about a matter I have had on my mind for a long time now, and I think I ought not to keep it longer without trying to do what I can. Listen to me, aunt; it is about Esmae I want to speak—our dear, foolish Esmae. Tou know how anxious he was to enter the army, and Uncle Burnett would not have it—one reason against it. I remember hearing him give to you, being that it was such an expensive profession, and seeing that Esmae is rather inclined to extravagance, it would be a risk. He said, too, I recollect, that it would take more ready money than he could spare to buy him his commission and give him the allowance he would absolutely require. You surely remember, aunt?”

“! do. But that is all past long ago. Why should you be bringing it all up at this time of day, Mary? It was a settled thing that he was not to be tied to any profession when he went into the factor’s office, but just to gather some business experience that might help him to manage his affairs on the estate. I am sure it is a thousand pities he ever got so friendly with these Cranstowns. But who would have dreamt of the poor foolish lad ever seriously thinking of such a match? I don’t believe Esmae has any hankerings after the army now, Mary. They say he is falling into all the work of the estate uncommonly welL Mr. Gordon was just speaking about him yesterday, and remarking that it was wonderful what good ideas he had about planting and farming, besides being such an uncommon sportsman. No; there is little use in raising that question. The laird will have enough of worries without that, if the lad persists in this silly step. But maybe, as you say, Mary, there is some hope that he will give up the girl. If I were his father, I should insist on his doing so before another twenty-four hours,” said Miss Cassilis with energy. Silly lad, he little knows the many hopes he has trampled on so lightly,” she added in a lower tone as she glanced questioningly at her niece, whose face was certainly marked by agitation, though it hardly seemed the emotion of disappointed love Aunt Grizel,” she began impetuously, “will you listen to me! You are old and wise, and I am young and foolish, I know well; but if you will only try to believe that I am right for this once, and that you will do some people you love best a great wrong if you put away my proposal as not worth minding—Esmae should, at once, be allowed to go into the army as he wants, or did want, and as he might again, if he knew that it was possible. You are the one to talk to Uncle Burnett about it You have been his best friend for more than half a century, he always says. You must be on my side—or rather, I should say, on poor Esmae’s side, if you have any love for him, any care for your old friends.—Stop now, Aunt Grizel, just hear me out I know you are going to say that I am talking wildly. You must listen to my proposal, and I beg of you not to be too ready to say that it is the foolish idea of a girl who does not know the world and its ways. I assure you I have often’ thought over the things you will say j but I cannot help it,” she added with a wistful smile. You must just believe that, in spite of my inexperience, I have very good reasons for what I am going to propose. You have had dreams sometimes, I know, Aunt Grizel; so have L Perhaps it was a dream—yes, it was something like a terrible dream,” she added with a shiver. “And this dreadful dream has made me quite sure, quite determined that Esmae must not stay wasting his life any more at Binaultrie. Perhaps he may be more willing to leave it now that this engagement has coma He was saying that Uncle Burnett feared that a gay young lady like Ada would find the country life too dull, she would most likely prefer to lead a gay military lifa” The idea seemed to flash like a ray of light across the girl’s face as she went on. “Well, aunt, to be practical, for I am afraid I am wearying you. We have money, you know,—yes, I see that you are going to say there is a great deal of it is my money; and just at this moment I do feel very glad to remember that I am rich. This is only the second time! have felt so sinoe you told me about my ricbea Perhaps I shall grow a miser in time, though, who knows? But if so, it is better that I should make haste and get rid of some of my gold now, and to Esmae, for his good. It is my wish, Aunt Grizel, it is my will,” and Mary’s head was thrown into that haughty pose which formed indeed one of her rarest points of beauty; one, however, it may be added, which cannot be called into action at will by any young lady desirous of multiplying her attractions, for, with Mary Cassilis, it was purely unconscious.

It had its effect on her old relative now, however; was possibly of more avail than the most persuasive arguments in the cause which she had to plead. “Of course I know that I can legally have no command over my money till I am of age. But you are my guardian, and if you give your consent, Mr. Fenton can easily manage all the rest, if you will mention the matter when you write to him. I know you will, aunt. Esmae must have his commission. He must have the money needed; and this is my plan.”

“Yes, bairn; but even if I were to consent to do what you are so earnest about, you have another guardian, who would never give in, no, not though he should cut down the last tree in the forests of Binaultrie to raise the money. You can maybe talk your old aunt over to parting with some of your fortune to Esmae, but you will never get Robert Burnett’s consent to such a step,—never; I know him too well.”

“Then we must do without it I shall go up to Edinburgh at once and consult Mr. Fenton how it can be done; and if he does not know himself, he can ask other lawyers. I am sure it can be managed without consulting Uncle Burnett; indeed, it will be best to see first, at all events, whether the matter can be all arranged without troubling him,” added Mary in a tone which indicated that she had quite made up her mind.

“But, bairn, bairn, I really cannot see what you are driving at What has put this notion into your head all of a sudden,

I am sure I do not know,” repeated Miss Cassilis in a more wearied, querulous tone than was at all common with her.

“I have told you that you must not ask me. Tou may have to know it some day, but not now, not now,” said Mary with a sob as she covered her face with her hands. Presently she raised it, saying in a tone of forced quietness, “You must just try very hard to believe that my reasons are good.”

A deep flush overspread the girl’s pale face as her aunt glanced at her with a penetrating smile, saying, after a moment’s silence,—

“There can be but one reason, Mary, for your taking up Esmae Burnett’s cause as you are doing. You have kept me long in the dark about your true feelings, I must say—so long that it is maybe too late now to do anything but to feel heart-sore about what might have been. It was ill done on your part, Mary, not to trust your only relation in the world. You might have let me into the secret before this night, I think. It is plain now that your young heart’s affections were set just where I—and more than I—had been longing that they should be set,—with young Esmae Burnett.”

A look of unfeigned surprise, followed by a still deeper flush, overspread Mary’s face as she faltered, “You have made quite a mistake, Aunt GrizeL I am so sorry for it It never was as you say—never could have been, I think, dearly as I love Esmae; and I do so quite as much, I believe, as if he were my own brother, for indeed we have always been as brother and sister to each other. But we have never had any thought of being what Ada and he are now.”

“I do not believe you, Mary. You are too young to know your own heart, and you have a deep, true heart like all the Cassilises. It is nothing more nor less than love, and longing for the love of Esmae, that has made you bo anxious to help him—given the wish such a hold on your woman’s heart.”

“It is not just to say so—it is not kind—it is not like you,

Aunt Grizel,” cried Mary indignantly, her face all aflame; “and, besides,” she added after a pause,—“besides, there is something—somebody else—another who has had that place with me all the while you have been fancying, as I see now, that I was thinking of Esmae. I cannot speak more about that now—or about anything else to-night, aunt” Mary’s face brightened into a smile as she thought of the long pleasant talk in the Blairton Manse garden with Mrs. Irvine’s guest that afternoon. She glanced into her aunt’s face as she pondered whether a full confession might not be less painful than to prolong this miserable misunderstanding. But after a moment’s silence she rose from her station at Miss Cassilis’s feet, saying, “I cannot; but now that you know the truth, perhaps, if you will think over it, you will see I must have some wise, weighty reason for my proposal that Esmae should be helped to And the work he did once set his heart on. Tou must, indeed, allow me to act on my wish. I mean to write to Mr. Fenton myself about the matter to-morrow and see what can be done, if you will not,” said Mary as she stood looking down on her aunt with a grave, tear-stained face.

The prayer-bell sounded now. Neil walked in to deposit the old Bible and the companion book of family prayers on the little table by his mistresses’ side, so that for the present the conversation was at an end.

With an unusual tremor in her young voice, Mary read the evening chapter; and then the little household knelt together, while Miss Cassilis went over the brief stereotyped petitions from the pages of the manual which she always used.

“Here comes Nancy to help you to bed, Aunt Grizel. I think I shall say good-night now,” said Mary as she kissed her aunt’s cheek and walked away to her room.

But Nancy’s mistress did not seem inclined to quit her elbow-chair by the fireside so punctually as usual this evening.

Her maid was peremptorily ordered to withdraw, and Miss Cassilis sat with folded hands gazing reflectively into the dying embers. “It must surely be Boston,” she murmured presently. “Yes, it is just he. I noticed that she looked eager like when I made mention of his name; and it was plain enough the lad was sadly disappointed that she was not at home when he came to-day. I can see that now, though I was too much confused by the piece of news he brought to give much heed to it then. Well, it is strange how things come round. But, after all, it will be a Burnett; and they say he is a rising man. That foolish lad Esmae—who might maybe have won her heart, in spite of all she says to the contrary now, if he had only been more sober and staid—he has dreed his weird, and he must abide by it. And who but he brought that cousin to the castle, to rise up to be his rival? If Robert Burnett had taken my advice, he would never have had what he has now—a sure place in Binaultrie and in that girl’s heart But, after all, it might have been worsa It will be a Burnett and a Cassilis yet”

CHAPTER XVI
How Quick Hopes have Sudden Ends.

When Boston repeated his visit to Mirk wood on the following day, he was not a little disappointed to find that Mary Cassilis was again absent. Nor was her absence compensated for by a certain grave consideration in Miss Cassilis’s manner which was new to it A peculiar repression marked it, and there was a half-reluctance about her kindliness of demeanour which he could not account for. The idea, indeed, flitted across his mind for a moment, Could Mary have been tempted to confide the Becret which hitherto she had evidently kept inviolate! It was only in the first excited moment that she had been bent on such a course, he said to himself, as he pondered over the chance of such an explanation of the altered manner of his hostess. But surely not; the reasons for silence must every day have been bulking larger in Mary’s mind.

When he rose to go, Miss Cassilis happened to mention that Mary had gone to Bramble Hill to see old Donald Beid, who had been ailing of late. For a moment he entertained the idea of a visit to Donald Reid’s cottage, but decided, with chagrin, that a meeting there would be certain to prove disappointing. Boston had an entire lack of liking for or interest in those whom he styled his inferiors. This feeling seemed almost as much an instinct with him as the reverse was the case with Esmae Burnett and with Mary. To their particular favourite, Donald Reid, he had, indeed, an avowed dislike. It was irritating now to think of Mary Cassilis bestowing her kind looks and bright talk so much more freely on a simple old peasant than she ever did on him.

How much that fair young face had been in his thoughts since that November afternoon when it had gazed into his for a moment, a supplicant for those she loved well. The consciousness of the bond which his secret made perforce between Mary and himself was not the least pleasant part of the strange discovery which he had made. As yet, however, he had found little opportunity of taking advantage of his supposed improved position with Mary. Kenneth Maxwell’s Christmas visit had frustrated his plans then; and now that he had come, yielding to Esmae’s request to accompany him north, solely in the hope of seeing her, it seemed impossible even to get a glimpse of her.

Full as his thoughts were of Mary, however, surprise mingled with the pleasure he experienced when, late on that afternoon, a tiny note was put into his hand. It was the first written communication he. had ever received from her. His heart beat quicker as he unfolded it and read as follows:—

“Dear Mr. Burnett,—I wish to speak to you alone. I shall be at the sawmill to-morrow at eleven o’clock.—Yours sincerely, Mart Cassilis.”

It was brief, to be sure; but what did it not give promise of? he thought, as he laid it in his pocket-book with a feeling of elation. The proud, reticent Mary craving for an appointment with him! This was surely entering already into some of the increased privileges of his lot as laird of Rinaultria Had Boston seen with what a tear-stained face Mary penned the little note his triumph could hardly have been so great. It had been the last act of a heavy-hearted meditation on the previous evening after leaving her aunt While Miss Cassilis sat below trying to shape her heart to the inevitable—to accept the blighting of long-cherished hopes, and to persuade herself that, after all, one Burnett might be as good as another—Mary knelt by her little bed with a bent head and aching heart At last, with a great effort she had broached the project which she had been framing for poor Esmae’s help, but somehow, though she had fought its cause eagerly with her aunt, the very putting of it into words revealed to her that it was much less practicable than she fancied. As Miss Cassilis had suggested, would there not be less inclination now on Esmae’s part to leave home? Kinaultrie was evidently winding itself round his heart more closely than ever, and this strange engagement might put other unforeseen difficulties in the way, though she hoped for a moment it might be on her side; now that she thought of it, she felt sure that Mrs. Cranstown would prefer that her daughter should from the first reign in the ancestral seat. But Esmae must not, come what might, be allowed to entwine his being more closely round the fair heritage that would never be his—that was not his father’s. The bond must be loosened somehow while yet there was time for absence and other preoccupations to come to his aid. But so difficulty so impossible did it seem to arrange any wise course, owing to the secrecy enjoined by Boston. Her lawyer would be sure to view her proposal as even more impracticable and extraordinary than her aunt had done; and to Mr. Burnett she could not venture to appeal, with the weight of the terrible secret checking her words.

“Would it not be better,” she asked herself again, as she had during the first moments of her realization of the terrible consequences to Esmae of the discovery imparted to her with such triumph by Boston—“better for all that the truth should be divulged at once?” That big, brave, kindly old heart would shape itself to the new conditions of life, she felt sure—might indeed prove the most unfaltering of them alL There would always be a good and happy place in God’s world for such as he; Boston’s stately hearth would thenceforth prove a drearier place than the humblest cottage in which Mr. Burnett, once laird of Rinaultrie, might take Up his aboda Full of the alternative, Mary wrote the little note, the reception of which had quickened Boston’s pulses; and then she fell asleep with a more peaceful heart than had been her portion for long.

The morning which Mary had fixed for her meeting with Boston proved one of those rarely lovely spring days which did not often fall to the lot of the north-eastern strath. Away in the distance the mountains were of a silvery, transparent blue, while nearer at hand the rich reds and browns of the undulating moorlands were softened by a mixture of tender and beautiful green. The Aultrie was catching the reflection of the azure tints overhead, and took its sparkling way with a cheerful gurgle along its sun-lighted haughs. A sweet freshness pervaded the air. Mavises were trilling their rare rich notes on the boughs which were budding into life once more. Their happiness was infectious—at least so thought Kenneth Maxwell as he walked along the highroad between Blairton and Rinaultrie, his pulses stirred by a soft, dreamy sense of the dawning spring which moves the soul, especially in youth, with a vague, wistful forecasting of a completer bliss that may never be our portion here, which, indeed, in its fulness, belongs to another spring, with its promise of joys unspeakable.

And was it to be wondered, on such a resurrection morning as this, Kenneth paused at a certain historical spot near Meggy Durret’s wayside cottage, as if the opening verdure seemed all of a sudden to become to his eyes a white world again? And the sweet maiden, who had gazed with frank, kind eyes at the wanderer half buried beneath the winter snows, was she not vividly before his mind on this spring morning?

Nor was she any longer a forbidden vision, the thought of whom must be banished from a loyal friend’s heart The “screen so slight, so sure, ’twixt his love and her,” had been suddenly, strangely removed by Esmae’s news, and eager hopes came thronging in upon him which as yet he trembled to hold too closely. Litanies of adoration concerning Miss Ada Crans-town had reached him some days previously. And now he was on his way to Rinaultrie, where probably more eager rhapsodies awaited him from his friend about this wonderful, peerless lady love.

Mrs. Irvine, the cautious, the prudent, had indeed her own share in building up the seventh heaven of hope in which Kenneth was dwelling as he walked along. She had quite left behind the impenetrable armour of reserve wherewith she had for so long girded herself concerning this matter, and had asked Kenneth that morning when she came down to breakfast what his plans were for the day.

He had arrived at the manse quite unexpectedly on the previous evening, having hurried north as soon as he was set free from the work of the winter session.

When Esmae’s engagement was talked of, Mrs. Irvine remarked gravely, “It was a curious mistake that we all made about Mary Cassilis. It was always, as I discovered a little while ago, an entire mistake; there never was anything between young Mr. Burnett and Mary except a warm brotherly and sisterly feeling.

“There was no doubt a foundation for the rumour so far. Miss Cassilis, I could see, had set her heart on a union between the families. Poor old lady, I fear she will be sadly crestfallen at the failure of her plans. But she must have been very wise and fair about the whole matter, for Mary herself simply never dreamt of such a consummation for a single moment I happen to know that now, of course, Kenneth. I might have discovered it before—perhaps two years ago and more—if I had been an accommodating cousin. But don’t you think it would have been quite unfair to have been prying into the veiled depths of a sweet young heart?”

“It is quite unfair to pry into the depths of any heart, cousin Dora,” retorted Kenneth. “I am going to find the minister; he is a much safer companion than you,” he added, as he walked abruptly away.

But presently Mrs. Irvine, from the invalid couch to which she had lately been confined, heard cheerful sounds from the solitary walk among the evergreens, and smiled as she listened to the old Scotch love-song hummed in the melodious tenor voice.

Next morning Kenneth came to her and boldly asked whether he could be the bearer of any message to the ladies, either old or young, at Mirk wood, as he meant to call there to-day. Mrs. Irvine did not fail to note the brightness in his face which told of a hope that was budding like the tender shoots in this blithe spring-time.

Deaf old Meggy Durret happened to be standing at the door of her cottage, and Kenneth paused for a moment to shout some friendly words of greeting into her ear. The aged Meggy was gladdened by such considerateness on the part of one of the members of the sex towards whom she cherished an avowed hostility, generally referring to them with an ominous shake, and a remark that they were “no til lippen to.” Such great favour did Kenneth find in Meggy’s eyes, that as she stood shading her eyes and watching him as he strode gaily along she muttered, “A wight, he’s turned oot a braw lad that It’s a peety she winna tak’ up wi’ the like o’ him, gin she maun hae to do wi’ the male sect.” Meggy’s remark was suggested by a glimpse which she had caught a few minutes previously, as she sat basking in the sunlight on one of the grassy hillocks near.

A pair of talkers had passed, so eager in their conversation that they did not perceive her presence; but Meggy recognized them both instantly, and she evidently did not approve of the combination.

Kenneth, meanwhile, all unconscious of impending trouble, walked happily along the shadow-woven path through the great pine-forest. As he passed the old sawmill, the entrance to which was now more hidden by rank brushwood than it had been in the beginning of winter, he overheard voices, one of which he instantly recognized. It was Boston’s. He was saying, in a softer tone than was his wont,—

“Mary, this will never do. You must trust me.”

Another voice, well-remembered and thrilling, began to mingle with Boston’s; its tones were low and tremulous. For a moment Kenneth stood still, listening as if spell-bound. Leaning against a tree, he seemed to steady himself only after an effort But there was that voice again. His ears must be deaf to it now, he said to himself, with wild heart-beats, as he hurried on, crushing the fallen fir-needles under his feet, never halting till he reached the entrance to the old dowager house, whose ancient griffins looked down on him with the same sardonic grin with which they had contemplated the drama of life going on underneath them for more than three hundred years. Their grim gaze seemed to startle Kenneth. He had evidently been speeding on towards Mirkwood quite mechanically; and now, when he‘found himself close to it, he turned away quickly in the opposite direction, making a little detour towards the highroad to avoid the forest path, and by the main entrance getting into the stately beech-avenue which led to Binaultrie Castle.

“Yes, Mr. Esmae is at home,” Mr. Duff said, with a commendatory glance on the visitor which was as good as a certificate of character.

Kenneth stood in the noble doorway, looking for the moment like an old broken man. His face, which had lighted up in a passing return smile to the faithful old retainer, relapsed into the grave bewildered expression which it had worn since he hurried from the neighbourhood of the old sawmill.

Leading the way to the eastern wing of the castle, Mr. Duff ushered him into the spacious library, announcing his name with gratified intonation to his young master, who sat at the writing-table, evidently busily engaged in the composition of a letter. Various destroyed sheets were lying crumpled and tom on the floor by his side, which the orderly Duff duly consigned to the waste-paper basket before he withdrew. There seemed, however, more hope that the one now in progress might meet with a happier fate, as it had reached its second page, and Esmae was evidently trying to evolve subject-matter for a third, as he sat twirling his front lock of hair.

“Maxwell, I declare! how awfully jolly!” he cried, jumping to his feet with a joyous air. A few questions and replies followed about the journey. “I got your letter only this morning,” said Esmae, referring to Kenneth’s congratulations, which, indeed, had happened to travel north with himself. “Such a delightful letter it was too, Ken! I am sure you won’t mind, but I have just been sending it on to Ada. How I wish I could write such good letters as you! It is awfully nice being engaged, but I confess the correspondence bothers me. And though Ada is such a darling, she is rather exacting, you understand. I have just been trying to write to her now,” he added, as he glanced rather ruefully at the half-finished sheets; and then a happy thought seemed to suggest itself. “I’ll tell you what I shall do. I’ll just tell her that you have come to say goodbye in a hurry. That will do capitally. A fellow can’t be expected to spin out yards of sentiment every day of his life,” he remarked, as he quickly folded his missive and rose from the writing-table with a look of genuine relief.

Kenneth could not restrain a passing smile at Esmae’s method of disposing of his love-letter; but the voices from the sawmill were still sounding in his ears, and tumultuous thoughts hurried through his brain.

“I meant to go to find Boston after I had finished my letter. He is rabbit-shooting somewhere down about the old quarry, I think; but now that I have found you, I shall leave him to his own sport, I think.”

If Esmae had happened to glance at his friend’s face as he spoke, he would have been puzzled by the expression it wore. For, indeed, there was a sore struggle going on in Kenneth’s heart at the moment.

Should he speak the words which were ready to come: “Boston is not rabbit-shooting, but has an assignation with Mary Cassilis in a lonely corner of the fir-wood ”! No, he dared not; they died away on his lips; they surely could not be true, after all. What did it mean? Could it be possible that she, the high, the true, the generous, had stooped to admit into friendship such an one as Boston Burnett! And if there was a bond at all, surely it must be a very close one. Were they lovers now, even though they had not been friends once—though in the old days Mary had more than once evinced an antipathy to this cousin, of whom her old playmate was so fond? But that was long ago. Time brings many changes. What had seemed more unlikely once than this engagement of Esmae’s? and yet was he not now expatiating on Ada’s beauty and goodness! Instantly Kenneth rejected the suggestion as impossible; and still it would come back on him with a certainty that was bitter indeed. Should he boldly broach the subject to Esmae! Perhaps he might have some idea whither things were drifting. But could he be satisfied that his well-loved playmate should be induced to choose such a friend as Boston? for Kenneth knew that Esmae had long since felt in his truest heart that his cousin was wanting in many of those traits of character which even his unstable standard required, and he also knew in what high regions of belief and admiration Esmae enshrined his friend.

“You are not looking yourself to-day, somehow, Ken; done up with hard work, I expect,” said Esmae, as they sat talking together after luncheon. The laird was absent at a county meeting at Aberstone, and Boston did not return; so the friends .were still tete-b-t&te.

“Yes, I do feel very tired,” said Kenneth, resting his hand on his throbbing forehead. “I am afraid I must be very poor company to-day, Esmae, but—” And then, suddenly rising, he said that he thought he must go back to Blairton—that he had some business to arrange. Esmae volunteered to accompany him part of the way.

As they passed down the broad flight of steps into the courtyard together, Boston was coming briskly along towards the house, swinging his umbrella, an appendage which he invariably carried on his rural rambles, in spite of Esmae’s sallies on the point. The air of greater vivacity and youthfulness which he wore at the moment was a great gain to his personal appearance. It was long since Kenneth had met him, so he was the better able to perceive the change which had transformed the pale, sallow, slender lad into a handsome man. His manners, too, were much more easy and aflable than of old. He seemed entirely to have forgotten the school-boy grudge which he used to cherish against his old rival. He greeted him with frank pleasantness, which in his present mood it was veiy hard for Kenneth to brook. He even expressed polite concern on hearing of his headache, and playfully suggested that possibly it had its rise in his having had to listen to the rhapsodies with which the ardent lover was apt to victimize his friends. He would not return to lunch. He was going to follow the laird’s example in future, and abjure that meal, he said, in reply to Esmae’s suggestion that the dining-table was still spread. He had not had much success in rabbit-shooting, he acknowledged, and had left his gun at the gamekeeper’s. Nevertheless, the morning had been a very pleasant one. After a moment’s reflection, he added, “I happened to meet Mary in the fir-wood, and had a long talk with her; and then we adjourned to Mirkwood, as Aunt Grizel wanted to consult me about a piece of business.”

“Imagine wise Aunt Griz wishing to have a business consultation with you, Boston!” laughed Esmae. “Did you not feel yourself a very important person? ”

“Well, yes, I did rather,” said Boston.

“By the way, Ken, are you inclined to come round by Glendie and have a look at the new site for the Netherley kirk that Mary has almost managed to coax out of the laird? Da I should like to know whether you approve of it I think it should be a little further up the hilL But remember, my father has not given in to it yet He thinks it is hardly fair to Mr. Gordon to plant down another church, even though it is on the borders of the parish and meant for the people of another. But dear old Gordon does not seem to mind the competition it might bring.”

“So Mary has a suit to crave of the laird of Rinaultrie.! have no doubt he will grant her request, though it should be the half of his kingdom,” remarked Boston. “However, I fancy Mary will come to a better mind by-and-by than to wish to aid and abet those rebels. It is just people like them who are ruining the Church with their canting radical ways. You should hear what your respected father-in-law-to-be has to say about them, Esmae.”

“Oh, I have heard him on that topic often enough. Of course he is dreadfully opposed to my father granting the site; but I don’t see why he should grudge the poor beggars everything, as he does. It would have been much better if he had given in when he saw they were determined to build another church, and just let them have it in their own parish. Besides, everybody knows that it is not Mr. Densil, but himself, who is so dead set against their having it.—You have always taken the part of the Netherley people, by the way, Kenneth! ”

“I have,” replied his friend in a more repressed tone than was usual to him. “I did so first when I saw them leave their old church in a body for conscience’ sake. And my sympathy with the Non-intrusionists, which was first roused by a solitary case, has grown stronger every day.”

“Yes, I quite understand that,” said Boston; “you were always wise in your day and generation, MaxwelL The Nonintrusion side is certainly the most paying one for a young probationer to take, one can easily see that, since, under the new regime, the people aspire to be the sole judges of the merits of the presentee.”

Kenneth made no reply. He did not intend to enter the lists with Boston to-day, whatever his reason might be. Slightly chagrined that his challenge was unaccepted, Boston changed the subject; but Kenneth seemed unwilling to be beguiled into any talk even about ordinary affairs.

“I should like to see the bit of Rinaultrie that Mary has coveted,” said Boston presently, pausing in his walk, evidently with some idea of breaking up the uncongenial trio.

“Oh, she wants the bit of the birch wood that marches with Netherley.”

“Yes; I remember it very welL It was the place where I first saw Mary. So she will be the patron saint of her cathedral,” said Boston with a satisfied smile. “Don’t you recollect, Esmae? She was flitting about among the white stems of the old birks that first day I came to Rinaultrie.”

“Oh, very likely; it has always been a favourite nook of Mary’s.—Come, Ken, you must see the place, and you can put in a good word for it with my father too. He has a great idea of your good sense, and all that.”

“I think I must put it off till another day, though I should like to see the site very much,” said Kenneth, whose wearied looks were a sufficient excuse.

With many condolences, and arranging for a meeting on the following day at Blairton, Esmae took leave of his friend and went on his way with Boston.

The day was clear and bright still, but the chilling east wind, which so often visited the glen in early spring, was now sweeping over the country. Tender young shoots, lured into life by the deceitful brightness, would be withered by its bitter-breath. “Is their fate not similar to that of my own hopes,” thought Kenneth. Had not a cruel, chilling blast swept them quite away) But after all, had he not been presumptuous, he argued with himself as he walked along, in thinking that because Mary was not to be Esmae’s bride she might one day be won by him) If he had only schooled himself into sterner repression! Why did he act on the sudden impulse which had brought him with winged feet to the glen ) Mrs. Irvine had probably long since divined that Mary was his one though hitherto deemed unattainable ideal, and she had therefore been led to build on the same visionary foundation as himself. How foolishly mistaken they both had been. But, after all, Mary Cassilis could again return to the peaceful place which she had occupied in his thoughts till a few days previously, was the thought which momentarily comforted Kenneth; and then he instantly felt that could never be. His pulses had indeed been striking the hour very often since Esmae’s announcement of his new tie had found its way to his quiet room. A long happy bit of life seemed to have been lived as he allowed his thoughts to dwell unrestrainedly on the pure, tender-hearted maiden whose image he had hitherto, with resoluteness which told of a faithful heart, endeavoured to banish from his waking dreams.

During his last visit to the glen he had seen much more of Mary than he had ever done before. How deep was the pleasure which he had taken in the shy yet eloquent talk which he had sometimes been able to win from her as they conversed together of things which had a living interest for both! How different she was from any of the other girls he ever met!

From her beautiful nature none of the bloom had been brushed off; all was pure, fresh, and open, like the mountain air round her home. Her sensitive nature seemed to shrink and quiver under the cautious, worldly platitudes constantly put forth by the factor, who was then on a visit to Rinnultrie. It surely could not be that she could find any common ground with a nature so shallow, so selfish, so sinister as Boston Burnett’s. Should he go to her now and ask her, with eager beseechings, not to wreck her happiness with such an one as he; ought he not, for her sake, to risk such an act, even though it should be the last meeting with her, round whom, a few hours ago, his life hopes had been fast clustering? Afraid of his growing impetuosity of feeling, he paused in his rapid walk as if to steady his mind for a decision.

After a long reverie he sprang from the rock on which he had flung himself, saying,—

“No, I cannot be the one to give such a warning. It has not been given to me to shield her. My task must now be to strive to forget I shall try to keep my memory down by stress of daily work; and there is plenty waiting for me to do. Falconer is working himself into an illness, I feel sure. It was selfish of me to come off here and leave him. I can see that now, though I was so infatuated before that I had no eyes for anything except my illusion,” he muttered.

Of late Kenneth had been throwing himself with all the impetus of a real vocation into the needs of the neglected city population. His spare hours had been spent in practical efforts for the amelioration of the poor. To Mr. Falconer, Kenneth’s devotion, and that of a few otherB, brought one of the purest joys of an earnest leader—that of seeing rally round the cause which he had made his own some gallant spirits who might take up the banner when it dropped from his failing hands.

Even these new and sacred interests were to Kenneth written over with pain as he turned to them in thought now; for had not Mary Cassilis thrown herself into them with deep though quiet sympathy? Never before had Kenneth felt more magnetic congeniality than he did in these talks with her. They would be a green memory for long, even though it must be the grave of a buried hope, he said to himself, checking a new wave of rebelliousness which came sweeping across his soul even as he framed his resolves.

“Yes, there is but one way open to me now. ‘Broken hearts have service in them yet,’ as the poet sings. I will go back to town and will throw myself into it all as I never did before. My work shall henceforth be the one love of my life.”

With a quick measured step, which had no dawdling in it any more, Kenneth Maxwell walked along the dusty turnpike towards Blairton. On the evening of the same day he left for Edinburgh.

“Back already, Maxwell! Why did you not make a longer stay at that charming-looking Manse of Blairton? ” said Mr. Falconer, with surprise and pleasure mingled, as Kenneth walked into his study.

“I certainly did not intend to come back so soon; but now I have decided that a few of your daily rounds will do me more good than anything else just now; so here I am ready for orders. I shall have more time to help you now than in the session; and I am sure you need it. You look tired enough.”

“Yes, I daresay. These spring days always try me. I felt a desperate hunger for the country this morning when I was out, which I suppose does mean that I am rather out of sorts. I could only keep it down, indeed, by trying to transfer my self-pity to the toiling, wretchedly-housed people among whom I was moving about Poor souls! I fancy it is but little green grass they have to do with till it waves over their graves. And there are so many spots of beauty lying within their easy reach, if they had only the heart to go beyond their toiling routine; but that will come soon, I hope. By the way, I have been thinking of a series of picnics to Arthur’s Seat, for instance. Don’t you think we might manage to make them enjoyable for them, when the weather gets more trustworthy than it is? What do you say to it, Maxwell? ”

“A splendid idea! do let us carry it out! ” cried Kenneth, looking brighter than he had done. The suggestion had indeed all the charm of novelty. It was before the days of excursion trains, of organized holidays for the working classes; concerning which it may now have indeed justly become an open question with wise philanthropists whether they have not gathered round them elements as destructive to happiness as the joyless treadmill of over-pinched labour.

“I think I shall try to arrange one of these picnics when the Assembly is sitting, by the way,” Baid Mr. Falconer. “It would be a good action to lure some of the brethren away from the ecclesiastical warfare which I fear will be waging fast and furious this year between the Non-intrusionists and the Mod-eratea I believe it will prove a better service to the Church if they would come and help to bring some of the poor strayed ones a step nearer to its fold through a new enjoyment of one of God’s gifts than a long sederunt spent in fighting for their rights will do. But you are more of a Church politician than I am, Kenneth. You do not agree with me, I know.”

“Well, no; I cannot say I da I believe there are times for everything, even for hard fighting; and I think that the friends of the old, steadfast Kirk of Scotland will do well if they buckle on their armour for a gallant struggle again this year. I cannot help believing, too, that they will be doing their best, even for your poor outcasts, by such a course. Yes; I see you are shaking your head incredulously, but you must admit that the Church has wrongs which need to be righted. And the Law Courts and she are in such collision now that the fight must be fought out without flinching on the part of the Church, or else woe betide her.

But I know you do not wish the Church to bend to all the conditions that the State wants to impose on her any more than some of the rest of us, Falconer.”

“No; certainly I do not But the difference between us is, that whereas you rather glory in the fight, it seems to me that it is a very serious evil. It disturbs quiet growth of every kind, and does grievous damage to the Christian spirit of the country. Harsh words, hard judgments are flying about on both sides, and some even among the best of our leaders seem to me far more anxious about the establishment of the Church than about its purity. This country knows by experience how easily presbyter may glide into priest, and I confess that some of these speeches of late have struck me as savouring very much of dangerously high sacerdotal pretensions.”

“I do believe you are as great an Erastian as my cousin Irvine, after alL”

“Nay, I expect rather we are wide as the poles asunder, though there can be no doubt that extremes meet occasionally. What a charming .man your cousin seemed! I don’t know that I ever told you how much I admired him.”

“Oh yes, he is a capital fellow; but he is in very bad humour just now. Like so many of these older ministers, he is irate at the direction in which Church politics are clearly tending. Their position deserves much more sympathy than yours, to my thinking. The fact is, the question of the connection between the Kirk and the State pretty much slumbered during their earlier lives, and its being raised now only creates discomfort to these good old Tories. They watch with real panic what they believe to be the rash, revolutionary acts of the Non-intrusion leaders; whereas you, Falconer, find fault with the party that, after all, is fighting bravely for what you really want for your lapsed masses. If the reformers win the day, I quite perceive that it will bring to an end a tranquil cycle in the Scottish Kirk, one on which we may look back with regretful tenderness when the moss is growing green over its grave. The Church is sure to get more democratic. The old surroundings, physical and social, must go. The new order of things, with all this ecclesiastical strife in the background, will destroy the old frank cordiality of social life, will sweep away many time-honoured amenities connected with the clerical profession. The thought of these changes to a deeply conservative nature, like John Irvine’s, for instance, is bitter indeed. But for you, Mr. Falconer, if you would only believe it, this struggle is really a big stride towards your millennium.”

“Ah, that has always been the watchword of reformers—of revolutionists. A millennium has always been part of their programme.”

“Ungrateful man! And have they not by their efforts been bringing us nearer it, helping on that far-off perfect time which will be the end—and the beginning too!” added Kenneth in an earnest tone, revealing that already other visions were haunting the heart which had bowed itself to accept the sudden quenching of its cherished earthly dream.

Well, I must say I envy your entire sympathy with the movement, Maxwell, though I cannot attain to it, and I am afraid I never shall. Somehow, its jarring notes have always been more present to my mind than its harmonies, and I turn with renewed comfort to thoughts of that larger sphere of religion which is lifted calm and secure from the conflict of opinions, from the passing controversies of the day. It is so easy to begin to look at everything in heaven and earth through the distorting medium of party prejudice. The bitterness, the heat, the whole present outcome of the agitation has been so repelling; and it certainly does seem to have had a most unhallowing effect on even some of the noble spirits who have thrown themselves into it most heartily.”

“Ah, that is because you have kept yourself a spectator merely; you look down on the battle-field from a height where you can see and hear only what is most jarring—the din, the dust, the confusion of the fight which is waging; but when you are led afterwards into the peaceful country for which liberty and repose have been won by that hard-fought fight, then you will forget the painful sights and sounds, and say, ‘ Well done, ”

“Come, Maxwell, your parable is too hard on ma Besides, it is one-sided, as parables generally are; but I grant there is some truth in it, as far as I am concerned. I must go now,” added Mr. Falconer, glancing at his watch. “I have an appointment. I am under a promise to visit a sick person who has sent for me this afternoon. Are you inclined to accompany me so far?”

As the friends walked arm in arm along the busy streets, and the eager city missionary shared with him further projects about the work nearest his heart, Kenneth told him that he would find in him a willing helper—that he had no holiday plans except those Mr. Falconer might make for him. It was, indeed, good news for the overworked man. Very welcome to him also was the evidence in every tone of the new spirit of consecration which seemed to possess his gallant young lieutenant Glancing at his grave, earnest face, as he bade him good-bye, Mr. Falconer thought he saw traces of a hidden discipline which had been at work since they last met But if, as it seemed to be, it was a chastening which had already begun to work peaceable fruits of righteousness, was it not truly joyous rather than grievous, was his thought, as he sprung lightly up the steps of the house where he had his appointment It was a comfortable, well-appointed looking abode, in a neighbourhood considerably higher in the social scale than any of the other homes in Mr. Falconer’s beat He had, however, known one at least of its occupants when her dwelling was in a much less fashionable quarter than the present He was evidently an expected visitor. The sedate parlour-maid who answered the bell said promptly, as she led the way, “Please, sir, step upstairs. The mistress is waiting for you.”

Mr. Falconer was ushered into a bedroom, the plain furnishings of which formed a marked contrast to the elegant fittings of the other portions of the house. Its occupant, as she frequently reminded her ambitious son, had been used to plain surroundings and plain ways in her youth, and felt most at home among them.

She was seated now in a haircloth easy-chair. An old shepherd-tartan plaid was wrapped round her shoulders. Medicine phials, an open Bible, and an old worn copy of the Olney Hymns, and a companion one of Bogatsky’s Golden Treasury, made the furnishings of the little table by her side. The ravages of disease were clearly visible in the enfeebled frame, sunken cheeks, and hollow eyes of the invalid. “I was sorry I had to send for you so soon again, sir. But I was anxious to have a few words with you, though indeed it is not fair to trouble you when you have so much to do, and so far from strong either,” said Mrs. Richard Burnett, chronically apologetic as of old. “I am getting worse, sir. The doctor was here this morning, and told me that the end could not be veiy far off. It is a solemn thought, sir.”

“Well, I am sure you have borne your great suffering very uncomplainingly, Mrs. Burnett; and I do not forget that you have told me many times lately that you were ready, longing to go when God’s time came.”

“I am, sir; that is quite true; for I have had a troubled life—many sorrows to bear from the time I was quite young. But since I have had so much hope out of the gospel message as I heard it from your lips, sir, when God sent you to be minister of that church near where we used to live, I have had much surer hopes for another world than I had through all my great troubles. It was a great grief to me, sir, that I could not sit under you any more when my son brought me to this neighbourhood. I have no liking for that place of worship that he would have me go to with him till my sore sickness broke me down. It seemed as if I never got a grain of comfort there. But Boston has always been a very masterful lad, sir; since he was a little infant there was a highness of spirit about him that I was never rightly able to understand—not knowing where it came from,” wound up Mrs. Burnett, ruefully shaking her head.

“You see I have not the pleasure of knowing your son; but I think, from what you have told me, that he has been a comfort to you in many ways, has he not?”

“Yes, yes; Boston is a well-doing lad; nobody can deny that,” replied Mrs. Burnett wearily. “ But, sir,” she added, after a pause, “if he had been a little less masterful, less clever, it would have maybe been happier for me. I might have had a more peaceful heart than I have to-day. It is about a matter concerning him that is lying heavy on my spirit, and has done so for many a year, that I have sent for you now, sir.

“God knows that I did what I did with no intent of deceit; but there was, maybe, a time when I should have made bold and spoke out the truth. I think I see now that I just let the right minute slip, and after that it grew more and more difficult, for he was ever masterful, sir; and it is this failing to speak out that makes the thorn in my dying pillow. I have in past times told you a little of our history, sir. My parents emigrated with me to America when I was a growing girl. My father, a carpenter by trade, soon got plenty of work, for he was an honest, good workman. An old friend’s son, Andrew Black, came across and joined him. They were driving a good trade when my father died. Soon after, I married Andrew Black; but he died of a bad fever a month after our son Boston was bom. It was a great sorrow to me, for he was a good husband Andrew. My mother nursed him and caught the fever, and within six weeks of my child’s birth he and I were left alone in that strange country. A year afterwards I took the foolish step of marrying Richard Burnett. He was a gentleman—belonged to a very ancient family, it is true. He had good looks too, and a winning way with him at times. Sore did I repent, when it was too late, of haying had anything to do with an evil-doer like him; but he did not trouble me long. One son was bora to us, but he died when he was teething. When Boston was seven, I sailed with him and came to Edinburgh, for I thought I should feel more homelike in the town where I was bora, though I had neither kith nor kin in it, and I heard there was good schooling there. Maybe I spoiled the lad from the first; for every year he grew more masterful, and before I guessed that anything of the kind was going on in him, there had got a terrible pride into his heart about being a Burnett of Rinaultrie. For without a thought about it I gave the year-old child my last husband’s name when I took it myself, just for convenience’ sake. Indeed, sir, many is the time I regretted that at his death I did not think of taking again the decent name of ray first husband. When I saw how pleased Boston was at the thought of belonging to the ancient family, I feared to tell him the truth. There lies my sin, sir; I know it too well now, and have done so this many a weary day.

“The beginning of it was, I think, that he happened to lay his hands on Richard Burnett’s leather-covered box where he kept his papers. I meant to burn them before I left Boston, but always put off till I had the mind to look over them. He read and read all about the Burnetts he could pick up there and elsewhere; and then he forgathered with the laird of Rin-aultrie’s son at the High School, and so the connection grew in spite of all I could do.”

“And did the owner of Rinaultrie know of his brother’s marriage to you, and of the birth and death of his infant son? ” asked Mr. Falconer.

“He did. It was to announce the birth of his son that Richard first broke the silence there had been, he said, for many a year between them. Mr. Burnett sent a kind letter back with a great present of money, and told his brother that he was heartily glad to hear that he was respectably married. And just then, I remember, our minister who married us told me that he had got a letter from some Edinburgh lawyer making inquiries about the matter. Indeed I did not wonder, for Richard’s word was not to trust to, as I knew well; and Mr. Brown told me that since the questions had been mostly about me, he had been glad to be able to tell that I was a decent, respectable woman, though not come of gentlefolks, as I daresay they would have liked. Mr. Brown died before my husband, and a great loss he was to many in the town; but soon after Richard’s death I sent a notice of it myself to Mr. Burnett of Rinaultrie, and that was all I ever had to do with them, or would have had, if poor Boston had not been so set on making up to them alL”

“And you have never to this day had the courage to tell your son that his name is Black and not Burnett) I can quite understand your having called him by his step-father’s name when he was a child, but it was certainly a wrong to himself as well as to his dead father’s memory that you should have withheld the fact from him, especially when it began to lead him into personating a false character,” said Mr. Falconer gravely.

“But I never, never meant that he should do that; God knows I did not! How could I dream that poor humble folk like us would forgather with the like of the Burnetts) Don’t be hard on me, sir; I cannot stand it in my weak state,” said Mrs. Burnett in a quavering voice.

“I have no wish to be so, Mrs. Burnett. But, of course, you see that your present duly is clear. You should acquaint your son with these facts at once. He should certainly be undeceived without an hour’s delay. It is fair to none of the parties concerned that the matter should remain as it is.”

There was a quiet firmness in Mr. Falconer’s tone as he fixed his clear eyes on Mrs. Burnett’s face which was evidently as disturbing to her as the manner of her masterful son. She covered her face with her hands, sobbing.

Nothing daunted, Mr. Falconer went on: “I can quite understand how such a persevered-in concealment must have been fruitful of much disquietude of spirit for many a day—must, indeed, have come between your soul and true fellowship with your heavenly Father; and I feel sure that you will now seek his strength for the trying duty. It is indeed a great responsibility to let another day pass without telling your son what his true footing in society is.”

“It cannot be before another day, sir, even though I could make up my mind,” sobbed Mrs. Burnett “He is up in the north with these Burnetts even now. His heart is just bound up in these people and all that concerns them. Oh, sir, you do not know what a sore trouble his falling in with them has been to me! It has come upon me at every turn. And I did all I could to put a stop to the friendship. Never have I set foot on their lands, though I have been civilly invited many a time by that winsome lad Mr. Esmae, and even by Mr. Burnett himself. True enough, I was his own brother’s wedded wife; but I daresay he would have been willing enough to forget that such an evil-doer as Richard was ever connected with him, for they say he is a well-living man himself. I always said to Boston—and many a passion he got into with me for saying it— that it was not for the like of me, a person brought up in humble life, to be mixing with the gentry.”

“Naturally enough he felt angry; but when you tell him all, he will sympathize with your feelings towards Mr. Burnett and his family. And if he has a true manly heart, I think you will have the pleasure of seeing that he will be a happier man than he was before he knew that, instead of being the son of a disgraced gentleman, he is the offspring of worthy, honourable peasant folks.”

“Oh, but you do not know him! He has just a most extraordinary pride of the birth he thinks his own. I have often thought it was like a judgment on me for my want of courage to tell him the truth.”

“It may be so. Certain it is that we can commit no sin without its train of evil consequences following sooner or later. Allow me to urge you again once more before I go to make known to your son at the earliest opportunity all that you have now told me,” said Mr. Falconer, and kneeling down by the side of the little table he offered some words of prayer.

“I will try to take your advice, sir—I will indeed,” said Mrs. Burnett, looking timidly up in his face; “but you don’t know how masterful he is, and in my suffering state it may be more than I am fft for—indeed, I may never live to speak the words T have kept back for so many a day when the Almighty gave me the health to speak them. In case it should be so, sir, might I make bold to trouble you with a packet of letters to give to him from me if so be that I should not have the strength left to say anything or to tell all I would have to do to satisfy him on the point I found these old letters the other day I was sorting among my things, for I have begun to set my house in order, you see, Mr. Falconer. I feel the time is near. They are mostly bits of letters to me from Boston’s father when he was away anywhere on a job after we were engaged to be married and when I was his wife; and there are the certificates of both my marriages, a note of the birth of Boston and of the infant who died, and I have just added a few words to my dear boy himself to ask him to forgive his poor weak mother for the wrong she has done him in keeping back the truth so long.”

Mr. Falconer appeared to hesitate for a moment, and then he took the sealed packet and put it into his pocket, saying;

“Well, I shall keep it for the present, but I hope to get a message from you very soon asking me to return it, so that you yourself may place it in your son’s hands. That will be the true reparation.”

With renewed thanks for his visit and fresh commiseration on his worn, tired looks, Mrs. Richard Burnett took a tearful farewell of her favourite clergyman.

Mr. Falconer’s pale, jaded appearance, which had so particularly struck both Kenneth Maxwell and Mrs. Burnett, was indeed indicative of a very fragile condition of body. Walking with unconscious haste along the lamp-lit street absorbed in his thoughts, he felt himself suddenly attacked by deadly faintness. It followed a violent fit of coughing, which had, perforce, obliged him to pause in his rapid walk. In another moment, a crimson flow streamed from his blanched lips, and he would have fallen had he not been supported by a kindly passer-by. He had hardly strength left to whisper the address of his house and a request that a cab should be called, when he fainted away.

CHAPTER XVII
“Si Jeunesse savait et si veillesse pouvait.”

“Is Mr. Gordon at home, Nancy?” asked Esmae Burnett one afternoon, among the early days of August, as he walked into the Manse of Asloune, its habitually open entrance-door giving a right-of-way to all comers. To be sure, the wished-for “word wi’ the minister ” was oftener a consultation about the breeding and rearing of cattle or the rotation of crops, rather than inquiries of burdened souls after “yonder wicket gate.” It must, however, also be admitted that the place which this kindly, upright, unselfish parish priest held among his flock was one which many a more enlightened shepherd in many a Scottish parish might well envy.

The room into which the old housekeeper ushered the visitor had been one of Esmae’s favourite haunts since his babyhood. It was the minister’s study, though it must be acknowledged that theological and literary interests hardly seemed to hold their own within its borders. They were, indeed, represented solely by a musty company of big leathern volumes huddled together in one comer of its many shelves; but where could you find such perfect stags’ heads as those that looked down with great branching antlers from the old walls? And about that cluster of foxes’ tails which hung in the comer, was there not a thrilling story connected with each individual brush, all of which were once known to Esmae? The otter and badger skins had their interesting histories, too; but the keen little terriers who had hunted them down were not represented there, though they had long since finished their flying, yelping existence; and their fluffy silken coats might, with the aid of stuffing and glass eyes, have added to the manse museum, except that the minister would have deemed such a use of his eager little departed companions sacrilegious indeed. But Esmae knew where to find their honoured graves,—underneath the great spreading old willow-tree in a peaceful comer of the manse garden.

The minister’s study also abounded in curiosities from far countries, the offerings of affectionate travellers. The yellowing white paw of a big Polar bear, which used to be the little boy’s favourite seat long ago, still held its place on the rug. Eskimo knives, Persian scimitars, Spanish rapiers, mingled with the wall collection of weapons, which was a more interesting one to Esmae than the imposing armoury of his own ancestral halL The leather loops for his favourite gun, which he remembered Mr. Gordon, with his own hands, nailing to the wall above the chimney-piece, still hung there; but they were empty for the present, the gun being between the minister’s knees at the moment undergoing its periodical cleaning. The little box with its soiled leathers, its pots of pastes and oils, which stood by the old gentleman’s side, was as familiar to Esmae as the other furnishings of the study. He had often watched with intense interest the process which was now going on; and in his early enthusiasm he used to vow that his gun should never be consigned to the care of keepers, as was the Rinaultrie custom, but that its locks and barrels and woodwork should be duly polished by his own fingers. It was, however, many a day since Esmae had broken that vow, as well, alas! as some others more important belonging to those happy early times.

With Mr. Gordon young Rinaultrie was a special favourite. The blank made to him by Esmae’s leaving the glen when his Edinburgh school life began was never filled up, and none welcomed his return home more than ha Mr. Gordon did not conceal his disappointment when the announcement of his favourite’s engagement took place. He had no liking for the elder Cranstowns, and had always looked on their family as extremely badly brought up; and, moreover, he also, perhaps more than he had previously been conscious of till the hope was thwarted, had set his heart on the union between the two old families, for both of which he had cherished a life-long friendship. Mr. Gordon had gone so far as to expostulate warmly with Esmae on the step he had taken. Whether as the result of this, or that Esmae’s time and interests had been diverted into different channels of late, his visits to the manse had been much less frequent than of old.

“What has brought the lad here to-night? There is something ailing him, I can see,” reflected the minister as he stood washing his hands, soiled from his gun-cleaning, in the little dressing-room which opened out of his study. With towel still in hand, rubbing his fingers energetically, he emerged to have another scrutiny of his visitor.

“I remember everything as if I had played with them yesterday, Mr. Gordon,” said Esmae glancing round him. “There is the comer where I used to go to find the whip-cord, and it is there yet; and that is tKe drawer you used to keep your hooks and your fishing-tackle in; and there is the old fiddle I wanted so to learn to play. What happy days those were,” he added with a sigh.

“That is a big sigh for you to be giving, my lad; you should leave such groans for old fellows like me. Even the cleaning of my old gun is melancholy to me now, for it reminds me that we shall not be able to scour the heather together much longer. I have got all the rust off it now,! think,” he added, handling it affectionately. “Eut old Father Time cannot do the same for me. Creaking locks and hinges are coming fast glance on Esmae, who, he thought, hardly realized sufficiently how ill his father was during the previous autumn. “We are bound to go over to the majority before very long. It was just about this time last year, was it not, that the laird began to give in?”

“Yes, it is just about a year ago; and I can see that he is not his old self yet, though he says the moors are all that he requires now to set him up. But he is awfully done-up-look-ing often. That is one reason why I do not like to trouble him more than I can help,” said Esmae slowly; and then glancing with his clear, frank eyes into Mr. Gordon’s face, he added, “I am in great trouble. It is only a few hours old, the worst of it at least, but I feel as if I had carried the load a long life-time. It is the result of a talk I had with Boston this afternoon. Not but that I might not have realized it before; but I have been very foolish, Mr. Gordon.”

“It is that girl He has found her out already,” mentally growled the old gentleman; but what he said was, and that in his kindliest tone, “I think I have a guess what your trouble is, and right glad I am that you have come to your own and your father’s friend for all the help he can give you; but to tell the truth, Esmae, I am not much skilled in the ways of women. I rather hold the same opinion of them as old deaf Meggy formulates concerning the ‘male sect,—that they are ‘ no to lippen til.’ I’ve no doubt, however, that Meggy and I make some exceptions. Mary Cassilis, for instance, is a great favourite of mine; and I must say it goes terribly against the grain with me to see that that surly fellow, your cousin, is a favoured Buitor,” Mr. Gordon went on, carried away by what he supposed was Esmae’s lead. “It is the very last thing I should have thought likely to happen—that also quite accords with old Meggy’s theory, that if marriages are made in heaven there must be a terrible jumble i’ the doon-comin’.’ However, you cannot call Boston in question, you see, my boy. You have made your choice of the pretty Miss Ada; so you have not any right to object to your cousin’s good fortuna”

“Boston Mary Cassilis’s favoured suitor, Mr. Gordon!” gasped Esmaa “What a joka Who invented that, I wonder! It is worthy only of Miss Joan Pimie. Why, it is just about the last thing in the world that could possibly happen. Mary and Boston never did get on well together. I used to tease Mary that she had what Miss Joan calls a ‘ pick ’ at the poor fellow.”

“Young women sometimes change their minds, though,” remarked Mr. Gordon. “And when you see a clear assignation in a quiet corner of the fir-wood between two young folks, be they gentle or simple, even a dull old fellow like myself begins to prick up his ears and suspect mischief, otherwise called love-making.”

“A secret meeting between Mary and Boston! Impossible!” cried Esmae, his face now all aflame with indignation. “I thought you knew Miss Joan better than believe her lies. It is a wicked slander, Mr. Gordon. Of course they may have chanced to meet in the wood a dozen times; but anything else is simply ridiculous to think of—laughable, if it did not make a fellow downright angry. There is not a word of truth in it even so far as Boston is concerned. He never thought of such a thing. Mary is as heaven and above the earth higher than he is; and he knows that very well. He sometimes makes a boast, you know, of a small aim and end in life, holds it up as his ideal as well as his practice; and I have often seen Mary look very cold and displeased over such speeches, and, indeed, they have often annoyed even me, though perhaps I have little right to feel so; for if I do happen to have higher ideals than Boston, they do not, on the whole, come to more, or so much, as his rather contemptible theories, but steady practice of virtue. This bit of vile gossip must be squashed at once though. If it did emanate from Miss Joan, it will not be difficult to do; everybody knows her propensities so well Now, do tell me, Mr. Gordon.”

“Iam sure I am heartily glad to hear that you think there is some mistake in my impression about the matter,”’ replied Mr. Gordon, quite unconvinced. “I may tell you, however, that the blame of it does not lie at Miss Joan’s door, at least I am not aware that she has been spreading the news as yet But this, then, was not the trouble that brought you here today? What was it? Come, let me hear what ails you, my boy,” said Mr. Gordon, fortifying himself with a heavy pinch of snuff, and then bending forward with a kindly gesture to listen to his young visitor.

“Oh, it is a long story, Mr. Gordon. But I had better tell you, to begin with; that I brought all the mess on myself with my foolish ways. It was after I left college and went into the office that things began to go wrong. I ran through my allowance and got into debt before I had an idea what I was about I really can’t tell you exactly how the money went I had no single very big debts, but money has, somehow, always a trick of slipping through my fingers, even though I have no heavy expenses. When I was at college, I did not go in for betting at all, and only mildly for supper parties; but even then I used always to be hard up before my money was due, though I used to manage to tide through then. It was really a horrible shock to me to discover suddenly one day that I was three hundred pounds in debt At first I thought of nothing but rushing up home and making a clean breast of it all to my father, though I felt awfully sorry to trouble dear old daddy; besides, you know, he never himself has the ready money he wants for necessary things. Boston happened to come up to my desk just when my worry was at its height, and I told him my difficulties. He was very kind and sympathizing, I remember; and after a little he said that lie thought it would really be a pity to bother my father about it, and that he thought he knew where he could get the loan of the sum I wanted. That very evening, just when I was thinking that, after all, I would screw up my courage and make a clean breast of it to daddy, Boston walked into my room with the news that he had managed the loan. I arranged to pay the interest, and did so, till Boston ceased to deduct it from my allowance, which happened, through office arrangements, to pass through his hands. He never mentioned the matter, and I suppose I must have taken for granted at the time that all was paid up. I remember meaning to ask him all about it, but I clean forgot Of course it was very careless of me; and now this morning, before he left for Edinburgh, he put a paper into my hand, which shows me on black and white that I am still due two hundred pounds. And he coolly told me for the first time that he himself was the lender, and hinted that he was hard pressed for the money. I fancied all the while that I had been dealing, through him, with some orthodox usurer, as Boston arranged so strictly about the payments of the interest; but why he should have suddenly ceased to deduct it from my allowance, only to come down on me now, I can’t quite make out.”

At this point Mr. Gordon, who had been listening with keen attention to Esmae’s narration, gave a low whistle, followed by a series of nods—a frequent commentary of his.

“Mind, though, I don’t mean to say that Boston has not acted quite fairly about the whole thing,” said Esmae eagerly. “Only, as I told him, it was mistaken kindness not to tell me the truth long ago, and then I might have been saving out of my monthly allowance, whereas now it will put me into a dreadful mess; and I can see Boston is determined to have back his money at once. And this is what I came to consult you about, or rather about a proposal he has made, has urged on me, and I can’t for the life of me decide what to do about the matter. He insists that my father, in spite of his large rental, is really a very poor man, poorer than he had any idea of till lately, and that he thinks it very foolish of me to be loafing about doing nothing up here, and says it is just my father’s weakness, and all that, which prevents his seeing it in the same light He proposes that I should begin to agitate about my old plan of entering the army. I am not over age yet, and my father has good influence; Boston assures me that with my present allowance and my pay I should be able to live quite comfortably. About the money for the commission, he said he thought it could be raised, that Mr. Cranstown could see to that; and I really believe there is some truth in what he Bays, that Ada would appreciate the gayer life much more than being half buried up in the north here. My father told me the other day that he really thought it would be the best thing for me to marry at once and bring Ada to Rinaultrie; but Boston seems very much against that, for some reason or other.”

“The fellow! do not listen to him, the selfish, designing young cub f ” thundered out Mr. Gordon, with an ebullition of pent-up wrath. “I can see quite well what he is driving at. If you were banished to the ends of the earth, he thinks he would get] into more favour with your father, and be allowed to potter about the place as he did this time last year, till the very beasts of the field and the fowls of the air began to hate him, not to speak of all the human beings about the place. Don’t you go and fall into his snares, my boy. Why, in the name of wonder, should you go in for soldiering or anything else! Stick to the land that is your father’s, and must be yours some of these days—though, like all faithful Asloune folk, I pray that the change may not come in my time. And you are getting to be a great help to your father; he was telling me so only yesterday. The scoundrel! it is a regular plot he has been hatching,” scowled Mr. Gordon, as he refreshed himself with another helping of snuff, and passing the well-thumbed silver box on to Esmae, who in his whipcord and marble-playing days had been more ambitious to partake of its contents than now.

But you must not be so hard on Boston, or I shall be sorry I have told you all this,” said he now with some eagerness. “The fact is, I wanted some relief from my own thoughts, and some advice about the practical side of the question. I have been in a regular state of misery all day with the thought of my debt and everything else. I felt as if I could hardly look daddy in the face, and I cannot make up my mind to take Boston’s advice and leave Rinaultrie either. I do think I am of some use to my father, and he will always need me more as he gets frailer; but I think also there is a good deal in what Boston says.”

“Nothing but the blackest mischief!” roared Mr. Gordon, with the last syllable of “mischief ” strongly accented, a pronunciation in which he always indulged when he was very irate. “And I’ll tell you what it is, Esmae,” he continued emphatically—“you must not be under a grain of obligation to that fellow a day longer, even though you should have to make a clean breast of the whole thing to the laird. That certainly would have its good, wholesome side, as it would likely end in your cousin’s being forbidden Rinaultrie, which would be a mighty good riddance, upon my word.”

“But that is just what I dare not do; it would put my father terribly about, I assure you. He is much more easily worried than he used to be. I really would not risk it for anything. No; it really seems to me that Boston’s plan is not the worst one, after all. You know, I daresay, that my father lost some money lately. As Boston Bays, he really has not a spare fifty pounds at this present moment; so there is no use of my asking him to pay my debt, putting aside the question of the vexation it would be to him if he knew the truth. But I must get out of the mess somehow, and I think I had almost made up my mind really before I came here that it would be best to try the army after all. So, what I want you to do, Mr.

Gordon, is to talk over my father to consenting to my going and trying to earn my bread somehow. I confess I don’t quite see how it can be the army, after all, for in the same breath as Boston assured me that there would not be the slightest difficulty about my commission, he also said that he knew my father happened to be desperately hard up just now. If I could only think of anything I could do to make money by,” said Esmae ruefully.

“Nothing, Esmae, except to stick by your old father and keep a sharp eye on all intruders,” replied Mr. Gordon emphatically. “The base-hearted fellow, to have manufactured such a scheme! It is worse than what I could have believed of Dick Burnett’s son, I declare,” muttered the old man, rubbing his furrowed forehead as he sat thinking. “Yes, that will do,” was the summing up of his meditations, after a few moments’ silence. “I see how it can be managed without the least difficulty, without any inconvenience to anybody. You must not be beholden to that young blackguard a day longer while your own and your father’s friend has the money lying uselessly by. I shall lend you the two hundred pounds myself. There now; not a word about it It is settled.”

“Impossible, Mr. Gordon. I can never consent to such a thing. That was not in the remotest comer of my mind, besides, when I came to consult you.”

“You do not need to tell me that, my boy. I know it only too welL Indeed, it strikes me that it would be a deal better for yourself if you were a schemer, seeing you have such a conspirator of a cousin to deal with. Your uncle Richard was a bad lot, as all the strath knows well, and I suspect this is a chip of the old block.”

“Oh, no indeed; you are quite wrong there. Boston is most exemplary.! expect’ I am nearer being the black sheep among the Burnetts than any other member of the family at present,” said Esmae with a laugh.

“Whist, boy! do not let us hear you say things like that even in fun. Joking apart, Esmae, I grant that I have been not a little anxious about you for the last year or two; maybe all the more so, my lad, seeing you have not always had the best of examples set to you by some of your elders,” Baid Mr. Gordon with a heavy sigh; and, on glancing at him, Esmae noticed that a tear was glistening in his eye. This new glimpse of his old friend’s heart touched inexpressibly Esmae’s young spirit,

“To hear you speak so, makes me feel all the more sorry that I have not been so good as I know I might have been if I had tried hard enough; but I always gave in. Really it is much more difficult to do right than I once thought,” he said simply.

The old faded eyes were fixed on the youth with an inexpressibly tender glance as he listened.

“Ay, Esmae, you are right; it is difficult,” he replied slowly. “And the earlier we begin the battle, the better for us. It comes harder upon us when the follies we slipped into, but maybe once never thought to repeat, have stiffened into habits; that I can answer for. But, after all, we would not like the struggle against evil to be a sham-fight; we both hate shams, do we not? Let us take heart The Almighty is faithful. Never doubt that; and if we could grow more faithful in our struggles against our evil natures, Esmae—you with your young, tender heart, and I with my old, withered one— there will be better days in store for us yet. But your fight must be among your native hills, my boy. This is the beginning of my better advice to you, mind. Believe me. It is your minister who exhorts you, remember. Another is, to get rid of that debt to your cousin, and never to have any more business dealings with that fellow as long as you both do live.”

“Yes, but not in the way you say, Mr. Gordon—by walking into debt to you. That would be a very shabby way of beginning to whitewash myself, a very poor method of following your advice. Why, it is something very different we should do.

My father is always lamenting that he cannot make yon more oomfortable, by sweeping away this old, tumble-down house, and building a new manse farther up the hilL Why should you not have as good a house as Mr. Irvine or Mr. Qrahame, except that the patron of Asloune has always been so hard up. I am only beginning now to realize where the shoe pinches, remember; lately my father has spoken to me about all these difficulties much more than he did before. He was talking only yesterday about the manse, and he said that there was not a man in a thousand who would have put up with the wretched inconveniences of the place as you have; and that ever since you knew he was pressed for money, you never even mentioned what a ruin it is.”

“Well, it would be an ugly thing, truly, to badger a care-burdened man about The manse is good enough for us;—is it not, Sam?” he said, stroking affectionately the old brown setter lying at his feet “No, Esmae, I knew that you would not like taking your old friend’s savings, and I racked my brain for some other plan before I mentioned this one; but I can think of no other, so you must just agree to this one with as good grace as possible. If you could only believe what a downright pleasure it is for me to help you, you would not make such a fuss. Come, lad, show yourself a big-hearted Burnett—know how to take gracefully as well as how to give,” said the minister, rising with a quick gesture; and putting both his hands on Esmae’s shoulders, he looked into his face, saying, “You are looking so like your mother, boy; she was the sweetest woman I ever knew, Mary Home. God bless you! I am right glad you came to me in your trouble to-night—gladder than you can guess. And now you won’t vex an old man.” And going to his desk, he soon unlocked it and took out his cheque-book. Esmae was leaning against the chimney-piece with an air of perplexity, when he handed him the cheque, saying: “Take a run up to Edinburgh to-morrow, and get this cashed; my draft will admit of that Put the money you are due to your cousin into his hands at once, and finish that bit of his game, at all events. And mind, Esmae, prompt payments to me every quarter-day. Sam and I are a couple of sharp old fellows;—are we not, Sam? Come and we will let loose your less favoured brethren from their chains, and take a stroll with our young friend here; we’ll see him off the premises, at all events.”

“Well, Mr. Gordon, I shall never forget your kindness to me to-night. It is so awfully good of you all this. I must say it rather stung me this morning when I found who my creditor was; but I have not the same feeling in taking this loan from you, somehow. I don’t think it was quite fair of Boston to keep it a secret all this time, or, indeed, to conceal it at all I can’t think what his motive was. But won’t I save now till I can pay this generous loan. Oh, it is so jolly to feel lighthearted once more,” cried Esmae, stepping out of the darkening manse porch. And Mr. Gordon’s face was scarcely less beaming than his own when he went to set loose his dogs for their walk in the gloaming.

Boston, the misjudged for once, had, meanwhile, been speeding on his southward way, supported by the happy consciousness which the recollection of having performed a kind action brings. Mary Cassilis had continued to urge so eagerly that steps should be taken without delay to loosen, in some way, Esmae’s ever tightening bond to his beloved home, and to find for him new work and new interests elsewhere. So determi-nately had she held to this or the other alternative, that of at once divulging Boston’s secret, that he found himself shut up to one or another of these courses.. To make known his discovery at once was a climax from which, for the present, he decidedly shrank — the reason being partly that he had, perhaps, more than for any other human being in the world, something approaching to affection for the generous-hearted laird who had to his own loss ruled with such paternal kindness over his lands. Moreover, Boston had from childhood & certain prudent instinct, which he called to his aid in his decision to maintain silence for the time being. The cake was his; why should he be in such a hurry to exhaust its plums? There were enough for many feasts, surely, and was there not a charm in the expectancy of the sweetnesses which had its own peculiar pleasure? Had not the great lawyer, whom he consulted on making the discovery of his rights, congratulated him on the generous spirit which he showed in his announced fixed intention to hold them in abeyance during the lifetime of the present laird? And certainly, when the facts were all known, his triumph would be greater in the end—would bring to him a large amount of that social esteem which he coveted quite as much as he used to do the broad acres of Binaultrie before he knew that they were his very own. So when Mary, with more agitation each time, supplicated him to make known his secret, he endeavoured, with all the soothing plausibility at his command, to prove to her that such a course would be most destructive to the happiness of those whose interests she had at heart; but when she insisted on the other alternative, it was not so easy for him to declare that he would not take any action. If he wished to please Mary, which he felt increasingly that he did, every time her beautiful beseeching gaze met his, then he must throw himself with, at all events, some show of eagerness into this great desire of hers, especially since Esmae’s engagement made him feel so comfortably certain that her interest in her old play-fellow was purely a Platonic one. It was, therefore, with fairly good intentions that Boston had evolved the scheme out of which had grown the revelation so perturbing to Esmae.

It was previous to the discovery which now made him feel triumphant master of the situation that Boston had planned the poor little device of concealing from his cousin his obligations to him, bo that he might, if circumstances required, use the fact to strengthen his hold. But circumstances being all the other way now, this slender hold was valueless, and for Mary’s sweet sake how gladly would he have made a greater sacrifice, he said to himself as he decided on the morning of his leaving the castle, to put a statement of the arrears of Esmac’s payments side by side with the proposal that he should in some spirited way help himself, Mary’s offer of assistance only being thrown out as a mysterious hint; for Boston very strongly agreed with Miss Cassilis senior, that her suggestion was impracticable—that it would be impossible for her to persuade the laird to accede to her proposal, and without his permission, as her guardian, he assured her it could not be carried through.

Still Mary clung to the idea, and had parted from Boston on the previous afternoon with an almost grateful look on her face when he promised that. before he left Binaultrie, he would not fail to have a private interview with Esmae, and do all that lay in his power to further her plans.

Nor did he guess how unsuccessful he had been till two days after his arrival in town, when Esmae took him by surprise by walking into the business room, which was now assigned to him as confidential clerk, and after a preamble, through which his wounded feelings shone, Esmae handed to him the sum which Boston stated he was still owing him. The marked traces of coldness and of some approach to distrust in his manner stung Boston to the quick.

With reference to the proposals of the previous week, Esmae said briefly that he had considered his suggestion of taking up some new work; but decided that it was, in every way, better for him to remain at Binaultrie and give his father what help he could. Topics of conversation proved scarce between the cousins on this occasion; and constrained to the end of the interview, Esmae abruptly took his leave.

Boston with vexation turned again to his work and vainly endeavoured to concentrate his thoughts. “After all, the disappointment is not mine but hers. The plan was too forced, too artificial to succeed; but she was so wilful about it; and to be sure, for her sake, I can stand Master Esmae’s grand displeasure,” he muttered. Deciding that the sooner Mary knew of the failure of her Quixotic scheme the better, he pushed aside his business papers, and began, nothing loath, to indite a letter in his pleasantest style to the young inmate of Mirk-wood. He had just finished what he considered a highly satisfactory production, and was engaged smilingly in folding it for the post, when a messenger from his house came to tell him that his mother was worse, and that his presence would be desirable without delay.

Was this really going to be the end of the long, painful illness which his mother had borne with such fortitude, Boston pondered sadly as he was being driven along the streets to his home. What a good mother she had been, he thought as he recalled his past history, no part of which had been without many proofs of her devotion, and how sad it seemed that she should die now, just when he was beginning to be able to repay some of her kindness by making her life brighter and easier than it had probably ever been before. She was not an old woman yet She might have lived to a good old age, and he would have been glad to have made it happy and comfortable to the end. And was it not hard, too, that she should not live long enough to share in that entering into his rights which would raise him from the toiling law clerk to the landed gentleman!—so hard, indeed, that he decided with a sudden generous impulse, that, averse as he had been to share this discovery with her, he must, at last, really give her the pride and pleasure of knowing it before she died. Humble-minded to provocation as she was, surely she could not help, even in her last hours, sharing in his triumph; and her meekness of spirit would save her from the vain regret which might have imbittered to some minds the thought that this wonderful rise in the world had not come in her day. Yes, since the end seemed so near, prudential motives need keep him silent no longer; and there would be a melancholy pleasure, even at this sad hour, in sharing his hopes with the person who loved him best With an eager decision that he would tell her all, he hurried into her sick-room.

“I sent for you, Boston. I hope it has not been a trouble for you to leave the office. I do not think I am much worse; but the weakness grows, and I feel the end cannot be far off. I thought I would just like to speak a few words to you as long as I had the strength left,’ she said slowly as she feebly held out her wasted hand and glanced at him timidly.

“Yes, mother; and I, too, wanted to speak to you. I hope you have the strength to be very happy in the great news I have for you,” he said, still holding her hand and kneeling down by her eager to tell alL “I want your blessing, mother, on a great happiness that has come to me—to both of us—on a great discovery I have made. It came to me all in the way of business, I may say, and it is a long story; but the fact is proved, and I must make it short so as not to weary you. Mother, listen to me. I—I only am laird of Rinaultrie—now, at this moment, though I have not claimed my rights yet, and do not intend to do so in my good uncle’s lifetime. But, for all that, the broad lands belong to me—should have been my father’s. In the deed of entail, at this point, the estates legally pass to the second son. It might have been ours long ago, mother, if my father had only had his wits about him. Do you follow me, mother?”

Mrs. Burnett had been listening to his eager narration with increasing agitation; indeed, she seemed hardly to have caught the last words, so great was her perturbation. Suddenly a strange, wild look of determination crossed her usually gentle face. “Raise me up, Boston—higher, higher—that will da Now listen to me, my son. It is your dying mother who speaks.” Never before had the meek mother returned Boston’s glance with such unflinching eyes. “You spoke of your father just now. Your father was a good man; not an evil-doer, like Richard Burnett, my second husband. Andrew Black, my father’s ’prentice to the carpentry trade, was my good first husband and your father. He died the year after our marriage, and you, Boston Black, are our only child. You are no Burnett, though I gave you the name for convenience’ sake, with no thought of wrong to any; and sore I have regretted the step this many a weary day, though I feared to tell you the truth.”

With a spring like that of a wounded animal, Boston flung down his mother’s hand and rose to his feet Ghastly pale and almost too much overcome by his passions for distinct utterance, he hissed out, with a look of hate seemingly concentrated in his glance,—

“It is false! it is false! ”

Oblivious of aught eke for the moment except the thought of his balked schemes, his broken pride, he again glanced with terrible eyes at his mother, saying,—

“How dare you tell me this now f ”

But in a moment he knelt down again by her side, and with an evidently desperate effort to control his feelings, he murmured in a soothing tone, with a forced pitying smile,—

“I must not be angry with you, poor mother. You are very ill, very weak, and it has affected your head. You have forgotten the past. You are mixing up things, I can see clearly. I have heard that mental delusions come to the weak in body,” he muttered as if to himself, while he stroked her hand soothingly with his still trembling fingers. Mrs. Burnett drew it away with a force which surprised him. Endeavouring to raise herself up still more, she was about to speak, evidently with indignation; but the strain was too much for her enfeebled frame—she slipped back among her pillows completely exhausted, and Boston was obliged to summon the nurse from the adjoining room, to which Mrs. Burnett had evidently sent her preparatory to making this disclosure, the thought of which was making his head reel as he crept with a blanched face and trembling limbs to his own room.

In vain he tried to steady his tumultuous thoughts, which were circling wildly round, not yet capable of taking a coherent grasp of what he had just heard. Once or twice he sprang from the couch on which he had flung himself, exclaiming, with clenched hand, “She shall deny it! I will make her take back her words this very moment. It is too great a risk to wait; ” and then he hung back with an air of shrinking cowardice. It was the meek mother from whom he shrank now.

He was hardly aware of how the time had been passing nor how long he remained in this state of vacillation, when a knock came to his door. He felt like a hunted criminal as he crept to undo the bolt “It is all over, sir—she is gone! ” said the nurse. “I think she called your name, and she spoke something about a packet of letters. But it came very sudden at the end, sir. I had not even time to send for you.”

Boston fancied that the woman eyed him keenly, and he felt scared by her glance. There would be many such scares in store for him now; for he had resolved to play a part which can never be exempted from such.

CHAPTER XVIII
An Hour Strikes.

“Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;
Say not Good-night, but in some brighter dime
Bid me Good-morning.”—A. L. Barbauld.

“By the way, Mary, do you remember Mr. Maxwell, the Irvines’ cousin? ” asked Helen Grahame as she and her friend sat talking together one October afternoon on the sunny banks of Brownie Burn.

“Yes, I remember him,” replied Maiy briefly.

“Our Alick sees him constantly now, and is always writing so enthusiastically about him. Indeed, it sometimes seems as if he had very nearly taken poor Mr. Falconer’s place with Alick—though that would be strange. But I really think Mr. Maxwell must be nice It is odd, but I cannot even recall what he is like. I never happened to see him any of the times he was at Blairton, except that one delightful evening, don’t you remember it? when Mr. Falconer came to tell our congregation about city missions. What splendid things he said! How much has happened since then,” added Helen.

“Yes, much has happened,” repeated Mary dreamily, an expression of intense sadness stealing over her face as she sat gazing with absent eyes on the brown sparkling waters hurrying along their rocky bed.

The outline of her fair young cheek was sharper than it used to be. A certain wistfulness of expression had grown habitual to her, so much so that even the most watchful eyes among her small circle had got used to its presence. It is true Miss Margaret still clung to her theory that the change which had come to her old pupil was attributable to the deepening and mellowing influences of graver, wider thoughts about life and its many mysteries; though she was at times secretly perturbed by fears that some trouble of a more personal kind was laying its too heavy hand on the young spirit Mary Cassilis had indeed, during the past year, been encountering the experience—most trying to inexperience—that of sounding the depths of her own sorrowful heart, and of finding how deep down the pain could go. Those to whom she might naturally have turned for some measure of help and sympathy in, at least, some of her perplexities, only added to her grief by their evident estrangement, from some cause unknown, inexplicable to her.

The project on which she had been so eagerly bent during the first feverish weeks after hearing Boston’s secret had long since been abandoned. The impossibility of helping Esmae in the way she wished became clear to her. To sit with folded hands and watch for the calamity, the coming of which she felt to be inevitable, unable to lift a finger to warn her dear ones of its dreaded approach, this was the painful part which Mary had to act now. Nor was this sore passive trouble all; it had, as it loomed on the dark horizon, brought a host of others in its train.

Boston, especially of late, had been eager and versatile in his attempts to use the bond which his confidence had perforce made between them. His efforts were regarded by Mary with an almost overmastering shrinking and dislike.

The letter which narrated the failure of his efforts to help in the project regarding Esmae had been almost immediately followed by the announcement of Mrs. Richard Burnett’s death.

Considerable sympathy had been felt for Boston both at Rin-aultrie and Mirkwood. Old Miss Cassilis sent him a brief but kind letter of condolence, to which he tendered a model reply. Since then he had paid frequent visits to the castle, and constantly found some pretext for requesting confidential talks with Mary, while, in the intervals, he always made some correspondence necessary, on the plea of Esmae’s welfare. But Mary’s frank, open nature shrank increasingly from the concealment which formed a necessary part of these interviews and interchanges of letters. She had done all on her part to put a stop to them, though she little guessed the dark clouds of suspicion with which, in some quarters, her stainless honour was being shadowed. Even with those who might have indignantly denied that the vague rumours found any place, they were undoubtedly doing a cruelly harmful work. Between her old friend Mrs. Irvine and herself Mary was fully conscious that a wall of separation had sprung up. Though tenderly kind and attentive in a passing recent illness, to which poor harassed Mary had readily succumbed, and of which she had not yet quite thrown off the weakening effects, there had been, for the past year, a visible constraint in Mrs. Irvine’s manner, which was clearly discernible, as it was mysterious, to Mary. And had not a certain visitor, who used to seem to find Mirkwood the most favourite halting-place in former visits, come and gone mysteriously from the Manse of Blairton without a word! A whole weary year had gone since then. No explanation had been volunteered by Mrs. Irvine on the point; indeed, she had markedly avoided any mention of such a visit having taken place, surrounding her reserve with the air of offence which was so perplexing to poor Mary, who little dreamt of the strange cross purposes at work which had driven Kenneth Maxwell from the Rinaultrie woods with a storm-tossed heart, and which was still urging him to keep down his painful memories by the stress of absorbing work.

He might come and go to the Manse of Blairton many times for aught she knew, but they would never meet again; their paths would lie apart now through all the days to be, and life for her could never be quite the same again, Mary decided with the quick despondency of youth.

But though this friendship must thenceforth share the fate of the yellowing bundles of old letters tied together with scraps of faded ribbon which reposed in the pigeon-holes of her aunt’s carved oak cabinet, and become a relic of the past, yet might it not have its living side too, Mary asked herself with that quiet faithfulness which indeed made one of the elements of her deepest pain. However much life severed them in future, these happy days, when the fibres of their friendship struck such firm though unconscious roots, still belonged to her; for, after all, was not the past only just the not-present, holding, therefore, a very different place in one’s life-history from the day dreams, intangible, unrealized, with which it sometimes seems to get mixed up in one’s thoughts? Yes, it might still be kept deep down in her heart, as a pleasant memory, that they had been friends once,—had liked the same books, worshipped the same poet, had more than once had their souls stirred by the same external incidents, thrilled by the same heart-sympathies. And would she not always care to hear of his doings though they were strangers now? and as the years went on, and the world came to know how good and great he was, would not his success be always dear to her? It was pleasant to her now to hear that young Alick Grahame was meeting him often, and liking him as he deserved to be liked. And though conscious that possibly she might have reason afterwards to regret the indulgence of her inclination in reverting to the topic from which Helen had drifted, she said interrogati vely, —

“So Mr. Maxwell is still in Edinburgh? ”

It was not a comprehensive question, but it proved quite sufficient to start off her friend Helen in the desired direction, possessing as she did a hearty, energetic interest in the affairs of her neighbours, along with a certain kind of imperceptive-ness which seldom jarred, and often proved comfortable, as on the present occasion.

“Yes, of course he is in Edinburgh. Why, he has not left it for a single day since this time last year, when he came to see the Irvines only for a couple of days—a ridiculously long journey for such a short time, was it not! Our Alick can’t afford that kind of thing, you see, or else we might see him oftener. Alick says he never in his life saw anybody work so hard as Mr. Maxwell does. You know he has taken all his work now—Mr. Falconer’s, I mean,” faltered Helen, with a wistful look coming into her face. “Papa has an immense belief in Mr. Maxwell, you know. He says he is the best sort of friend Alick could hava You know Mr. Falconer never was quite taken up enough about Church matters to satisfy papa. I suppose it is quite true that Mr. Maxwell is much ‘ sounder,’ as papa says. I remember, after last Assembly, he said it was quite a treat to see Mr. Maxwell’s face when Dr. Chalmers was making his great speech. Oh, how I wish I had been there to hear it alL It must have been glorious! ” cried Helen enthusiastically.

Her interest was every day waxing keener in the ecclesiastical politics of the time; every step of the contentions which were then thickening round the Scotch Church had become mixed up with Helen’s daily life and talk. “O Mary, I am so glad you are a Non-intrusionist,” she said glowingly now; “it does make such a bond. Miss Margaret was telling us here the other day that it was really you who had first thought of a site for the new Netherley church in that comer of the Rin-aultrie birch-wood. How proud I should be if I could have done anything like that to help the good cause, and yet you never said a word about it! ”

“Oh, but it is not quite settled even yet, after all this long time of waiting. Perhaps it will not be long now before some’ thing is decided Mr. Cranstown is coming for the express purpose of talking it all over to-morrow, I believe. Uncle Burnett always tells Donald Reid and me that we must have patience;”

“Oh, I could not stand that if I were you. It is too provoking to be told one must have patience about such a serious matter, and when one has set one’s heart on the thing besides. But, Mary, if I were such a friend and a favourite of Mr. Burnett of Rinaultrie as you are, I should give him no peace till I got what I wanted”

“But then if it can be managed I do think it would be very much better if the Netherley people had a church that they could go to in their own parish rather than any part of Asloune. One of the factor’s arguments against our plan is that to set up another church in the parish is not fair to our own minister. And though Mr. Gordon is just beautifully good about it, I do think it will not be vexy nice for him to have a church within easy distance of our village, with perhaps a much more interesting preacher than he is, whom all the people will be sure to like to go to hear.”

“But do you know, Mary, that is what they say is going to happen soon all over the country, and not in Netherley or Asloune only. Papa said when he came home from last Assembly that he felt sure it would come to that now since the Government have flatly refused to give the Church her rights. He says that ever so many of the ministers will leave their manses and their churches and their stipends behind them rather than submit to such tyranny. And they will be quite right too. Oh, won’t it be a veiy noble thing to do for conscience’ sake, Mary? ”

“Yes,” said Mary slowly, and then she paused, and taking her friend’s hand caressingly in her own, she went on; “But,

Helen, have you thought what all this really means? Won’t it be a terrible wrench to leave this beautiful dear old home where you have all been bom and where you have always lived? I cannot bear to think of your having to make such a sacrifice; and I sometimes fear, Helen, that it will be greater than you can imagine just now,” she added, glancing with grave, pitiful eyes on her friend’s glowing face.

“Yes, that is what poor mamma is always saying. She often gives such big heavy sighs now when she sits sewing, and I know that she is thinking of the troubles that may be coming on us all. But somehow the thought of them only makes me feel more eager and strong, and even impatient. Why, even the suspense is delightfully exciting. Every day now brings some fresh news of the crisis that they say is fast hastening on. Then, you know, we shall not be alone in our troubles. There will be a great company in the same plight Everybody will leave the old Church, papa thinks, except a few good people who say that they do not feel as if any really spiritual liberty had been taken from them by the decisions of the Law Courts,— and the Moderates, of course,” added Helen lightly.

“But I think I shall perhaps be feeling as sorry for them as for you all, if that day comes,” said Mary, as she thought of one smiling little village which nestled round its old gray church and cosy hospitable manse, as if it leant on both with trustful love, as indeed it did. What a sad day when peaceful Blairton is broken up into rival factions! and how surely would the air of melancholy, which of late had been impressed on Mr. Irvine’s face, deepen, if some of the brethren whom he loved the best were to leave the old beloved Church—deserting her, as he thought, in her hour of sorest need!

“Do you know, Mary, that your friend Mr. Irvine actually passed papa and me as we were driving the other day with only a cold though very polite bow. He always used to want to stop and talk, of course; but we were coming from that meet-mg, you know, and I fancy he felt very angry. Don’t you remember the bitter tone in which he always says, ‘I hate schism ’? ”

“Oh yes; that was the agitation meeting at Aberstone. I know he was very much vexed about it He has always said that such meetings as these stir up the people unwisely, and that they have done a great deal to irritate the Government”

“Yes, I know. Papa does not like them either; but he says they are necessary at present to instruct the people, don’t you see! This last one was certainly very stupid. Papa was dreadfully disappointed with it; and you will not wonder, Mary, when I tell you that Mr. Logan, your old Asloune shoemaker, was one of the speakers. He has set up a shop in Aberstone now, you know; quite a grand window he has, and he has become an immense authority in Church affairs. Papa thought he spoke most vulgarly and presumptuously; but lots of the people seemed delighted with his oration, even some whom you would have expected would have had better taste. I declare, to listen to his odious talk made one feel inclined to take quite the other side. He was terrible. I really trembled lest I should go back from my Non-intrusion views altogether. I believe I did become a downright Moderate for a whole half-hour.”

“Very wholesome that you should see the other side, as dear old Mr. Gordon would say,” cried Mary, laughing at the shuddering climax to which Mr. Logan’s rhetoric had reduced Helen.

“Oh, but that is just what I dislike particularly. I like to find one side about everything—the right one, of course—and then I stick to it through thick and thin without one shadow of doubt. I cannot understand you, Mary, you have such lookings both ways at everything. I think it must make your mind very uncomfortable often.”

“But perhaps it wasn’t meant always to be quite comfortable, Helen,” suggested Mary. “But I must really be off now. The delights of Brownie Bum must not make me forget that I promised to pay a visit to Donald Reid on my way home. Here comes Willie just in time to be pounced upon and made useful.—You will fetch Jet for me, will you not!”

Willie scampered off with flying feet to execute his commission, and presently reappeared with the old black pony which its mistress still often preferred in her solitary rides to her handsome bay mare, otherwise engaged indeed on this afternoon, Ada Cranstown having borrowed it for a coursing match which happened to be going on in the Rinaultrie glen.

Esmae had been eager that Mary should be of the party, but her aunt decided that she was hardly strong enough yet for the excitement of the chase; and on her part, Mary had preferred to fulfil her promise of spending the day with her friends the Grahames, whom she had seen seldomer of late than she used to do in less care-burdened days.

As she walked into the little cottage on Bramble Hill she found an unexpected visitor seated in old Donald’s ingle-neuk. “Uncle Burnett, you here! how nice! Who would have dreamed of finding you here this afternoon? I thought you were miles away up the glen with them all,” she exclaimed with glad surprise.

“Well, I did mean to try to please them by going, but the fact is I did not feel quite up to it when the time came, neither did Ben,” said the laird, stroking the old toothless staghound whose face rested on his knee; “so we both came up here to see how things were going with our contemporary. Upon my word, I think he is looking younger than he did ten years ago. What do you say, Mary? ”

Donald was regarding his visitor with such beaming smiles that it really gave him quite an air of rejuvenescence. He loved the kindly laird with true Celtic devotion. Often if he happened to be in his little garden and caught sight of Mr. Burnett when occasion led him to this upland corner of his lands, Donald would stand shading his eyes and watching him; for it was not often that the busy laird found leisure for such a long chat with the old quarry man as he had on this afternoon.

“Donald and I have been in the heart of the old quarry again with all its hammers a-chiming once more, and up to the top of Heatherben, and over a great deal of ground that we will never tread again, since I have been sitting in the ingle-neuk here. Have we not, Donald!” said the laird, with a pathetic smile over this mental journey through green forgotten byways to a happier circle of time.

“Yes; it is wonderful how far one can travel sometimes without leaving Donald’s fireside. I believe I’ve been all over the world with him. He knows so much about every country under the sun,” said Mary, glancing affectionately at the old man, who she noticed had laid down his perpetual knitting, doubtless out of respect to the laird’s presence; or perhaps it was the awakened memories of his old stirring life which so filled his mind that for the time his usual occupation was forgotten.

“You were saying just now, sir, that you and me would never be getting up to the top of the high hills again, nor be going over the old ground we love so well,” he began in a musing tone, with his eyes fixed on the ground. “It is true that it will not be with this frail tabernacle, whatever; but I have whiles thought to myself, as I sit my lone here, that maybe we will not have seen the last of the mountains and the glens that we have loved so well, when we lie down and shut our eyes for our long sleep. There is a word in the Book that speaks of a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. And it just comes forcible to my mind at times, maybe it will be the righteousness that will be the only new bit of it. And, sir, there is reason in it if we would but think, for the works of God are fair and spotless: the bonnie hills with their long shadows and trailing white mists there—eh, but they are surely like the skirts of his own garments; and the straths and the glens and the rivers, what could we wish for so fair and dear as them, if but righteousness was reigning in all their pairts?” said Donald, his voice becoming low and tremulous, as it always did when he was much moved.

“It is a fine idea, Donald,” said the laird, as he rose to go. “I should like to shut my eyes when the last long sleep comes with just such a thought in my heart”

“Ay; and we will be thinking about the King that is to reign over the new righteous earth surely. It would be strange like to be satisfied with his kingdom, and to be forgetting Him that is to come, and that is,” said Donald in a low tone, as he glanced wistfully into the face of the chief he loved so well “Good-bye, Donald, and thank you for your new ideas about heaven. You are to be envied, my man. You have thoughts that will keep your mind happy through your sleepless nights. I think I must try the recipe for mine; they are really becoming very intolerable.”

With a kindly farewell Mr. Burnett took his leave of the old man, and made his way down Bramble Hill by Mary’s side as she roda “I did not feel able for the hares to-day,” he said presently. “I think Esmae was vexed; but I would only have proved a drag to him, and the pretty Ada requires all his attention. The fact is, anything that excites me now is sure to keep me from having a wink of sleep. One of the woes of age, I suppose, Mary. But to be awake in the small hours is one of my bugbears. I have begun to fancy that even riding fatigues me now, and have taken mostly to strolling about with Ben. It really seems all I am fit for now-a-days.”

Mary felt a sinking of heart, as she always did when Mr. Burnett reverted to his failing strength, which he certainly did of late much more frequently than when in the midst of his serious illness, from which he had been pronounced to have completely recovered many months previously. But it was evident that the laird had not regained his former strength and cheerfulness. Mary had more than once spoken nervously to Esmae on the subject, and had in some measure caused him to share he? anxiety so far that he consulted their family doctor on the point. The medical verdict, however, was that Mr. Burnett’s state of health gave no just cause for alarm. It was natural, of course, that he should not feel so able for his outdoor avocations and sports as he did when he was a younger man. Mary was eager to accept the assurance that all was well, as she had been quick to fear the contrary, though on occasions like the present, when her beloved old friend and guardian dwelt on his impaired powers, her heart never failed to become possessed with a sudden terror which she could share with none.

“Ha! there they are. They must have changed their course. I did not know they were to be hereabout at all,” cried the laird, his depression seemingly having all vanished as a party of riders appeared on the crest of the hilL Suddenly there burst from the tangled brake near them a fine hare, crossing their path like lightning, and making for some broken, gravelly ground away to the right. In another second two greyhounds were in full pursuit.

“It is Spur and Lightning. Spur will have her, I’ll be bound,” cried the laird, getting excited.

It was a trying juncture for poor Ben. At the moment he felt the woes of age even more than his master. After an impulsive bound forward, followed by a depressed retreat, he looked piteously up in the laird’s face, as if to say. “You can feel for me. You know, time was when I could have beaten hollow both those young jackanapes.”

Mary reined Jet just in tima Another instant and her mettlesome bay, with Ada Cranstown on her back, dashed past them at full speed. Esmae followed, soon outrunning the bay charger; and Lewis Cranstown, with two young lady friends of his sisters, guests at Netherley. Boston brought up the rear.

On catching sight of Mary and Mr. Burnett he at once slackened his speed. Reining his horse, he dismounted quickly and came forward to where they stood.

“Boston, what can your blood be made of to pull up at this crisis? I would rather have broken my neck at your age than done the like,” cried the laird, with rather a scornful laugh. “Why, I feel almost inclined to mount your discarded steed myself and be in at the death. See, see! there is Esmae unfurling the blue flag. They’ve got her. I thought they would. It’s Spur, I’ll warrant, who has done the deed. Spur is certain death, though there are fleeter dogs among the pack than he i&”

“Poor puss! she has had a hard run for dear lifa Will you be shocked with me, uncle, when I confess that I was hoping she might win the day?” said Mary, as she glanced towards the sun-lighted group of which Esmae made the bright centre, his fair hair gilded by the glowing tints as he rose triumphantly in his saddle and waved the flag which he held in his hand.

“Bother it; so it is Spur that has been the murderer, and I have a bet on Lightning with Miss Cranstown; she always wins. I shall be more cautious in future,” said Boston, shrugging his shoulders. “And I had the beautiful intention of bestowing the money as a donation to some missionary society. The good cause will be the poorer, for I do not believe that Miss Ada will feel inclined to part with her winnings so charitably,” he added. Mary’s eyes were fixed on the merry group with a half sad expression. She did not notice that Mr. Burnett had quitted her side and was making for the coursing company, with old Ben at his heels. “Do come and give me the pleasure of a ride with you,” said Boston, in a soft tone which seemed roughly to awaken Mary from her reverie. “The old gentleman cannot resist the seductions of the chase, you see.”

“Oh, but I think Jet and I will turn down here. We, too, want to see what these gay sporting people are about,” replied Mary, still keeping her eyes fixed on the group.

“That is the reason you give to me, Mary, but is it a fair one! I know quite well that you hate that sport; but of course it may furnish you with a convenient plea for refusing to give me the pleasure of your company. And it is not the first time, I have noticed, that you have made similar excuses where I am concerned,” said Boston.

His face wore an expression of deep mortification, and altogether he seemed to have relaxed the self-control habitual to him. Mary observed these symptoms with surprise as well as fresh dismay. Shortly after he had confided to her the strange discovery of his rights, he had benignantly assured her that he did not in the least wonder at her feeling, for the present, but little sympathy with him in his new prospects, adding jokingly that he must endeavour to cultivate a beautiful spirit of patience at the continued sight of her depression over his good fortune. He had certainly in the main kept his promise on that score.

But this evident uncontrollable outburst of anger surely proclaimed that he meant the truce to be at an end, thought Mary, as she glanced anxiously at him.

He caught her eye, and continued in an excited tone, “Yes, Mary, I do consider your treatment of me has been very unkind of late; and if things go on as they are doing—determined coldness on your side, and insults from those that are wholly in my power—there is no saying what I may be driven to. There is a limit to a fellow’s patience, remember. I confess I am beginning to get a little tired of waiving my rights any longer, when it seems to bring only coldness and ingratitude on all hands. There is Esmae; he has been sulking at me for a wiole year and more now,—all, forsooth, because I did my best to help him. And you know why I did, Mary,” he added in a Bofter tone. “It was all for your sake; purely because of my wish to please you.”

“Oh, I am very, very sorry that it has brought any misunderstanding between Esmae and you; but don’t you think you fancy a good deal) Esmae seems as friendly as ever,” said Mary with white lips, as she glanced ruefully at him.

“It is not Esmae only. The laird—my uncle, I mean—has somehow begun to behave differently to me. Look just now; that taunt about not knowing what my blood was made of because, forsooth, I preferred your company to those idiots of women down there. My blood, indeed; as if it were not as good as his any day,” muttered Boston with an angry scowl. But Mary, who happened to glance at him full of her own tears, noted to her surprise that he suddenly seemed to become more uncomfortable than herself—his face grew visibly paler, and he fixed his eyes resolutely on the ground.

“I do think you must be mistaken about dear old Uncle Burnett being changed to you,” she went on slowly. “He always speakB so kindly of you; and that about your dismounting at the exciting moment was a pure joke, of course. He is such an intense lover of sport himself he cannot understand anybody being less enthusiastic, especially young people.”

“Oh, well, perhaps I am over-sensitive. I have had a good deal to make me so in my past life; and, after all, I do not mind either Esmae’s or his father’s coldness very much, if you, Mary, would only try to treat me with more confidence, more kindness. Your manner to me sometimes drives me almost to desperation. Mary,” he continued in a low pleading tone, “is it always to be so? Your aunt treats me very differently; her manner, I must say, gives me hope—gives me fresh courage many a time. But, Mary, you know that I want more than that. Is there never to be any response to me from your dear self] I have waited all those years hungering for one kind look, one loving word. Time was when I felt agonizing jealousy of Esmae Burnett. You cannot guess my exultant joy when I found that I was mistaken in my fears; that the rumour that you and he were betrothed was false — never had any foundation. Mary, I have already told you one secret, but the one I have to tell you to-day is the best and happiest secret I possess. I love you, Mary. Will you not listen to the pleadings of your faithful, your only lover?” Boston’s tones were low and impetuous; and as he spoke he held Jet’s bridle and glanced with agitation into Mary’s drooping face.

At first she listened as if spell-bound. A deep flush overspread her face; it was followed by deadly pallor as Bhe faltered, “There must be some great mistake. I never thought of such a thing; ” and then with a little flash of rising courage in her eye she raised her head and glanced at Boston as she added, “It is very foolish, very wrong of you, to talk to me as you have just done.”

There was a moment’s silenca Once or twice he essayed to speak, but utterance seemed impeded by some overmastering emotion. With a violent effort to control himself, he dropped Jet’s bridle suddenly as if it stung him, and said,—

“That is what you are going to say now, is it? A mistake has it been? It is a pity you were not obliging enough to tell me so some time ago—at the sawmill, for instance—when you pleaded almost on your knees for Ada Cranstown’s fiance; and I am sure I told you pretty plainly why I was willing to give him all the help in my power, and I have only got myself into a scrape with them all for my softness. I have been a fool to allow myself to be so befooled. Your aunt, too, need not have led me on the ice as she has certainly been doing ever since Esmae’s engagement. So it is a mistake then, you tell me, this foolish love of mine,” he added with the bitterest of smiles. Glancing round, his eye lighted on the group who now stood on the shoulder of the hill: the sound of the laird’s ringing laugh was mingling with Esmae’s cheerful tones as they discussed the late exciting chase.

A vindictive scowl came into Boston’s face as the cheerful echoes travelled through the still air. “Well,” he said, putting his hand in his pocket, and turning his pale face to Mary, “since this mistake is rectified, there are some other mistakes which I think had better be cleared up too. A man will not stand being cheated out of his rights half his life for nothing. I have made up my mind now. My secret confided to you a year ago will remain a secret no longer. Good-bye for the present, Miss Cassilis,” he said as he lifted his cap; and striding across the tangled brambles, he unfastened his horse’s bridle from the paling to which he had tied it, and mounting quickly, he galloped towards the castle.

“Why, how tired you are looking, Mary! You have not got rid of your bad cold, I can see. That visit to Whiterashes has been too much for you, and I have kept you waiting into the bargain, my dear,” said the laird, looking with kind anxiety at the girl’s pale face as the little party came stragglingjtowards the path where she still waited, feeling, indeed, riveted to the spot as if by a terrible nightmare.

Once or twice she had glanced wildly after Boston’s retreating figure as if she felt inclined to follow him. But still she lingered where he had left her with his words of terrible mean ing ringing in her ear.

“But are you alone, my dear? how is that? I thought I saw Boston standing beside you a minute ago talking,” said the laird, not able to forgive himself for having been beguiled into listening to the sporting chronicle while Mary was standing solitary there.

“Yes, he was here; but—he has gone,” she replied faintly, not venturing to meet the laird’s glance, though convulsed with indecision whether she should there and now tell him all. Better surely hear it now than from these cruel insolent lips, she thought But while she still hesitated, Ada came smiling up. She had dismounted now. The skirts of her habit were daintily gathered up with one hand, while with the other she was applying her riding-whip to tickling Ben’s ears, much to the disturbance of his equanimity; but the diversion seemed to attract the superb blonde beauty, making her show her pearly teeth to great advantage.

“Why, you are looking quite worn out, Miss Cassilis! Whatever have you been about? ” she said in her little staccato voice. “I quite believe it is that dreadful Helen Grahame that has done it all. You know I warned you against a visit to Whiterashes. How you can stand that girl I really do not know! She is such a gossip, for one thing; so horridly interested in these odious, tiresome Church quarrels, too. Lewis and I went into their manse the other day and had some lunch as we rode past. I felt so dreadfully hungry; but mamma said afterwards that it was not the proper thing to do, seeing we had never called on the Grahames or taken any notice of them.! must say they were most kind and hospitable; even Lewis acknowledged that, and he is not generally of a grateful spirit. But, as he remarked, that dreadful Helen just talked as if she were a licentiate of the Kirk who aspired to write an essay on the Non-intrusion question; and it was really a very good description of the girl I must say Miss Grahame is my pet aversion.”

“Hey, what is all this, Ada? ” said the laird, as if wakening from a reverie just in time to catch the latest remark, and with an expression coming into his furrowed face not unlike that which the noble old stag-hound’s had worn under Miss Crans-town’s attempts to tease. “Why, I always thought Helen Grahame was a particularly nice girl. She is a friend of yours, Mary, is she not?” he added in a tone which signified that he considered that fact alone to make a certificate of indisputable goodness.

“Yes, she is a great friend of mine,’ replied Mary. But though Ada’s remarks were like so many pricks to her loyal heart, she felt that she could not at that moment enter the lists even on Helen’s behalf.

“Is that Boston scouring along the turnpike at such a rate? ” asked Esmae, joining them. “ Why, I thought I saw him here a minute ago talking to you, Mary. His movements are rapid, I must say.”

“Yes, of course that is Mr. Burnett Burnett, on one of your best horses too, Esmae,” said Ada with a light, silvery laugh,— “‘the double Burnett,’ as Lewis always calls him. He will always keep up that old joke, though! can see Mr. Boston Burnett winces under it horribly.”

“He seemed rather in a hurry to bring his day’s coursing to an end,” said the laird, glancing down at the flying horseman. “The fellow, did you notice, Mary, how he pulled up and stopped quite quietly to talk to us when none of the others had eyes for anything but the hare? He evidently has not a spark of interest in sport I thought it was developing, but I see! have made a mistake.”

Mary happened to be riding alongside the laird, so that her troubled face, as she murmured some reply, escaped his notica Not so Esmae’s, however. He was watching her keenly.

The little episode of earnest talk between Boston and Mary had been marked by him, and, together with various other such indications of some intimate bond, reminded him of the mysterious suggestions thrown out by Mr. Gordon concerning secret meetings between his cousin and his old friend. They had evidently been having some talk now which had, at all events, proved perturbing to Mary. Her whole manner bore traces of unmistakable agitation.

“What can it all mean? They are not happy lovers. Indeed I don’t yet believe there is anything like love-making between them; and yet there is something between them,” he said to himself as he walked musingly along by Mary’s side. He quickly decided, reflecting on Mr. Gordon’s suggestion, that as far as Mary was concerned they had no foundation. But Boston was secretive; It was just possible that he might have aspirations, though surely it was not quite honourable on his part to take secret advantage of his privileged position at Binaultrie to press a suit which was so unacceptable. It was not fair conduct to Mary, or to anybody else concerned. Could Mr. Gordon’s suspicions, at which he had so scouted, have some foundation after all! Had Boston’s strange proposal, that he should quit Binaultrie and go to better his fortune elsewhere, actually arisen from a desire that he should be out of the way? Perhaps he thought that the son’s eyes might possibly prove sharper than the father’s, and, at all events, Esmae’s absence would make one person less to observe and disapprove of the advances which he was making towards the hand of the heiress of the Cassilises.

With all his brotherly protectiveness roused, Esmae vowed a vow that Boston should find, before the day was done, that his being in the way was subversive of this course of conduct Having made this resolve with the blunt decision which sometimes charactemed him, he began to feel impatient to carry it into execution without a moment’s delay.

How slow his father’s footsteps seemed as they went down the hill together, Mr. Burnett leaning on Esmae’s arm as he talked to Mary, unobservant of the monosyllabic replies which he could only elicit Never before had the laird shown such a disposition to dawdle as he did to-night, thought Esmae with impatience, as Mr. Burnett laid hold of Jet’s bridle, saying, “Let us stop for a minute, Mary, and take in this beautiful scene. There, now, is a bit of this old world that I would fain see again with clearer eyes in good old Donald’s new righteous earth that he sits dreaming about. See, Ada—Esmae—just look there! Why, Mary, does it not seem like a bit of the new earth already? ” he cried, with a ring of excitement in his tone, his furrowed face catching the golden radiance of the setting sun, which was now flooding mountain, moor, and glen with incomparable beauty.

A soft, rich autumnal haze was over everything. Heavy masses of violet clouds had begun to stretch from north to east, darkening as they got near the horizon; but overhead, and to the west, all was clear, unbroken gold, and into the beautiful dome was rising the pale crescent of the moon. Long soothing shadows lay on the great shoulders of the encompassing hills, while rays of quivering light played on the faces of their deep-fissured crags. A pale blue film of peat-smoke that did not move in the still air lay like a curtain of pearl over the little village, from which cheerful sounds were rising. A horn was being Bounded from a hillock near it, to tell the farm labourers that the welcome “loosin’ time ” was come, and that the rest at eventide was won. Sweet-breathed cows were trooping home to their byres from the pleasant pasture lands which the winding haughs of the Aultrie afforded. Its rippling waters looked now as if a cross-current of red wine had been poured into them while they caught the reflected glow of the setting sun. The vast expanse of autumnal-tinted wood which stretched round the noble old baronial home of the Burnetts was bathed in the tenderest light, and the many windows of the great gray towers caught the glittering beams and flashed them back like a glorious mass of crystals. Over all there seemed to brood whispers of a holy peace which lifted the soul above the jar and fret of earth into a serener clime.

Its soothing influence seemed to make itself felt on more than one of the little group that stood on the face of Bramble Hill now,—so much so, that when Ada Cranstown with her gurgling little laugh broke the silence by saying, “Why, Mr. Burnett, you look more excited over the sun going down—a thing that happens every day—than you did when Spur caught the hare and I won my bet,” her words seemed to break like a false jarring note into harmonious music.

The spell was broken for most of them. Mary began to shiver again as she thought of Boston’s words—of his terrible threat, which she felt now, with dull certainty, he would fulfil without delay. The laird gave one of his heavy sighs as he started on his walk again, leaning more heavily than before on his son’s stalwart arm. Only Esmae felt his throbbing pulses subdued by the voices of the dying sum His resolve to demand explanation of Boston’s mysterious conduct was unshaken, but somehow he felt impatient no longer. With loving care he tended his father’s steps; with reluctance he quitted him when the cross-roads were reached and the laird announced his intention of seeing Mary home. His fair Ada was left to him. She prattled gaily on; but the recollection of Mary’s pale face, the almost woe-begone look she cast on him as they parted, still haunted him. His impatience to have some explanation with Boston began again to take possession of him-He was not a little disappointed, therefore, when they arrived at the castle, to find that Boston was pre-engaged. Mr. Cranstown and he were pacing slowly arm-in-arm along the rosery, so absorbed in their conversation, evidently, that they dreaded interruption; for, on catching sight of Ada and him, they immediately disappeared among the darkening shrubbery.

The factor had just driven across from Netherley with his wife to a dinner-party to which they had been invited at the castle that evening. The other guests would soon be assembling.

. There was Ada’s young lady friend, and seemingly still more that of Mr. Lewis Cranstown, coming along the avenue now with him; and here was old Mr. Gordon riding leisurely towards the house. There was certainly no chance of an opportunity for a talk with Boston before dinner, Esmae decided, resolving to endeavour to throw himself into his social duties with all zest, and to disarm Ada’s recent pouting complaint that “his wits seemed wool-gathering to-night”

Mounting the broad staircase, he made his way to the great state drawing-room, which had been opened up for this occasion.

On one of its numerous old drab satin couches Mrs. Crans-town gracefully reclined, while Ada sat, daughterly-wise, by her mother’s side.

“How do you do, young laird of Rinaultrie? Here am I, resting here, doing nothing except reyelling in the beautiful proportions of this noble room of yours. I have just been saying to this young lady here how lucky she is; what a splendid reception-room this will make when you and she begin to do the honours.”

The sight of Esmae’s ancestral halls invariably conduced to Mrs. Cranstown’s good humour. But, somehow, her burst of elated vanity jarred on him now as it had never done before. He shook hands silently, and then took his stand against one of the great carved mantlepiecea “O Esmae, what glorious dances we shall be able to give on this splendid floor, shan’t we?” cried Ada with sparkling eyes, as she sprang from her mother’s side and laid both her little hands on his arm, with restored good humour. “We shall invite ever so many people from town, you know, and have every one of these rows of empty bedroomB filled. Oh, won’t it be such fun! ” she cried delightedly, surveying with a glowing face the spacious room with its grand arched ceiling and dark shining floor.

“Won’t my Lady Burnett do everything in style when she comes to reign here, Esmae? Papa is determined you shall get back your lapsed title, too. He was just talking about it as we drove along. I expect he is willing to put his hand pretty deep into his own pocket for that suit; and who has a better right of a handle to their name than such a truly ancient stock as the Burnetts of Rinaultrie f I expect the castle will be a gayer place when you young people come to take possession than it has been for many a year,’ added Mrs. Cranstown, as she gazed complacently at her prospective son-in-law and her fair daughter, who clung to his arm, stirred to unusual animation with the thought of the coming of the time which would crown her ambition.

But still Esmae felt strangely unresponsive, and after a moment’s silence, he said in a half-sad tone, “I am sure it is awfully good of dear old daddy to have given in to our wish to open up this long-closed room. I am afraid he rather shrinks from entertaining guests here this evening for the first time for many years. You know, we have always used the smaller drawing-room; this one has been closed to the light of day since my mother’s death. Its big population of couches and chairs used all to be draped in ghostly white coverings ever since Mary and I can remember.”

“Yes, I know; that was one of your poor father’s ridiculous fancies. It was really a great wrong to you that he should lead such a hermit life; and even now things are far from being conducted as they Bhould be in an aristocratic establishment. That disagreeable old butler, for instance, shambles about, looking as insolent as possible, just as if he were master. And really his clothes are a perfect disgrace. The footmen are quite comme il faut in that respect; indeed, Mr. Cranstown thinks their liveries are absurdly costly. But as for that old creature, he is scandalously shabby.”

“Oh, but that is one of old Duff’s special righteousnesses. He prides himself that while his inferiors must be clothed in purple and fine linen, his own dignity cannot possibly be impaired by the most ancient rusty black. I believe that he fancies he is saving the family no end of money by his economies in dress; but I am sure Duff could never mean to be insolent to you, Mrs. Cranstown. He has too exalted an idea of the responsibilities of his position. I remember long ago, when I was first allowed to sit at table, I used to agonize him by indulging in familiar smiles and tuggings which he considered highly improper when he was discharging his solemn duties. It was quite a joke to see how he managed to keep his countenance and altogether sustain his official dignity,’

“Oh, perhaps he may know his own place in a way—that is not to be wondered at after such long service in a good family; all the same, I should like to see a more elegant servant moving about that splendid dining-hall But I trust better days may be in store for Binaultrie yet,” said Mrs. Cranstown.

Ada was turning away now with a pout; she could not quite understand Esmae’s manner to-night He had been so merry and so nice before they met Mary Cassilis, too. “Why in the world should the sight of her affect his spirits so?” she pondered resentfully, on the point of an outbreak of petulance.

The dressing-bell came to Esmae’s rescue, however. Mrs. Cranstown and her daughter at once retired to their important duties, and Esmae sauntered down the staircase again. As he crossed the hall he saw his father coming along the old courtyard with heavy steps, followed by the faithful Ben.

“I am rather late, I’m afraid. I lingered too long talking to Grizel in the gloaming. She, too, had been watching that grand sunset, and it seemed to have stirred her as it did me. So we had a talk about the past, and the future too; for I was telling her good old Donald Reid’s theory about the glorified earth.”

“Mary does not look well to-day. What is the matter with her, I wonder? ” said Esmae, with a quick, interrogative glance at his father, for he had half hoped to hear that his father’s and Aunt Grizel’s talk had been of something more practical than the fine sunset.

“Oh, it is just that cold hanging about her. She is evidently not feeling well She slipped away to her room as soon as we reached Mirkwood. I was warning Aunt Grizel that she would require to look after her. She is a precious jewel, that girL She grows more to me every day,” added the laird with a sigh.

Was he thinking of a prospective daughter whom he could not acknowledge grow dearer to him as the days went on)

Esmae sighed too.

“By the way, I must not forget to tell the factor before he goes back to Edinburgh that I wish the arrangement made without delay for that site in the birch-wood for the Netherley folk’s church. I will not stand its being shelved longer. I must say I don’t think the factor has been quite straight about it The Cranstowns are here, I suppose) ” asked the laird as he entered the house.

“Oh yes, they are here, the whole set of them,” said Esmae, with a bored air. “And the first bell has gone, and there is Thomson looking quite haggard with anxiety that I have not put myself into his hands yet,” he added with a laugh, as he caught sight of his English valet viewing him with a mild air of remonstrance.

“Well, be off with you, my boy, or you will be late, and Miss Ada will be frowning on you again as if you were a laggard in love. Upon my word, that young woman can lower her pretty brows with a vengeance,” added the laird with an uneasy smila “Ada) can’t she just!” laughed Esmaa “But I can manage to be in time, to-day,” he added, as he gently drew his father’s hand into his arm; nor did he leave him till he had accompanied him to his room.

The billiard-room was the male resort after dinner. Lewis Cranstown was a keen player. The minister was also fond of the game. Some vigorous playing ensued. But at last, Mr. Cranstown happening to mention that he would be obliged to leave for Edinburgh on the following day, the laird’s interest in the game immediately seemed to cease, and he began to wear that anxious look which any recollection of business was sure to bring. Presently he suggested that, sinoe he had some matters to talk over, perhaps the factor would come with him to the library for a few minutes, seeing there would be no chance of an interview on the following day. Courteously apologizing to his other guests, he put his arm in his agent’s and carried him off.

Billiards shortly began to flag. Attention was now directed to the supper-tray which had just been brought in. Mr. Gordon, announcing himself too sleepy either to do justice to the game or to the whisky, took his leave. As Esmae accompanied him to the door, and stood affectionately buttoning his old friend into his greatcoat, he said, “I think I shall go a bit of the way with you, Mr. Gordon. I don’t feel inclined for more billiards to-night, either.”

He had it, indeed, on his mind that he would like to make some inquiries concerning Mr. Gordon’s confidence of a year ago, which seemed so ridiculously baseless then, though it was taking such a serious shape now. Esmae, however, accompanied the minister to the manse door, and bade him good-night, without ever having broached the subject of his anxiety. As he walked again towards the castle he could not help pondering anew over Mary’s unmistakable perturbation that afternoon. He felt increasingly certain it was in some way connected with his cousin. And then he had observed that throughout the evening Boston wore an air of half-repressed excitement, Mr. Crans-town, too, as the result of the conversation among the shrubbery probably, seemed much pre-occupied, and had more than once started visibly when he addressed to him the most commonplace remark. Yes, it was clear that there was something mysterious in the atmosphere. The best course was certainly to get to the bottom of the mystery at once, he decided, with the promptitude which often belongs to simple, straightforward natures like Esmae’s when decisive action has to be taken.

The night was beautifully clear and starry, and the pale light of the crescent moon shimmered on the gray-tinted mass of time-worn building, making its battlements stand out in weird proportions. Most of its windows reflected only the pale moonshine, but from the massive oriel of the library a bright light still burned. His father and the factor were having a late business consultation, and the thought brought a shadow to his face; for Esmae had long since come to know that whether Mr. Cranstown was to blame or not, these interviews never failed to depress the spirit and to line the face which he loved best in the world.

A light was streaming on the steps which opened from the billiard-room windows on to the gay flower-beds, but quietness seemed to prevail, so it was probable that Mr. Lewis Cranstown and his friends had retired to bed—possibly Boston also, but he could follow him to his room. He would not have gone to bed, for he was fond of late hours, and had likely retired, as he often did, only to enter on a spell of hard work. He hoped he would And it so now, or else there would be little sleep for him that night, Esmae felt, as he quickened his pace, hurrying along the terrace and beginning to mount the broad flight of stepsi As he did bo he perceived Boston leaning against the old stone balustrade. He was in evening dress. It may perhaps have been the fashionable expanse of snowy linen or the wan light from the crescent moon which made his face look so deadly pale.

“I am glad you have not gone to your room, Boston; I want to speak to you. Will you come and have a turn? ” said Esmae nervously. The thought of Mary’s troubled face braced him for the effort which he was about to make. “He shall not vex the best girl in the world if I can help it,” he Baid to himself.

“I—I was just wanting to talk to you, Esmae,—waiting for you, in fact Do you mind—will you rather come in—and speak here for a moment? ” stammered Boston, his face twitching from nervousness.

“Oh, certainly. Probably it is about the same thing we want to speak,” said Esmae, springing lightly up the old steps.

“I—I think not,” muttered Boston confusedly, as he followed him in at the garden door of the billiard-room, shutting it carefully behind him, and then he seemed to hang back, and waited in the shadow.

“You here, Mr. Cranstown! I thought you were still in the library with my father,” said Esmae, as he caught sight of the factor seated meditatively gazing into the blazing fire, which the keen autumnal night air made acceptable in the north-eastern strath.

“I? no. I left your father some time ago—in a very refractory mood, too, I must say. He persists in that ridiculous idea of granting a site to these Netherley people, setting a premium on insolence and mutiny, as I told him. However, I might have saved myself the trouble of this last dispute, at all events \ for my friend here, Mr. Boston Burnett, seems quite to have made up his mind with regard to a most astonishing discovery which he made some time ago, though he only confided it to me this afternoon. My dear fellow, this is a very awkward business— painful to a degree to me, I assure you, on more grounds than one,” jerked out the factor, nervously rubbing his hands and glancing uneasily at Esmae. “I confess I feel very remiss in not having discovered this extraordinary twist in the entail long ago. But the fact is, I never had occasion minutely to examine them since they came into my possession. However, justice is justice, and your cousin—well, he has, in fact, employed me as his legal agent to acquaint you—to break it to you, in fact—it is my trying duty—ahem I ” and Mr. Cranstown paused again, and began nervously to handle one of the billiard cues.

“What in the world is it all about? ” cried Esmae, looking round at Boston. “I saw this afternoon that there was some-thing wrong. I could see that you had been bothering Mary Cassilis about something. She is my dearest friend, and I have a right to know what you have been troubling her about,” said Esmae, wheeling round and facing Boston, who still stood in the shadow with folded arms.

Conflicting passions were struggling in Boston’s face. Balked love, jealousy,‘fear, revenge, all were written there. With a desperate effort he struggled to speak. “You have a right, you say, to know. You have; and I have authorized my agent to put you in possession of certain facts which may explain my conduct,” he gasped out at last, stepping forth from the shadow with a face of deadly pallor.

• • • • • •

About half an hour afterwards the door of the billiard-room which faced the hall was thrown open, and across its threshold Esmae stepped quickly, followed by Mr. Cranstown and Boston.

“You did him a great wrong to imagine that he would prefer to be kept in the dark about this. I think you might both have known him better than that before this time of the day,” he was saying with a quivering lip, as he turned once round and glanced reproachfully on the men who followed him, and then walking quickly on, he led the way, along the dimly-lighted corridors, towards the library.

Boston, who brought up the rear, more than once paused as if he would fain have escaped being one of the deputation now hurrying into Mr. Burnett’s presence. Possibly Mr. Cranstown divined this feeling, for he turned and quietly slipped Boston’s arm in his own, saying in a low tone, “ You are in for it now, and perhaps it is best. I warned you that you could never tell the one without the other. But it is the young idiot’s own doing, not ours. It will be a fearful blow to the old man,” he added, shrugging his shoulders as they followed Esmae’s decisive steps.

The candles in the antique silver candelabra were burning with a dim light as they entered the spacious room. The fire had burned itself to white ashes, and all was silent The laird still sat in his chair at his large, circular, leather-covered writing-table. Some business papers were strewn in front of him; but he seemed to have fallen asleep over them, as he not unfrequently did. His gray head and furrowed face looked like a bit of his own majestic battlemented castle as he lay back in his chair with an expression of deep repose overspreading his grandly-cut features.

Ben, unlike hjs master, seemed wakeful and vigilant He rose from his post by the laird’s chair, and coming forward towards Esmae, he uttered a low, peculiar whine, and looked wistfully into his face. With a careless pat Esmae pushed him aside and went up to his father.

“Ah, he is asleep. Do not trouble him to-night, I beg of you. It is headstrong—it is most ill-judged on your part, Esmae, to behave as you are doing, especially when your cousin shows such good feeling,” whispered Mr. Cranstown, laying a detaining hand on Esmae’s shoulder.

But Boston, whose arm Mr. Cranstown still held, now started wildly, and with a terrified gesture he gasped out as he pointed to the quiet sleeper, “Hush! don’t you see—look he is—” Esmae, meanwhile, regardless of the factor’s remonstrance, had gone forward to awake the sleeping man, murmuring, “It is the kindest thing to tell him at once.” He gently touched the lined forehead;—it was cold as marble! With a cry of sharp anguish he threw himself on his father’s breast, while the old staghound stood by his side, surveying him with a look of almost human woe. His young master knew now what he meant to tell him when he rose from his faithful watch over the beloved dead and went to meet him.

“Good God! can it be possible? How awfully sudden I ” gasped Mr. Cranstown, as he quickly disengaged his arm from Boston’s clasp, and, going forward, laid bis hand on Esmae’s elbow.

But Esmae was oblivious to any touch at that moment except that of the cold, dead hands which he clasped, murmuring, “My father! oh, my father! ”

Presently Mr. Cranstown went to one of the old bell-ropes and pulled it violently. The sound echoed clamorously along the silent corridors. It seemed to rouse Esmae. He lifted his stricken face and glanced round, but again he stooped down. With a low moan he clasped the lifeless fingers and kissed the noble brow, from which all earthly care had vanished.

There were hurrying steps in the corridor. The master’s late bell had roused the servants. Faithful Duff came first. As he hurried forward with a sleepy face to see what was the cause of this unusual summons, Esmae, with one lingering look of love at the motionless figure, turned and sped away out into the darkness.

CHAPTER XIX
Out of the Depths.

“Our fine gentleman, no more when autumn days grow dark
We hear his clear and cheerful tones come ringing through the park;
His dogs find other masters now: it seems to do us wrong
That aught that he had liked so well to others should belong.”
Dora Geenwell.

The bright morning sunlight streamed into the long room, with its deep mullioned windows, which had been Esmae Burnett’s sleeping chamber since he was a little boy. It was, indeed, the only room into which the careless sunbeams were allowed to penetrate that morning throughout Rinaultrie Castle. Every other window was darkened, every sound was muffled throughout the stately domain. But the occupant of this room sat heedless of all outward forms of grief: its reality was too poignantly present with him as he knelt stricken down by the great sorrow whose depths he was only beginning to sound on this first dark day of nothingness.

Soon after daybreak there had been some hushed departures of guests. The Netherley carriage had borne Mrs. Cranstown and her daughter quickly away, Mr. Cranstown having arranged their immediate departure, silencing his wife’s inclination to an opposite course of action by certain mysterious words which he let drop.

More than one knock had come to Esmae’s bolted door, all unheeded by him. The factor, who decided that his own pre- sence was as necessary at the castle as his daughter’s was not, made various attempts to gain an interview, but in vain; while poor old Duff crept away, carrying with him a more wounded heart than before, after his beloved young master ignored his pleadings for admittance.

But at last there came a low gentle knock to the barred door, accompanied by a whispered, “Open to me, Esmae,” which seemed to vibrate through the sorely-stricken heart Raising his face from his hands, he sprang quickly up and withdrew the bolts.

The long room, with its medley of boyish treasures, its corners still strewn with discarded joints of fishing-rods, springless bows, and featherless arrows, its dark walls, on which the childish pictures still held their place, used to be a very familiar place years ago to the tearful eyes which glanced from its threshold now. One big coloured nursery print of the mothers of Salem bringing their little ones to Christ, which still looked down from its old niche, Mary remembered well. That little cherubic head which was represented as receiving the Master’s blessing always reminded her of her merry little playmate long ago. The sight of it now brought a rush of mingled memories as she went forward into the room. And there he stood looking at her, a weary, haggard, forlorn man.

Mary could not trust herself to speak. With a quivering face she held out both her hands. He took them in his own trembling fingers, and kissed her forehead, as he said, in a low, moved tone,—

“Mary, this is kind; and there are other kindnesses of yours that only dawned on me last night. It is all like a dream yet. I have not been able to think of that revelation; it came just before—but you have suffered much for his sake, and for mine, Mary. I can see it all now.”

“You know all, then. Oh, tell me—say, was it that that killed him? Did he carry out his threat, and tell him? Oh, I cannot bear the thought of this! ”

No; he was spared that, thank God! He never knew it. They told me, and I thought he would like best to know: it was a wrong to his generous, noble nature to imagine that it was best to keep him in the dark. But he was dead—quite dead, Mary, when I went to tell him their news. And, O Mary, shall I confess to you that there have been moments in this terrible night when there has come to me a sort of wild feeling of something like joy in the thought that he is shielded from all the trouble—that the worst can be but mine? ”

“Ah yes, Esmae; I, too, have been feeling that many times already,” murmured Mary. “For him this is a happier morning than for us, to-day—a very blessed dawn. You remember how he enjoyed watching the sun go down on our beautiful valley last night. I almost think he expected something like this when I look back on many things that have happened lately. I do believe God tells to the secret hearts of good men like him when that is going to happen; to them, surely, he sends death as a Mend. Perhaps it is the best friend some of us will ever have,” added Mary with a weary, wistful look. “But for you, Esmae, oh how hard this is, all happening together, too I” she said after a moment’s pause. “It has come to you—the news of that discovery of your cousin’s, I mean—even in a worse way than I dreamt of in the many terrible dreams I have had about it. Oh, I cannot bear to think of the bitter, bitter trouble, my poor Esmae! ” and Mary covered her face with her hands in an agony of tears. The terrible climax, the thought of which had lain so heavily on her spirit, had come at last, and its every imagined bitterness seemed heightened.

“Yes, but there is another side to be looked at about that matter,” said Esmae in a low but firm tone: “Boston has been long kept out of his rights through this strange mistake.”

“Oh, but he is so bitter, so wicked, so cruel! ” said Mary with a shudder as she raised her head and glanced up at Esmae. She was hesitating whether it might not be right for her now to reveal how basely his cousin had traded on her fears for her beloved friends. But even Boston had his rights, as Esmae had just remarked; he had done his worst now, and about her own wrongs she could be silent.

“Yes, it is quite true—Boston is bitter,” said Esmae musingly; much more so than I ever thought before. Kenneth Maxwell always distrusted him, I know; but I used to think it was because of an old school rivalry between them, so I gave no heed to his warnings—and, indeed, it is years since he has mentioned my cousin’s name to me. I must say I think Boston might have contrived to tell me of his discovery in a less offensive way. I could not get rid of the feeling that there was malice in it; and he had worked up the factor to such warm partisanship, too. But his facts seemed all right. I can’t say I expect that they can be legally disproved, after what they told me; and perhaps it is as well that I should accept my fate at once. I have had many privileges in past days, as Boston reminded me. But, O Mary, I see now how foolish I was to trifle away all the years as I have done. And he would have been better pleased if I had been more diligent, I know. Dear old daddy, he was too kind to say much; but I must have often enough been a care and a grief to him. Oh, if I could only have made him proud of me, as Kenneth’s father must be of him. But it is too late now, and I am left without him, homeless too, and without a profession, without anything, all through my own folly; because I have flung the precious happy years away,” and Esmae covered his pain-stricken face with his hands and groaned aloud.

“But, Esmae, dear Esmae, there is time, there is hope yet I am sure he would tell you so if he could come back again, and lay his hand on your head and stroke your hair as I have seen him do many a tima Esmae, there is an old blessed message all ready for you; listen to it, dear Esmae: ‘A broken and a contrite heart, O Lord, thou wilt not despise,’ ” whispered Mary.

She began to discern in this darkest hour the beginning of a dawn for which she had long prayed. It brought new strength and hope to her own crushed spirit This streak of light certainly meant dawning day and not deepening night. In all her forecastings of the calamity which Boston’s discovery of his rights would bring to Esmae, she felt that she had never till now realized the possibilities of higher good to his spirit wrapt up in the sore discipline. This, then, was the way in which the loving heavenly Father was to answer her prayers for her friend A new and disquieting thought seemed suddenly to take possession of Esmae. Bousing himself with a start, he glanced uneasily at Mary.

“You have undergone too much for our sakes, Mary—his and mine—even misrepresentation, suspicion. He would have been awfully cut up if he had guessed it I must see Mr. Gordon at once,” he said, rising from his chair with an impatient gesture; “is he anywhere about, I wonder! Surely he must have heard—”

“Oh yes, of course he is here. It was he who fetched me. Why would you not let him in, Esmae % He has been knocking at your door many times, he said I think he is wandering about the great drawing-room now; but he longs to be with you. And Aunt Grizel, too, is here; she is shut up with him—she wanted to be left alone. They have laid him in the oriel of the libraiy where he used so often to sit, Duff told me; but I did not want to see him there now. I wanted to keep the thought of him as he said the kindest of good-nights to me,” and Mary smiled the smile that such sad, sweet memories bring.

“Yes; and he did not forget about the site for the Netherley church. It was the last battle he fought with the factor. Ah, but I forget the power was not his,” faltered Esmae; then their eyes met with a look of mutual pain as they suddenly called to mind that a new master now reigned over the valley.

“Where is Ada? ” asked Mary, evidently recalling her existence for the first time during this interview.

“Oh, I think they all went away early this morning; I heard their carriage wheels in the courtyard. It was better so,” said Esmae wearily as he rose and began to pace up and down the long room with a restless gesture which reminded Mary of another massive figure whose pacings she had ever loved to watch.

“I will send Mr. Gordon to you, Esmae. He will feel a little comforted to hear that you want him, I think,’ said Mary, as she moved away along the silent corridors, passing through the long gallery of tall pictures where she used to play.

Standing in front of the portrait of the sweet young mother whose eyes she used to fancy looked down with such wistful love on her little gleeful son, Mary found the old minister of Asloune leaning on his staff, broken down with grief.

“Come to him, he needs you so much,” she said, drawing Mr. Gordon’s arm into her own and leading him towards Esmae’s room. “You must stay with him; you will not leave him as long as he is here—promise me this. It will be a terrible week for him, Mr. Gordon, I have just been thinking. He will tell you all—of a strange discovery that has been made. Oh, he needs you sorely; go to him,” said Mary with a sob as she pointed to the now open door, within which she caught a glimpse of Esmae anew bowed down under his burden of woe.

HI news travels fast There was not a hall or cottage in all the broad north-eastern strath that did not know before the sun set on another day that the kindly laird of Rinaultrie was no more. To a few tenants on the estate there had also come whispers of a startling rumour. It began to be said that instead of the gallant “young Rinaultrie,” whom they all loved right loyally, another was to rule over them now; that “the Burnett lad,” “Black Dick’s ” son, was legal heir to the estates; that, indeed, he was already in possession of the fair ancestral lands.

Before the sad autumn day when with fitting pomp and reverence they laid all that was mortal of Robert Burnett to rest in the old family burying-vault under the shadow of Heath erben, the strange rumour had grown into a well-authenticated fact. As Mr. Cranstown remarked to his late clerk and now client, there was no possible need for further concealment The sooner, indeed, that it had become a familiar fact to the parties concerned, the more comfortable it would prove for alL When Boston tentatively suggested that the duties which he had to perform on his behalf must be somewhat trying owing to his prospective relationship with Esmae, Mr. Cranstown had smiled blandly, saying with a bow that he need have no fears on that score; such matters always righted themselves in well-regulated families.

In his domestic circle the factor immediately put the changed position of his two clients on what he considered its right footing.

“I always told you that you were too hasty in bringing matters to a point between that lad and Ada, and you see what a mess you almost made of it,’ was the remark with which he wound up a conjugal consultation on the point “However, fortunately, the die is not cast The girl shan’t marry that penniless fellow: ten to one he will go to the dogs altogether now, after such a downfall He always did have an inclination to be fast, more so than I guessed, his cousin tells me. In fact, he was in debt to him till quite lately, he says. All the money that can be secured for him from his father’s estate will not keep him a single quarter, with his extravagant ways; so what is to become of him I do not know. I certainly mean to give him a pretty wide berth, for he has not shown the humble spirit which would have become him these last days. For instance, when the new laird generously offered him a handsome allowance from the estate, the haughty young cub refused to touch a penny of it. And then we had another fine scene after the reading of the will; and that old idiot Gordon took his part too, though it is like cutting his own throat to have done so, as I told him. The fellow, in the most arrogant way, demanded of the laird that he would, at once, carry out his father’s obstinate, foolish fancy of giving a site on the estate for a schism shop for those Netherley mutineers.”

“But I thought that was arranged for in old Mr. Burnett’s tima Norah was writing in her last letter that she was so rejoiced to hear it had been promised That girl has such a memory for everything, and seems to keep up quite a wonderful interest in all the ongoings here; I cannot quite understand it,” remarked Mrs. Cranstown.

“Well, at all events,” continued the factor as he called to mind Norah’s opposition to some of his proceedings concerning Netherley, “there will be no performance of the last laird’s promise now—it is null and void The new laird is dead set against giving the site. He told his cousin so flatly. He is a sensible young fellow that, and will make more of the Binaul-trie estates than has been made for many a day. So prompt too in all his measures. He is already negotiating with a contractor to come and bring his plant and reopen those quarries that have been lying useless so long simply for want of funds. He is certainly determined not to let the grass grow under his feet,” added Mr. Cranstown with a smile; “I had no idea that he was so energetic. He is really quite amazingly impatient to set reform on foot. I am glad to say, too, that he quite goes in with my plan of sweeping those wretched crofts away that swarm on the estate. Altogether, I must acknowledge I quite admire my late clerk since I have known him in his new capacity. What a fool you were, madam, to be in such a hurry making that match; who knows what might have come about if you had waited”

“Oh, as to that, there is no great harm done,” said Mrs. Cranstown coolly. “Ada was confiding to me this morning, all of her own accord, dear child, that she had never been satisfied with the amount of affection which young Burnett showed to her, and that, for some time, she had been seriously thinking of giving him up. And now, sir, you will see that I do not merit the rude epithet which you applied to me just now; I at once warned the child against trifling with her feelings, and advised her to write and give up her engagement without a moment’s delay. And she has done so in an extremely nicely-expressed little note.”

“Capital, capital,” murmured Mr. Cranstown. “My dear Jane, I at once retract my unkind, unsuitable epithet. You have acted with your usual prudence, and I must say by so doing you have taken quite a load from my mind.”

“I was a little sorry that the letter would reach him just as he went home from the funeraL But perhaps it was better that he should be told at once the state of the dear girl’s feelings. It would have been most awkward if he had found his way here, for instance, under the circumstances.”

“There is no fear of that now, at all events; and he leaves for the south early to-morrow morning,” said Mr. Cranstown, as he turned to his business papers.

Mary Cassilis slowly walked down Bramble Hill in the gloaming from Donald’s cottage. It was only one short week, she remembered, since she trod that path, though it seemed years to her as she looked back on that eventful evening. At the point where the laird had laid his hand on Jet’s bridle to stop and gaze on the last earthly sunset she paused for a long reverie. “Dear old friend,” she murmured passionately, as she hurried on. “Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw its shining; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.” But the beloved son, where was he to-night! He had left the familiar glen, perhaps for ever. How was he bearing his sad, lonely heart) she pondered with quivering lip.

A few farewell words spoken at the door of the Mirkwood sitting-room must prove a very precious memory to her, full of sorrow though they were. Surely there must be the best blessings in store for that broken heart, that sorely wounded young spirit. And Ada’s forsaking him, which he briefly mentioned to her, was not that one of the bitterest drops in his bitter cup, though he had not said so? How could she have given him up at such a forlorn time! Her shallow nature, to be sure, was never meant to mate with a noble, faithful spirit like Esmae Burnett’s.

“I thought she loved me,” he said with a sad little smile, as he dismissed the subject But he had received a stab which seemed sorer still. His friend Kenneth Maxwell, to whom he had sent a letter on the first sad day of his loss, had neither written nor come, as he had begged him to do. There was little doubt that the letter must have reached him, too, as Esmae, not being quite sure of his friend’s present address, had applied for and received it from the minister of Blairton. But still there had come no sign to poor Esmae, who had longed eagerly for his once faithful friend in his great sorrow. And Mrs. Irvine, when she walked into the darkened sitting-room at Mirkwood, though she spoke gentle, comforting words to the mourners, old and young, who sat sadly there, and referred pityingly to Esmae Burnett’s sad desolation, still preserved that reserve concerning Kenneth Maxwell which was so mysterious to Mary; the more so now, since Kenneth’s forgetfulness of old ties seemed to extend to one whom she knew he once held dear.

To be sure, I have been a disappointing friend; but I hoped that perhaps Kenneth might have forgiven me, as you have done, Mary,” said Esmae, as he confided to her his soreness of heart Seemingly Kenneth did not intend to do so; and now Es-mae had crept away forlorn and alone, as a wounded deer from his ancestral parks might have done, to suffer, perhaps to die. There, down in the valley, glistened the towers of Binaultrie, as securely barred against him now as if a flaming sword kept the way; and in those cottages scattered all about there was no heart but was aching to-night for his dear sake;—and yet it seemed as if none could lift a Anger to help him. He who was the pride, the flower of the glen, must henceforth be an outcast from it “Oh, it is hard,” murmured Mary, as she seated herself on one of the rocks which skirted the solitary little path and gave way to a wild outburst of pent-up grief.

When at length she went on her way along the path towards Mirkwood, she caught sight of Boston descending the short, broad flight of entrance-steps. He had evidently been paying a visit As he turned to go he caught sight of her. Pausing for a moment, he seemed to hesitate whether he should come forward to speak, but, much to Mary’s relief, he decided in favour of a bow merely. Reac^usting carefully his tall black hat, with its deep band of crape, he walked briskly away in the opposite direction.

Was he actually going to take up his residence in the wellloved home of the Burnetts? Would she have to meet him in her walks, to speak to him sometimes, to become used to his hated presence? she asked herself, with sudden dismay. How was it that she had never thought of it before? Even the very house that they lived in now belonged to Boston. Mere possession of it had been granted as a personal favour by the old laird, she knew. Ho such favour must be accepted from the reigning ona Mirkwood must be quitted without delay, she resolved with impulsive decision, as she hurried up to her aunt’s sitting-room.

Miss Oassilis was looking more cheerful than she had done since the sudden terrible shock. For days she sat almost completely silent, with folded hands, stunned and stony in her woe. But there was an eager look in her eyes now as she greeted Mary. She said almost immediately, and before Mary had time to introduce the subject which was filling her thoughts, “Boston has been calling, my dear. I was thankful to hear how kindly he spoke of poor Esmae; and something he told me really made me quite vexed for that poor, foolish lad. He has actually been so rash as to refuse the allowance that his cousin was anxious to make to him from the estate. Boston seems very sore about it; and, indeed, there is no use in poor Esmae Burnett’s kicking against the pricks. It is a sore, sore overturning for the lad; but we cannot fight against our fate. I do wish he would just humble himself to take that money. If he does not, what will become of him, as Boston was saying! ”

“O aunt, how could you expect that Esmae could touch a penny of Boston’s money?” said Mary impetuously.

“That is very inconsistent of you now, Mary, when you have set your heart on Esmae being got to accept your money. As Boston says, with a very proper spirit, a Burnett has always a right to a share in Binaultrie; and neither has he forgotten his father’s kindness to him in his poorer days. If Esmae would only believe it, Boston has the best of intentions; but he never was wise for himself, that poor lad. I should not wonder if he went wrong altogether. Poor Bobert Burnett, he has, maybe, been taken from the evil to come,—just as Boston was saying.” “And this was how Esmae was to be spoken of nowadays,” thought Mary, with rising indignation. “Oh, what an unjust, shallow world it is I Is there any justice, any generosity, any faith left in it at all? ” her heart cried out in its pain.

And, Mary,” said Miss Cassilis in a more hesitating tone, “Boston was also speaking about our plans. It seems his great wish is that we should remain at Mirkwood. I must say he took up the subject in a very kind, polite way. It has been sore on my mind, bairn, mixing itself with the other troubles, the thought of what we were to da You see, Mary, an old person like me dreads the thought of changes that are life to young folks like you. This old house has been my quiet rest for many a year, and here would I fain stay till the day comes for me to go to my long home—it may not be very far off now. Then I can be taken along the roads I know so well, to Bleep among my own people, as Robert Burnett sleeps among his this night,”’ said Miss Cassilis, as a tear rolled down her withered cheek.

There followed a moment’s silence; and then she went on nervously: “I hope you will not be vexed with me, Mary, for I can see that you have been setting your spirit sorely against Esmae’s supplanter these last days; but Esmae himself says that his cousin has been too long kept out of his rights. After all, why should any of us bear the lad malice for taking possession of his own ? Even Mr. Gordon, who is so dead set against him, cannot but grant that Boston has clearly shown his rightful claim to the estates. All the lawyers seem agreed about that, and so we must just make up our minds to it. There is no injustice about it, though it falls so hardly on poor Esmae; but let us be thankful that Boston kept his secret while the old laird lived As I was saying to the minister, when he was speaking so hotly about the matter to-day, I, for one, will always feel grateful to Boston for that. And, Mary, he has just been begging me now—as a personal favour, he said—to remain here at the dowager-house. And what could I, a helpless old woman, do but thank him gratefully)” faltered Miss Cassilis in an apologetic tone, very unlike her usual one.

It was a painful moment for the young girl who was seated at her feet. On looking back on it, even when time had thrown its softened mists over the rough bit of life’s journey which she was treading now, she used to acknowledge that the hardest task she had ever had was to keep down the waves of rebelliousness which surged in her poor storm-tossed heart as she listened to her aunt’s decision.

But in Mary’s soul there had been budding some of the peace- able fruits which sorrow sometimes bears. The struggle was sharp; but at last, and with a trembling voice, though it spoke from a now quieted heart, she said, “Yes, Aunt Grizel, I think it is best for us to accept his offer, and stay here. I had other thoughts about it, but I see that it is best we should remain at MirkwoocL”

It was, however, a great relief to Mary when at this moment the entrance of a visitor imposed a change of topic.

“This is a late hour to be troubling you, Miss Cassilis, but I was passing near, and I thought I would just step round and see how you and Mary were,” said Miss Margaret in her quiet voice, casting one of her penetrating glances on her old pupil, in whom she had been taking a protective though characteristically silent interest Even more than Mary guessed, Miss Margaret had been able to follow her in many of her sad mental journeys—to sound, by her power of sympathy, the depths of her saddened young heart After a cheerful but rather noticeably brief little talk with Miss Cassilis, Miss Margaret rose to go.

As they went down the staircase together she put her arm in Mary’s, saying, with a slight perceptive tremor in her voice, “My dear, I thought you would be glad to know—it will relieve a little of your anxiety, at least, about our dear young Kinaultrie—that he did not leave the glen all alone, after alL His good friend, Mr. Maxwell, has not failed him, though it was not in his power to come to him sooner. He was in the south of England when the news reached him; travelled night and day to be here, though he was not in time for the funeral; but after all I think he came just when the poor, stricken one needed him most “It was after he had said good-bye to you and your aunt, I think, and had walked on to the inn square to take his seat in the coach. I happened to be passing, and saw it all, and, oh, it was a gladsome sight! I went on my way along the dusty road to Whiterashes, where I had my teaching to-day, with a singing heart, I assure you. My only sorrow was that I could not come running to tell you the good news till my day’s work was done. Well, Mary, he (Mr. Esmae, I mean) was just creeping up to the inn when up came Mr. Maxwell, galloping on the fleetest horse he could find at Aberstone. Before ever young Rinaultrie noticed, he got off his horse and came and put his arm round him. And then I saw they walked away into the birk-wood together. I heard that Mr. Maxwell wanted to take Mr. Esmae to the Manse of Blairton; but when he saw that he was bent on going south at once, he just took his place on the coach beside him, and they are both off together to Edinburgh. This I heard from Mrs. Cardew. She says she never saw her husband shed a tear before, but that there were many rolling down his cheeks to-day when the coach began to move. A great many of the people standing by cheered, not knowing what they did; but Mr. Cardew shook his head, and said, No cheers from ma These people don’t know what they mean. This is no time for hurrahs. We have seen the last of young Rinaultrie,’” narrated Miss Margaret, with quivering lip.

“Oh, but he is not alone, and that is much—everything,” cried Mary, with a brightening face. “Oh, Miss Margaret, how good it was of you to bring me this joyful news.”

“I knew it would cheer you, my dear. You have so much thought for others—for all sore hearts. May the Lord give you a full cup of sweet, holy human happiness yet, if it be His blessed will,” said Miss Margaret, with a loving kiss as she bade her good-night After she had gone a step, she turned back, saying to Mary, who stood watching her go, “He must have had a terrible journey from the south of England all the way, and the fatigue of hunying off without a rest or even a bite of food is vexing to think of; but I believe Mr. Esmae was set on being off, and Mr. Maxwell was not the one to stay behind. However, he must just make a longer visit next time he comes,” added Miss Margaret, with a little mysterious smile as she hurried away.

A few days afterwards there came a welcome letter to Mirk-wood, which was eagerly read and re-read by both the older and younger inmate. It was from Esmae. Things had been going wonderfully well with him, he said; but how could it be otherwise, he added, when Kenneth Maxwell was nursing him night and day as a mother would her sick child, only the nursing was harder work with him, for it was the sick spirit which wanted most ministering to. Then he went on to tell that he had, they would perhaps be surprised to hear, already made his plans for the coming months. The winter session at the university would begin shortly, and he had made up his mind to return to his forsaken studies with a better will, he hoped, than he had shown to them in past days. Kenneth had succeeded •in proving to him arithmetically that the income which still remained to him, small though it was, would amply suffice for his present expenses; and he meant to share his friend’s rooms till Kenneth grew tired of such poor company as he feared he would prove, in which case he had promised to give him due warning.

A cheerful strain pervaded the whole letter. His old friends in the beloved glen were not forgotten. For Donald Reid a kindly little note was enclosed, which would make sunshine in his ingle neuk for many a day. Nor were the troubles of the Netherley people out of mind evidently. “ Tell Auldearn that he must not grieve about not getting the site in the birk-wood; Kenneth says they are sure to get one somewhere before long. You know Kenneth is very much interested in all Church affairs now, and he believes that things are coming to a very big crisis, and that there will be new churches necessary in a great many parishes besides Netherley. Also Ken has discovered that Mr. Densil is an old friend of his uncle’s, and Colonel Maxwell has promised to write to him and plead the cause of the Netherley parishioners, so perhaps it may all come right in that way.

“I had a letter from dear old Gordon yesterday,” Esmae added. “He says Ben is in very low spirits, not even the sight of a hare or a rabbit will rouse him. I know, Mary, you will take him out with you for an airing as often as you can,” was Esmae’s concluding request His intense boyish love for all animals, his longing for the free life of the mountains, were still there as strong as ever, Mary knew; and yet there was not one bitter, one repining word to be found throughout these pages. And this was the man of whom people prophesied that he would be sure to “go wrong” under the pressure of his changed lot, his blighted hopes!

With a feeling of elation in her heart, Mary mounted her noble bay and galloped off to the manse to try to tempt the stately, melancholy old staghound to share in her cheerfulness. But her hope was hardly reasonable as regarded poor Ben, for was not her gladness of heart founded on immortal hopes! Did it not partake of the joy which angels feel over human souls when they begin to climb the golden stair] While for the gallant old Ben, as he lay with a wistful face on the deerskin allotted to him in the manse parlour, there came only melancholy recollections of perished joys, yearnings for the vanished master’s step, longings for the sound of a call that would never again fall on his watchful ear.

CHAPTER XX
Mary visits two Manses

“Nae doot, nae doot, an awfu’ case, the times are unca hard;
And sae ye’re thinking, minister, to leave your ain kailyard
And the bonnie manse and stipend.
An awfu’ dispensation! but I canna say ye’re wrang,
For gin ye think ye shudna stop, ye’re very right to gang.”
W. E. Aytoun.

“Is there any news to-day, my dear?” asked Mrs. Irvine, glancing up from her knitting at her husband, who, after a hurried, silent survey of his newspaper, flung it down on the bench beside him, and began to pace restlessly up and down the brick floor of the pleasant summer-house in which they happened to be seated on this afternoon.

It was only about the middle of March, but the weather was rarely mild for a Scotch spring; so genial that Mrs. Irvine had been lured by her young guest from Mirkwood, who had come to spend a couple of hours with her, to exchange the cosy manse drawing-room for the rustic arbour at one of the sunniest angles of the garden—an immemorially favourite haunt of Mary’s.

It was not often now-a-days that she could be spared from her post in the Mirkwood sitting-room for one whole long afternoon. Her aunt had grown considerably frailer than she used to be, and shrank from solitude. There was, however, one kind, thoughtful friend ever ready to share Mary’s duties when her own occupations permitted Miss Margaret was an increasing favourite with the old lady; and it was her kind offer to spend the afternoon with her that had made possible this visit to the Manse of Blairton, to which she had been looking forward for weeks.

Nearly a year and a half had elapsed since the sad autumn which had brought such desolation at Binaultrie. While many changes had been going on elsewhere, the placid routine of the Blairton Manse had been uninterrupted by any upturning, any external jar. Its hostess looked, perhaps, younger and stronger than she had done for long; but time did not seem to have dealt quite so kindly with the minister. Willie Grahame had announced him as “old Mr. Irvine ” one day lately when he happened to bo calling at Whiterashes. Mrs. Grahame glanced at her younger son with reproving eyes; but as he sat talking to her, she was obliged to acknowledge that Willie’s characterizing of the minister of Blairton was not so incorrect after alL A network of wrinkles had gathered round Mr. Irvine’s keen eyes, and a slight stoop marked his former easy graceful carriage. These symptoms of encroaching years were clearly traceable now as he paused in his pacings, and standing in front of his wife, said,—

“Yes, Dora, there is news—unhappy news. The House of Commons has rejected the motion to take into consideration the situation of our Church, by a large majority too; though of course the bulk of the Scotch members voted in favour of the motion. Most of them probably know what is at stake; but the English members do not—apathy and ignorance seem to have characterized their proceedings. But the deed is done. The split must come. I thought that the old ship might have righted herself even at the last; but the breaking up is now a certainty, I fear. The Convocationists will have their way. Next Assembly will finish it, and we shall lose some of our best” There was a mournful ring in Mr. Irvine’s voice as he spoke, and with a weary gesture he turned to resume his restless walk. Mrs. Irvine bent again over her knitting with a deeply pained expression, but she made no remark.

A moment afterwards, however, she glanced towards her young friend with an involuntary look of encouragement, when Mary said eagerly, “But do you not think our Church has had great patience, Mr. Irvine) Is it any wonder she has got quite weary of waiting) Why, since ever I began to be interested in her troubles—and that is a long while ago now— they have been negotiating with the State for all the reforms they want, hoping and being disappointed by turns. It seems to me that they have really had very great patience to stand it all.”

Patience, Mary! Why, the whole movement for the last ten years has been marked by the most childish impatience—by the impetuous folly of these revolutionary times. The Government have acted under irritation, it is plain to see; and indeed it is not to be wondered at The whole thing has been so blundered. This Convocation and all these agitation meetings that have been rife for so long have seemed to the State, doubtless, like so many challenges to suppress illegal sacerdotal pretensions. There is no doubt that the Non-intrusionists have been trying—rather unfairly, I think, of course—to get rid of the contract which has bound them to the State for so long. Why, it is a hundred and thirty years now since the last bargain was made between the State and the Scottish Church. And now the advanced party simply have determined to try to adapt the old steady-going machine to suit the new-fangled and so-called improvements—to keep pace with dissenters, in fact, and make the Kirk popular enough to catch the people after the fashion of a peep-show. That disastrous Veto Act, for instance, was simply the outcome of these desires, and all that has followed since then has been of a piece with it These ministers of chapels, quoad sacra now, have no legal position in the Establishment, and have been brought into it just to swell the majorities and to let the advanced party have their wilful way. It is little wonder, I say, if the State chafes under such evident design to shirk her contract on the part of the Church.”

“But then, you see, Mr. Irvine, the other parly seem to say that there never was such a bargain made between the Scotch Church and the State. Alick Grahame repeated to me a sentence from a speech, which I thought put the thing very well —‘ We gave the State our services but not our liberties,” he said. Was it not a good way of putting it! ”

“A very sophistical way of putting it, believe me, ‘Mistress Mary, quite contrairy,’ ” said Mr. Irvine, as he drew up in front of her and looked into her glowing young face with a kindly though half-sad smile. “The claims of exclusive spiritual jurisdiction that they are making now are unprecedented. Such a thing was never heard of in the Church of Scotland in my young days, nor in my father’s, nor father’s father. Why, to give the Church such powers is simply a return to the days of Popish tyranny. Instead of struggling to rid ourselves of State control, if we were wise we Bhould be trying to cling to it more than ever for our help in the government of our. churches and all else connected with our ecdesiasticism. It is our true protection. If we let it slip, we may be back to the darkest tyrannies before we know it I assure you, I can see visions of the thumbscrew and the rack when I read some of the fine speeches which are received with such thunderous applause at those agitation meetings. Our good friend, Mr. Grahame, certainly does not look of the tonsured, torturing type of priest, you will say; but I most certainly believe that such pernicious tendencies are wrapt up in the claims of his party, as I have always warned him. That Claim of Bight, for instance, is to my mind identical with the most arrogant pretensions of the Church of Borne. Yes, Mary, I know ecclesiastical history better than you do, and I do deliberately say that I would rather be judged by the law of the land any day than by a body of clergymen; and in the same way I feel that the State influence is a real protection and help to us in the ruling of our parishes, and in everything connected with the maintenance of national religion. And this has been shaken, imperilled by the rash folly of these agitators; and all, really, because of a quarrel concerning ecclesiastical polity which at one time might have been amicably settled by means of a little forbearance and wisdom. I must say I did hope that the Legislature might, even now, at the eleventh hour, have granted concessions which would have saved the poor Church; but they have not, you see. The Government have certainly not been blameless, for they do not seem to have taken the trouble to examine the position of affairs; but they, and those rash Con-vocationists between them, have wrecked the venerable Church of Scotland. Its ruin is irretrievable now!”

The sound of a pair of creaking boots on the gravel walk which skirted the summer-house became audible just as Mr. Irvine’s words fell with a mournful cadence on the still air.

It was the schoolmaster of Whiterashes, who was apparently making his way in a great hurry towards the manse. As he shambled past, however, he caught sight of Mr. Irvine, and wheeling round his ungainly figure he glanced into tha arbour. On perceiving that there were ladies present, he twisted himself into his profoundest bow, saying with a bland smile and in the amended accent in which he always addressed his superiors, unless betrayed into sudden naturalness by some contingency, “May I be permitted to intrude into this most beautiful of vernal bowers? ”

“Certainly, Mr. Shanks, if you wish to see ma Will you take a seat! ” said Mr. Irvine; whereupon the visitor arranged his lean person on the extreme edge of the bench, carefully guarding the tails of the ancient dress coat, which was his perennial garment “Fine weather, is it not, Mr. Shanks9 The honeysuckle that grows so luxuriantly about the schoolhouse porch will be out before long, if things go on as they are doing. We have some lilac blossoming already, and the hawthorns are quite green, you see; they will be one mass of snowy blossoms before long. It is really an extraordinarily early spring.”

“Yes, sir; nature smiles, it is true,” replied Mr. Shanks with a grin. “In fact, sir, we might, at this epoch, use with admirable felicity that beautiful and appropriate sentiment of the poet: “All, Bave the spirit of man, is divine,’ ” he repeated, looking round with the air of dictating a line for a school copy, book. Then, assuming an expression of profound melancholy, he sighed noisily, as if about to enter on some doleful theme. Just as he was going to speak, his eye lighted on the news-paper which happened to be lying on the bench near where he sat. With a keen interrogative glance at the minister, he said quickly, “Then you have seen the news already, sir?”

“I have,” replied Mr. Irvine briefly.

“It will be a fine blow to the highfliers. I make no doubt it will clip the wings of many of these bold birds,” remarked Mr. Shanks, indulging as he spoke in a jocular little wriggle, which visibly imperilled his already slender hold of his seat. “But that would be a pity,” he continued. “If they think they should not stop in the Establishment they are very right to go,” he continued, rubbing his blue lean fingers with a meditative air. “But you see, sir, when it comes to the renouncing of the temporalities, as it is clear it must do now, some of them will be singing smaller, I’ll warrant To tell the truth, sir, I would not be in the very least surprised if not a man of the Non-intrusionists budged, after all their bragging about the sacrifices they were prepared to make, if, forsooth, the State did not give them all they have been clamouring for.”

The contents of Mr. Shanks’s own newspaper, now bulging out of his pocket, certainly seemed to have emboldened him for more freedom of manner and speech than he usually ventured on with the stately minister of Blairton, who, though courteously polite and considerate of the feelings of others, was known to be a man with whom it was neither easy nor comfortable to take a liberty.

Mr. Irvine’s attitude to the ecclesiastical questions which had been for so long agitating all grades of society throughout the country was, of course, well known—for he never wavered from his original position; and it was not a little gratifying to the schoolmaster of Whiterashes that though his own minister belonged to the most advanced party on the other side, he could rank himself in the same camp as one of his most revered superiors. It gave him, in fact, quite a warm spirit, as of freemasonry, which he never doubted would be reciprocated by his fellow-Moderate. Mr. Irvine’s proud spirit might indeed have received a considerable shock had he guessed how often his name was used by Mr. Shanks in his discussions with his village associates on the burning question, and how frequently he clinched an argument by winding up in an oracular tone, “That is my opingion, and Mr. Irvine’s.”

That Mr. Timothy Shanks was no favourite with her husband, Mrs. Irvine knew well. It frequently amused her to perceive with what sublime unconsciousness and unruffled composure the schoolmaster received from him the most patent though politest of snubs. She felt regretful that he should have come to invade their sanctuary now, and to deepen the shadow on her husband’s brow. The shadow had, indeed, changed into rather a formidable-looking frown as he stopped suddenly in front of the schoolmaster, saying in a decisive tone,—

I think, Mr. Shanks, it is high time for every one to desist from such remarks as the one you have now made. The Con-vocationists have proved clearly that, rightly or wrongly, they are quite prepared to renounce their temporalities for the sake of their views.”

“Oh yes, maybe they have in a way. It is all very well for them to make that boast, but I’ll warrant most of them have taken good care to secure their livings on another footing before they spoke out so bold as they have been doing in this Convocation,” said Mr. Shanks, shifting his ground. “They do not think it soiling their fingers to tamper with unendowed dissent Dr. Chalmers’s eloquence at the meeting of Convocation was just nothing but a trap to catch money. There is a pretty brisk canvas for securing incomes going on in some quarters nearer home, I can tell you. They are trying hard to reckon up what sums can be wrung from the toil-stained palms of the very poorest What are they making such a talk about reviving the office of the deacon, for instance, but just that they may have a body of tax-gatherers ready to do their bidding. They will have their tithes, depend on it—if not in one way, in another. And the working-man will be the sufferer in the end, as I was given the mouth and wisdom to tell to some of them in our parish the other night—and that with considerable unction too, as was remarked by not a few of my audience; though, as you know, sir, I was ever a man of a modest, retiring spirit, not one to court loud applause for its own sake merely,” he added, with a bow and a smile as he glanced towards the ladies.

“Perhaps you were honoured with what Dr. Chalmers calls ‘pedestrian approbation,’ Mr. Shanks,” remarked Mrs. Irvine.

“Just so, madam,” cried Mr. Shanks gleefully, rubbing his hands. “The fact is, the cheering they gave me was heard at a considerable distance off—some say the sounds must have reached the mansa Very gratifying, truly encouraging to the good cause we have both so much at heart, is it not! ” murmured the schoolmaster, with a questioning glance towards the minister, who sat silent now absorbed in thought.

“But, Mrs. Irvine,” began Mary, “did not Dr. Chalmers, according to the story, go on to tell his students that their ‘pedestrian applause’ was not to his mind, that he preferred such edusions should come from the heads rather than the heels of the rising generation? But perhaps you are able to appreciate both, Mr. Shanks.”

“Both, Miss Cassilis, as you say,” said the schoolmaster with a delighted grin; “and, you see, the heels being mostly tackety, the volume of sound was most prodigious—most stimulating to me, I assure you; for, you perceive, I have not often the chance of exercising my higher gifts in the humble sphere which Providence has assigned to me, for the present,” he added, with a marked emphasis on the last phrase. “Perhaps, sir, you are not aware of what is going on in our parish, actually—though, of course, I Bhould not like it mentioned, for I am not the man to spread tales about my reverend superiors, as you know, sir; but it is a well-known fact to some that Mr. Grahame is just going about from house to house with a column of figures in his hand, taking down the signatures of them that side with him, and sounding them on how much he may reckon on for his future support. He is determined not to be the loser if he takes this grand step. It will not be a leap in the dark with our minister anyhow,” wound up Mr. Shanks, with a harsh, unpleasant laugh.

“Excuse me, Mr. Shanks. It is for you, certainly, to decide whether you will lend your ear to such false, scandalous lies concerning a respected minister of the Church; but it is for me to request that you will not bring them within the precincts of the Manse of Blairton. I wish you good afternoon, Mr. Shanks,” concluded the minister, rising to his full height, and casting a withering glance on his visitor, which caused him to jump from his seat with considerable discomfiture depicted on his face and limbs as he shambled towards the entrance of the little summerhouse, muttering, “Oh, certainly, sir; I will not detain you.”

Afi he was disappearing, he suddenly jerked himself round, making a furtive bow to the ladies, and in a moment his flying tails were lost among the evergreens.

“So much for the Reverend Timothy Shanks,” said the minister with a shrug, as the sound of the creaking boots died away. “And this is the genus that will be left in the old Church now,” he added shiveringly. “Ah, woe to the rashness, the folly, the mistaken zeal which have brought us to this pass!”

But now another figure darkened the entrance to the summerhouse. It was old Martha’B broad, stumpy person, bristling with her usual load of letter-bag and parcels. “Here, mus-truss; tak ye that It’s frae the south, I ken fine; and I was jist thinkin’ maybe it wad be frae our braw Maister Maxwell,” she added, with beetling eyebrows, as she stood waiting after she had delivered the letter.

“Tes, Martha; you are quite right The letter is from Mr. Maxwell,” said Mrs. Irvine with a pleased smile.

“I kent that fine,” nodded Martha, and she planted her brown bare feet on the threshold, and placed her arms akimbo, having evidently no intention of moving till she heard at least a certain portion of the contents of this welcome missiva “Are you not going to stay to hear Kenneth’s newB, John?” asked Mrs. Irvine, as her husband made a movement to go.

“I? No. Why should I, my dear? It will only be to listen to his young rhapsodies about that chimera of his—the glorious free Church of the future; and I cannot stand that today. However, I must say, after all, Kenneth’s ravings are too much in the clouds to disturb my practical mind very much. There is even something refreshing at times in his intense young belief in the new current he is moving with, and in his exuberance over every Btep that brings it nearer to the precipice. There is always something of the Columbus spirit about healthy-minded young men—and about certain young ladies too, Mary. The golden land shines for them through the mists of dawn and lures them on. It is the older people whom I blame for the wreck of our good old ship. Ah, Mary, believe me, it will take a long time for these young highfliers to build up another Church half as good, half as serviceable, half as beloved as the one which they are preparing to break up now,” said Mr. Irvine, glancing at Mary’s thoughtful, half-pitying face with a pathetic smile; then he turned away, and walked slowly towards the house.

“Na, but fat’s wrang wi’ the munuster the day!” muttered old Martha with knitted brows, as she watched him go. And then, as if concluding that not many crumbs of cheerful news would likely fall to her share as long as such a shadow seemed to be resting on the inmates of the manse, she dropped a sudden courtesy, saying, “Guid day til ye, mem. I’ll be steppin’. I’ll maybe hear the fine lad’s news aftertim.”

Kenneth Maxwell’s letter did not prove the rhapsody on Church politics from which Mr. Irvine shrank.

“Why, Mary, this epistle seems little else than a long message to you about Esmae and all kinds of things,” said Mra Irvine, as she glanced along its pages. “I think I had better read it aloud, and let us both have the benefit at once,” she added, without raising her eyes. She guessed notwithstanding that into the young face beside her had crept a deeper flush than generally tinged it now-a-days; for had she not observed its presence more than once lately when that name was mentioned?

“Why should it be so?” Mary was asking herself now, as she tried to quiet the quickened beatings of her heart, and to school herself into that attitude of indifference to which she felt she should long since have attained concerning Kenneth. Not since that brief visit years ago, when Kenneth Maxwell had come and gone so mysteriously from the precincts of Mirk-wood without even a word to her, had he and she met again.

He had not indeed for a single day revisited the strath since that sad autumn evening when he came to lead his stricken friend away from his home to the struggle of life. How faithfully he had stood by Esmae since then, Mary knew full well from more than one source, and none rejoiced in that knowledge more than sha But, apart from that claim on her gratitude, which she felt to be deep and strong, Mr. Maxwell was nothing to her now—had evidently even ceased to reckon her among his friends. Time had indeed passed but tamely for Mary Cassilis since Rinaultrie changed hands. She had bravely accepted her aunt’s decision that Mirkwood should still remain their home; but life had grown very gray at the dowager house—indeed it had been haunted by a dark trouble for Mary; for there was one wish of her aunt’s to which she altogether refused to bend. The very fact of her entertaining it made one of her loneliest sorrows. Boston had, with imperceptive folly, imagined, after a time, that it might be possible for Mary to reconsider the decision to which, he urged, she had come with undue haste, or mistaken feeling, that autumn evening on Bramble Hill; so skilfully did he plead his suit that he succeeded in enlisting partially, at all events, the sympathies of the elder Miss Cassilis in his causa But Mary stood haughtily, defiantly firm.

Shortly after Boston’s last unsuccessful attempt to press his suit, relief came from an unexpected quarter. A rumour grew in the strath which was soon officially confirmed,—Ada Crans-town had graciously consented to become lady of Rinaultrie under another lord and master. The engagement was a short one, and presently the news reached the glen that Mr. and Mrs. Burnett Burnett had left for the Continent on a long honeymoon tour.

Then things began to brighten a little at Mirkwood. Mary gradually resumed, with something of her old freedom, her visits to the dwellers in the glen, and the free rambles over hill and dale which made part of the bright life in former days were sometimes indulged in, but hardly with the zest of bygone times. Sad memories seemed written over familiar places, and the changes were as hard to bear as the pathetic unchangeableness of the spots from which the dear ones had vanished. For so-called improvements had not been wanting in the glen. The banks of the Aultrie could hardly be called a pool of Bethesda any longer; all the maimed and the halt had been swept from its peaceful green haughs. Evictions had been frequent all over the estate. Some people nodded their heads approvingly, and said the new laird understood what he was about; that the rental of Rinaultrie was already doubled, and Mr. Burnett Burnett on a fair way to becoming one of the richest land-owners in the country-side.

Not one of the least important of the changes on the estate was the reopening of the long-disused quarry. This step, it may be imagined, excited great interest in the mind of the old disabled workman who had met with his sad accident when the undertaking had been begun more than sixty years previously. It was music to Donald Reid’s ears to listen once more to the ringing of the many hammers down in the hollow. Even the thunderous sounds of blasting the hard rock were dear to him, though they spread dismay in the peaceful glen. Many a time he sat watching with quiet pleasure the quarry carts laden with their gray-tinted, glistening loads, as they wound round the base of Bramble Hill on their way to Aberstone, the chief place of demand for the beautiful, enduring stone which Rin-aultrie produced. But Donald Reid’s enjoyment of the cheerful sights and sounds was cut short by an order from the factor that he was to quit his little cottage at the next term. The exigencies of the quarry required it, the factor briefly replied when Mr. Gordon interceded that the old man should be left unmolested in his hut The new laird was not without his warm admirers, though there were certainly a few who acknowledged that they could not feel in charity towards him. The generous manner in which it was reported that he had waived his rights for some time after his discovery of them, was much in his favour with some, and his man of business did not fail to make the most of his alleged generosity on this point His social duties were performed with exemplary punctiliousness. County meetings were never without his valued counsel, and he had taken his place efficiently on more than one charitable board in Aber-stone.

As for the other unfortunate young Burnett, as he was generally styled now, he had, of course, made a terrible mistake in imagining for bo long that these broad lands would belong to him. It was well known that he had spent his youth in idle sport and reckless extravagance. The less that was said about him the better; his sun had certainly set More than likely he would sink in the social scale, and disappear as his wicked uncle had done, was a frequent suggestion concerning him. It was a bad sign, they held, that he refused to be on good terms with his cousin, the present exemplary laird, who, it was well known, made him a generous offer of a yearly allowance, which Esmae was reported flatly to have declined—a piece of ungrateful folly which, for one so dependent, boded the worst Such was the social verdict passed on Esmae Burnett, some portions of which occasionally reached the loyal hearts who kept warmly true to young Rinaultrie,” quickening Mr. Gordon’s old wheels of being into as hot indignation as they did the young pulses of Mary Cassilis. But little recked Esmae of it alL A mettlesome disregard of public opinion, which had no doubt often proved a snare to him in former times, stood him in good stead now as he lived his quiet student life, sharing his faithful friend’s upper chambers in the old town of Edinburgh.

It was joyful news to hear from Kenneth’s letter now how steadfastly her old playfellow had learned to “scorn delights and live laborious day a” The letter was full of Esmae; and to Mrs. Irvine’s surprise quite as much, to say the least of it, as Mary’s, Kenneth requested that Miss Cassilis should be told all the cheering tidings which he seemed so proud and thankful to have to send.

Kenneth’s sudden departure on the evening of the bright spring day which began with his setting out to call at Mirk-wood in a spirit of undisguised hopefulness, was quite as mysterious to Mrs. Irvine as it had been to Mary. In fact, till lately, she was not in the least aware that his going away was a mystery to Mary; for she jumped to the quick and mistaken conclusion that it was Mary’s own deed—that it was, in fact, her rejection of him which had brought his evident disappointment, and caused his determination to bring his visit to Blairton to such an abrupt conclusion. Even now she did not know as a fact that it was not so. No explanation on the subject had ever been volunteered by Mary nor asked by Mrs. Irvine, but lately it had been dawning upon her that the case was not quite so hopeless as Kenneth evidently thought Since the ill-fated spring visit of three years ago which appeared to rankle so sorely, he had resolutely refused all invitations to Blairton. Great, therefore, was Mrs. Irvine’s surprise now as she went on to read that Esmae and he had been planning a visit to the strath, and that they were likely to see them both at the Manse of Blairton some time that summer. Esmae, he said, was hungering very much for a sight of the old familiar faces; and he, for his part, confessed that there were some faces which he also longed to see.

Mrs. Irvine and Mary had reached that stage which, indeed, is like a coming to the Delectable Mountains in the path of friendship, when mutual understanding is able to gather from silence more than can be generally gleaned from speech.

That Esmae should have made up his mind Ub come back and see them all was, indeed, joyful news to Mary; and these messages, these pleasant words from one who had so long kept mysteriously silent—were they not very joyful too! Mrs. Irvine and she both rejoiced with a gladness too deep for words as they sat together with clasped hands in the little summerhouse.

This period of glad contentment was brought to an end by worthy old Martha, who again came blinking into the arbour, this time with rather a conscience-stricken air. “Here, mussy, here’s a bit nottie I clean forgot to gie ye. It’s frae the Manse o’ Whiterashes. Miss Helen sent the herd laddie til Mirkwudd wi’t, but somebody telt the callant ye were intil Blairton the day, so he gied me the bit note til gie ya But I was that gled til see Maister Maxwell’s hand o’ write that I clean forgot Miss Helen’s ana ’Deed, I should hae jist let the sweer callant dae his ain jots.”

“Oh, it is from Helen,” said Mary. “She says her mother is not well, and begs me to go across to see her this afternoon.”

“Well, Mary, I shall be sorry to give up any bit of my long-promised afternoon, but if Mrs. Grahame needs you I must not be selfish,” said Mrs. Irvine after a moment “Yes, I think I had better go on to Whiterashes. I have got my bay to-day, and James in attendance, so it will not matter if I am late, especially as Miss Margaret promised to Btay all the evening with aunt And I fear I shall not be able to leave home for a good while again, Aunt Grizel so dreads being alone I think Helen seems to want me very much to-day. I have not had a talk with her for ever so long. You see, she is as much tied with her little sisters as I am with Aunt Grizel.”

“I know poor, dear Mrs. Grahame will be much cast down by this decision of Parliament about our poor Church. She was always hoping that something would come to hinder the crisis. Dear, anxious soul, she has been so fearful about it all for many a day. What a contrast she is to her sanguine husband. How strange life is! ” murmured Mrs. Irvine, a sad look coming into her eyes; and then, after a moment’s silence, she added impetuously, “Mary, it seems to me that if I could see my husband go with the free, pure Church—even though it should be into the wilderness—it would be a joy to me that would swallow up all else. Oh, it is a bitter trouble to me that he sees things all the other way. You have known this for many a day, Mary. I remember you were little more than a child when that subject was broached between us, after my first visit to Donald Reid’s cottage. Your distress at what you regarded the unfair taunts of that radical shoemaker broke the ice, I think.”

“Yes, I recollect it all very well It was really my first lesson in Church politics; and then there came a good deal more education for me in the troubles of the Netherley people; and so now, I suppose, I am a full-fledged Non-intrusionist, as Mr. Gordon says—he makes so many jokes about it.”

“Ah, but we do not joke about it now—it is too near, too real for that,” said Mrs. Irvine with a pained face. “You heard what my husband said to-day, Mary. He is sorely troubled about the news; in fact, the whole subject has been a haunting anxiety with him for long. Oh, how much I wished he would have gone to the Convocation. He might have seen things in a new light But the idea of being beyond the protection of the State is so repugnant to his whole nature that I doubt if he could ever have done justice to the opposite side. He really has a perfect horror of dissent; I do not quite understand it Kenneth says it is all prejudice; but my husband retorts that Kenneth does not really like dissent any better than he, but that, he says, is what, unknown to themselves, they are all drifting to, though they certainly deny it hotly for the present both in public and private. I do not believe they ever mean to become dissenters, as my husband fears. I do wish he were fairer to the other side.”

“Well, at all events he is so in some things, I am sure,” said Mary warmly. “Just see how he put down Mr. Timothy Shanks’s attempt at detraction. Oh, it was delicious. And Mr. Irvine is always so charitable, so different from some of his opponents, who, as a friend of Mr. Gordon’s said lately, have been learning quite an evangelical method of abuse—a conscientious way of destroying a man’s character. Was it not good? Oh yes, I do think our nice Moderates have a very great deal to stand just now. Indeed, when I hear Mr. Irvine talking, I cannot help greatly agreeing with Sir Roger de Coverley, that there is a good deal to be said on both sides.”

“Then the influences of the Manse of Blairton are no longer wholesome for you, my dear.”

“Nevertheless, I am very sorry to say good-bye to it now,” said Mary with a laugh, as she kissed her friend, and springing lightly into her saddle she galloped away towards the other manse.

“O Mary, it is all so wonderful, I can hardly believe it Gome and let me tell you. So much has happened since I wrote to you this morning,” was Helen Grahame’s eager greeting, as Mary found her sauntering along the old terrace in front of the house with some of the children. “Let’s go to some quieter place, and I will tell you all about it,” she cried impulsively, as she put her arm in Mary’s, who, as she gathered up her riding-skirts and hurried off with her friend, said in a quiet tone,—

“But, Helen dear, I first want to know how your mother is. I was so sorry to hear that she was ill again.”

“Why, it is just about her I am going to tell you,” replied Helen with an excited smile. “You see she was so ill this morning that papa and I were quite anxious about her. And when the news came—you have heard it of course, Mary,—that the House of Commons has refused to help the Church of Scotland, well, papa was quite afraid to tell her about it, and forbade any of us to speak about the subject till she was stronger. Indeed, Mary, he was much more cast down himself than I expected, for I thought he quite knew how it would all end He sat in his study for more than an hour with his door fastened And meanwhile, when he was there, and I was away in the playroom with the children, trying to keep them good and happy, who should walk in, and find her way all unnoticed to mamma’s room, but Mrs. Wishart, the farmer’s wife at Bogend, you know. We are not very fond of her; she has rather a long tongue, and sometimes makes mischief in the congregation. Well, of course, Mr. Wishart had got his newspaper, and she had heard everything; so she told poor mamma the whole story, in the most vexing way possible, I have no doubt; and she even brought the newspaper with her, in case anything should have happened to ours.”

“Oh, how very provoking! Then Mrs. Grahame heard all about it in a much worse way than if you had told her. I do hope Mrs. Wishart was roundly scolded.”

“Why, none of us ever even knew that she had been in mamma’s room till she had come and gone. But just listen, Mary, to the wonderful thing it has brought about. I was still in the playroom, and knew nothing till an hour afterwards, when the dinner-bell rang, and who should we see coming out of the study, leaning on papa’s arm, but mother herself, looking, oh, so brave and cheerful! Soon after Mrs. Wishart had left, she actually dressed and got downstairs without any help, though she is so weak; and she had been sitting in the study comforting papa for ever so long. And he was looking so different from before—quite his old, calm, happy self again. We made mamma go upstairs after dinner to rest Of course, she was tired with the effort of rising and dressing, but I never saw her look less care-burdened than she does to-day. 3he is sleeping just now. I know she will be disappointed not to see you, Mary; but don’t you think it is best not to disturb herl”

“Oh, of course. But, Helen, it is wonderful indeed, all this. Mrs. Irvine was just saying how much she feared for your mother, and I could not help being very anxious as I rode along here. And just think how mistaken we were! It is very beautiful of her, and it will be such a strength to you alL”

“Yes, it is very wonderful. She used to be so terribly anxious and cast down when things were a long way off; and now that the worst seems coming, she is really the bravest of us alL Little Maggie blurted out at dinner that it was Burely a miracle that had made mamma able to get up and walk so well, and the boys began to laugh at her; but papa said, in his gravest voice, ‘ Little Maggie is perhaps nearer the truth than any of us; it is surely one of our heavenly Father’s gracious miracles.’ And I really think so, Mary; for, of course, all those changes which mamma has been dreading for so long will come upon us now—this spring, papa says. And she knows that quite well. What is to become of us I don’t know. I have felt quite frightened several times to-day when I thought over it all I really don’t quite understand mamma’s taking it so easily. You know we shall have nothing to live on when papa’s stipend stops. And it will be so very terrible to have to leave this dear old home, where we have all been bom, and the garden— and Brownie Bum, Mary,” faltered Helen, as she glanced through her tears on the crystal-clear waters as they rippled among the familiar gray rocks; for they had now reached their favourite haunt, the bank of the picturesque little brattling stream which twined itself about Whiterashes, “round and round it, as if loath to go.”

“And then, you know,” continued Helen ruefully, “the worst of it is that papa’s elders are mostly Moderates, all indeed now except old Mr. Bruce, and of course his belonging to our parish is merely an accident. He is the only hearty Non-intrusionist. Is it not strange? And at Blairton it is exactly the opposite. The elders there, they say, are all so vexed that there is no chance of Mr. Irvine coming out. Our people have taken the other side, you see, and that makes it all the harder; for we shall certainly have to leave dear old Whiterashes, and where we shall go I cannot think, and I know that papa has made no more plans about the future than little Maggie has. My head really aches with puzzling over it all to-day. And, you see, Alick will be exactly in the same plight as papa, so he cannot help us—though being grown up, and the eldest son, that is what might have been expected. He, too, will be leaving the nice church he got a year ago only, and will never now live in the pretty new manse where he promised that I should go and stay with him; but then it will not be quite so hard for him as for us here at Whiterashes, for, you see, his elders are all on the right side. Of course, they will want somebody still to preach to them; but I fancy it will have to be among the heather, for they are only poor crofters, and will never be able to build a church for themselves, nor a house for their minister; so what is to become of us all I can’t sea I must go and try to make money somehow, that is clear. But, after all, what can I do? Oh, why is it that girls are not educated like their brothers! There, you see, I am only one year younger than Alick, and might have had a profession just like him. I believe I could have been a doctor, for instance,, for mamma says I am a good sick-nurse, and I know that I have not half the shrinking from the sight of wounds and things that Alick has, and papa first thought of making him a doctor, as his own father was. Yes; if it had only been the custom—the fashion for girls to study medicine, I might have been able to help them all now a great deal more than Alick ever can. And there are many things besides doctoring that I might have been quite able to do, if they would only have let me learn.”

“Quite true, Helen; but there it is—they will not let us learn. It seems to me that the world has always liked best that its women should sit as if within strong sheltered walls and watch the men as they struggled below; but I think the protectors sometimes do not understand how much dullness, how much waste of precious gifts, how much unseen suffering goes on inside those fortress walls, where they think they guard their ‘helpless ones ’ so safely! ”

“Prison walls I call them! I declare, Mary, I mean to tuck up my skirts and jump down and cross the trenches and fight too! ” cried Helen impetuously, wiping her tears away. “The Church will be free now, she is going to throw off her shackles; why should not we? Just think of Miss Margaret, for instance, so clever, so wise—one of the best heads, male or female, in the country-side, papa says—and yet she has been kept down all her life just because she happened to be a woman; has had to spend her days till her eyes are faded and her spirit broken in trying to earn a miserable pittance—patronized by all the fanner’s wives round about as a ‘ puir spinster crater, If she had been a man, she might have been one of the judges of session before now; and why should she not be if she has the head for it and had got the proper training? Why, just because she happens to be Margaret instead of Peter, that bad, only brother who enlisted, and to whom she had always to send money, and who was a disgrace to them till he died. Why should she not have been able to retrieve the family honour when she had the ability, the sagacity, everything that was needed except the chance? And even Miss Joan herself might not have grown quite so spiteful, so scandal-monging, if she had been kept down by real hard work all her life, instead of earning her leisure by preying on poor Miss Margaret I remember when I was a little chit she came to teach me once, because her sister was laid up with a sort of low fever which she had caught Miss Joan set to teaching me that little hymn, ‘Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.’ And I remember that she looked like the most mischievous of imps herself, when she sat perched on the edge of her chair nodding it into me. I have always connected that hymn with Miss Joan. It is the only thing that keeps me from being, oh, so angry with her, when I hear hints of the spiteful stories she spreads about papa; I try to remember that if only she bad not had such ‘ idle hands, she could not possibly have grown so wicked.”

“That is very likely,” said Mary, who had been resting her cheek on her hand, gazing with a thoughtful air on the cheerful little stream as it flowed on its way to join the Aultrie at one of its great shining curves. “But, Helen,” she continued now, “I have just been thinking that if all the good, wise, clever women were to set their hearts on becoming judges of the Court of Session, or some other grand career of that kind, struggling up either for fame or money, or both, what would become of us all? One cannot help thinking of that side of it It would have fared rather badly with some of us, for instance, in these parishes, if Miss Margaret had not been content to trudge along the dusty road with her bag on her lowly, poorly-paid work. We might have grown into old maids of Miss Joan’s type, Helen. Our old teacher has saved us from that, I think, whatever our future may be. Surely one could not help catching some sparks from the pure, generous flame that burns to all God’s creatures in Miss Margaret’s heart,” said Mary with kindling eyes. “Yes, Helen, I suspect there are some who, even in these days of freedom, must still bear the yoke of humble, lowly, poorly-paid toil, even among those who have powers of a kind that might have given them high, coveted posts in the world, if they had listened to self-pleasing voices, rather than to His clear quiet voice when He says, ‘ Take my yoke upon you, and learn of ma’ ”

“Oh dear, here comes that tiresome old Mr. Wishart to interrupt our talk!” cried Helen as she glanced towards a shady walk among the evergreens where a hard, shrewd-looking, elderly peasant man was coming slowly along, biting his nails vigorously as he listened to the speaker by his side, whom Helen did not at first observe. “Oh, how vexing! and he has pounced upon poor papa, too. I feel sure Mr. Wishart is the last person he wanted to see to-day.”

Mr. Grahame came forward and shook hands with Mary. He was grave and pre-occupied, and turning again to the keenlooking old man by his side, he took up the thread of the conversation in which they had been engaged.

“Yes, Mr. Wishart; believe me, it is not we who are leaving the Church, but the State that is driving us out There is no help for it; we must go on now though we have to leave behind us everything that we count most dear. But, after all, our pleasant manses are but wayside inns. We are pilgrims passing to a better, an enduring country. We must so act as a Church and as individuals, Mr. Wishart, that we shall lead the souls committed to our charge into an unfettered Church, if they have strength to follow us. The world must be behind our backs, the law of truth on our lips, like the faithful pastor who sat for his immortal portrait to old John Bunyan, you remember;” and as Mary glanced into Mr. Grahame’s shining face, she thought that it was not difficult to trace the irradiating from “the crown which did hang over his head.”

“But it’s an awfu’ case for yersel’, sir, and them that belangs til ye. I canna be onthinkin’ that ye shud stop and think a wee yet afore ye tak’ siccan a rash step as to leave your fine bigget kirk, and that commodious hoose, and the glebe, and the chalders, and a’—and wi’ sic a femely as ye hae, sir.”

“The Lord could prepare a shroud for each one of them if I were to desist from doing my duty for their sakes.”

“Ay, weel, fegs, but there’B something in that,” replied Mr. Wishart, scratching his head. “ There was some folk doon by the brig there, I min’, that lost hail five bairns wi’ a bad fivver, and ye hae sivven in a’. But, ye see, sir, it is nae a common thing til hae a big femely swep aff that onnatural gait. ’Deed, munuster, gin I was ye I wad risk it,” he added.

“Oh, I do wonder how papa can have so much patience with that dreadful old earth-worm! ” cried Helen with youthful indignation, as the minister and his elder disappeared along the shady walk, still conversing.

Mr. Graham e, however, seemed very shortly to have been relieved from the society of his earthly-minded elder, for he soon rejoined his daughter and her friend.

“You have found your way here as usual, Miss Cassilis. It is a delightful nook,” he added with a sigh, and after a moment’s silence he said gravely, “But some of us must begin to tiy hard to disentwine our hearts from such familiar spots. Braid ‘seas between us’ and Brownie Burn may roar before long now. But your friend Helen there is one of the bravest of us, I think.”

“I don’t know that, papa; I am afraid Mary can tell a different story,” murmured Helen, flushing up, for she felt that her courage had failed her strangely throughout the day, even more than she had confessed to her friend. Perhaps she was suffering from the over-excess of confidence in which she had been wont to indulge; but if so, she felt that this reaping-time—this nemesis on words which had proved in advance of genuine feeling, so common a phenomenon at such times— was anything but conducive to the serenity which now became her mother’s portion.

“You have heard the news, of course, Miss Cassilis?” continued Mr. Grahame, as he seated himself on one of the gray rocks.

Mary briefly acknowledged that she had.

“Yes,” he continued, “that was a solemn night for the British Parliament. As a friend of mine has just written to me, ‘ King Jesus stood at that earthly tribunal, and they knew him not.’ They do not want the Church to have any king but Caesar. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church, and we must follow him, and go with those who seek to make a pore free Church for his sake, even though such following lead us far from Brownie Burn; for the green pastures and the still waters would not be so to us any more, Helen, if the light of our Lord’s countenance were lifted away,” said Mr. Graham e, glancing at his daughter, whose sorely troubled face he now noticed for the first tima “I—I would not wish to stay now; I am only thinking,” faltered Helen with a quivering lip.

Yes; Helen was thinking now. It was just as she had feared,” said Mary to herself. The hour was striking, and her friend’s lamp was not so ready to be her guide through the valley of shadow as she imagined in brighter days; but there was time to trim it yet “Mary,” she said, starting up, “what are we dreaming off The sun is quite out of sight behind Heatherben, and you have not started on your ride for home, and you are looking so wearied too. It is really veiy bad of me to have been so thoughtless.”

Mr. Grahame went to summon the old groom; and after many loving words, Mary took farewell of her friends with deeper love and loyalty to them than perhaps she had ever felt before As she rode away from the peaceful home where all looked so well-ordered, so secure, so unalterable, though it was on the brink of so great a change; as she cast her eye over the ample glebe, with its cluster of little cottages, at its sunniest corner for the free use of old, helpless parishioners, at its cosy steadings, its upland fields where the minister’s kine browsed in fat content, and in the centre of it all that beloved roof-tree of the sweet family who had been bom and cherished there, with its pleasant sitting-rooms, its cosy guest-chambers, where the snowiest of fragrant linen, the most alluring of bed-room fires, the nicest of good books, and the cosiest of easy-chairs, were always found,—when she remembered these things, called to mind all the blank, all the loss, all the change involved in the sacrifice in things great and small which was presently to be made by the inmates of many such manses, she thought of some words of a great speech, a newspaper report of which had found its way to Mirkwood in the end of the year. For the throwing up our livings”—so ran the words—“for the casting of ourselves with such unequal odds into so great a conflict, men call us enthusiasts: but enthusiasm is a noble virtue, rarely to be found in calm, unruffled times of prosperity; it flourishes in adversity, it kindles in the hour of danger. Persecution but serves to quicken the energy of its purpose. It swells in proud integrity, and great is the purity of its cause; it can scatter defiance amid a host of enemies.”

Yes; the Grahames and such as they had their compensations. It was something to be borne on with the tide of generous feeling, to be stimulated by chivalric fire to press through the fog and mist to the good land yet to be possessed. After all, Mrs. Irvine, standing sadly and alone in the porch of the old Manse of Blairton, was more to be pitied than they; for is it not true that ever in life’s partings, theirs is the bitterness who “stay behind”?

CHAPTER XXI
A Red-Letter Day.

“Bid the long ages flee Of doubt, uncertainty, and strife;
Give back the ancient unity,
The love, the beauty, and th’e life.
Reign of the wise and just,
Age of the good, the great, the true,
Through these thick clouds of smoke and dust
We calmly wait for you.”

“Comb, Kenneth, let us quicken our steps, or there will be little chance of our being able to get into St Andrew’s Church even by the most athletic of feats. I overheard somebody saying just now that it had been full since daybreak.”

“All right, Esmae. I am quite ready to keep up with your most rapid pace. I only stopped to put a note into the post-office for Mrs. Irvine. I wanted to send them a word this morning. I doubt whether there will be any sadder manse today among those on the veige of a great change than one where there will be no external change at all—the old Manse of Blairton. Poor cousin John! I am glad that he does not happen to be a member of Assembly this year. It would have wrung his heart to have seen the exodus, I know.”

“The secession, I suppose he would call it. But I don’t agree with you, Ken; I think it is a thousand pities he was not up in town, in the midst of it all. He looks a chivalrous kind of old chap. Why, he might have caught the infectious spirit of the thing, and joined the ranks of the Free Church before he knew it. But do you really think it will all happen so pat as Mr. Grahame was saying last night? Will they all come out together, like a regiment going to battle—with glory on their foreheads, with lustre in their eyes? Oh, that would be too good. Nobody except field-marshals could manage such a stroke as that.”

“We shall see,” replied Kenneth, with something of the martial lustre in his own eye. As if afraid to trust himself, he changed the topic, saying, “What a lovely morning this is!! am glad the sun is shining so brightly on this eighteenth of May eighteen hundred and forty-three. Ha! there goes the Commissioner. What a pity we came this way! I am afraid we are in for a crush now that will keep us back terribly.”

“Oh, never mind; it will be great fun seeing it alL I never happened to see the procession before, all the years I’ve been in Edinburgh. Come, let us plunge in; we can easily get through the crowd,” cried Esmae, quickening his steps.

The representative of royalty in his State carriage, accompanied by a splendid cortege, and escorted by a troop of cavalry, was making his way from the old palace of Holyrood to preside at the yearly Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

Kenneth and Esmae went with the stream amid the deafening clamour of the martial music, the clatter of horses’ hoofs, and the stir of the thronging multitudes. Young and stalwart frames stand their owners in good stead at times, and so it proved now, though the young men met with considerably more impediment than they had counted on as they forced their way along. Esmae afterwards asserted, concerning this occasion, that various old women, besides frail elders and infirm clergymen, had Kenneth to thank for their escape from serious accident among the seething crowds which filled the streets. They found, as they expected, that every available comer in the church was densely crowded. “What a pity we missed the Moderator’s sermon. We might have gone to St Giles’s to hear it if you had not taken so long over your letter to Blair-ton, Kenneth. I heard somebody say just now that it was a splendid sermon,” said Esmae, as they elbowed their way to one of the galleries of St Andrew’s Church.

“Ha! here he comes—Dr. Welsh, the Moderator. See! why, he looks as serene as if he were seated by his study fire. I don’t believe anything is going to happen after all,” added Esmae with boyish disappointment “But I can Bee the noble Marquis does not look quite so comfortable; he has his fears, perhaps,” he whispered, as he glanced towards the dais where the Commissioner was now enthroned.

Then followed a Bolemn interlude, during which the friends exchanged no whispers, for their hearts vibrated with a strange awe, which seemed to fall on all listeners as the Moderator, calm and serene as when Esmae first caught sight of his face, opened the great Assembly with some fitting words of extempore prayer.

The next customary act of this supreme court of the Scottish Church is to constitute the Assembly of the year by electing a new Moderator. But on this occasion Dr. Welsh, the retiring Moderator, again rose to his feet before these proceedings were taken. In the breathless silence, his voice sounded clear to the farthest limit of the vast audience, as he said, “Fathers and brethren, according to the usual form and procedure, this is the time for making up the roll. But in consequence of certain proceedings affecting our rights and privileges—proceedings which have been sanctioned by Her Majesty’s Government and by the Legislature of the country, and more especially in respect that there has been an infringement on the liberties of our constitution, so that we could not now constitute this court without a violation of the terms of the union between Church and State in this land, as now authoritatively declared, I must now protest against our proceeding further. The reasons that have led us to come to this conclusion are fully set forth in the document which I hold in my hand, and which, with the permission of the House, I will now proceed to read.”

The Moderator, having finished the reading of the memorable Protest, laid it on the table of the Assembly. Then he took his hat, and turning to the Commissioner, who had risen also, he bowed, and leaving the chair of office, he proceeded along the aisle towards the door of the church. Instantly, what appeared to be the whole left side of the House rose to follow.

“Why, they are really going to do it! ” said Esmae in an excited whisper.

“Of course they are,” replied Kenneth. “See, there goes Dr. Chalmers, looking as if he were eager to be off; and see! they are all following! ” he added, pointing towards the aisle, down which many figures on which the public eye had been accustomed to rest with reverence were passing now. “Oh, I hope they are not going to cheer,” he muttered with knitted brows, glancing towards the comer of the gallery where they stood, from which a hum of applause seemed gathering.

But most of the spectators seemed to share Kenneth’s feelings, for the sudden outburst of applause was spontaneously checked.

The hushed reverent silence which followed was indeed a greater ovation than the loudest of acclamations. The whole vast audience now stood gazing in perfect stillness, while man after man, row after row, disappeared; till among the benches, lately so crowded, there was now scarcely an occupant left More than four hundred ministers and a still larger number of elders had withdrawn.

“They come, still they come,” was the continued shout which rose from the great mass of spectators outside—“the people at the gates, who, with uplifted hands on high, bring the first anointing to all public majesty,” and who now sent up loud and irrepressible cheers, which echoed strangely within the half-empty church.

“Oh come, let us go, let us follow them I am a Free Churchman too! What is the use of staying here? ” cried Esmae excitedly, as he seized Kenneth’s arm and hurried him away, thereby laying the foundation of a future joke between the friends, which Esmae Burnett still treasures as he asserts that but for his impatience to be off, Kenneth Maxwell might have been lingering about the old church yet, so loath did he seem to depart “Well, I really feel proud of my country to-day,” said Esmae brightly as they went down the staircase together.

“There is not another on earth where such a deed could have been done,” murmured Kenneth with glistening eyes. And when they got out under the blue sky and saw the great procession filing along the space which had been made for it through the heart of the dense crowd, falling into orderly lines, and walking three abreast, forming a column which extended for a quarter of a mile and more, he added, “There is your regiment for you, Esmae; and they are going to battle too,” added Kenneth, with a graver expression succeeding the exultant one, as he thought of the many troubles which awaited the new Free Church with which he had cast in his lot.

Among the sun-lighted groups at those closely-packed windows, where many faces crowded and many handkerchiefs were being waved, he knew that underneath the cheerful demeanour there lurked many a sad heart, many a sorrowful sigh over the past, and many a fearful thought concerning the future. For were not numberless spectators catching sight of a husband, or a brother, or a father taking the step which would leave them homeless and unprovided for, making the deep and lasting sacrifice which involved the loss of much social station, of many immemorial privileges—the extinction, in fact, of everything which the State had provided for the decent dignity of the manse and its inmates?

Nor could Kenneth make light of the painful alienation which the taking of this step on his own part caused between himself and his father. Even now he had in his pocket a letter the bitter words of which stung him as they flitted across his memory. The hard prophecies seemed all to have become stern facts now; but after all, the cause of these outgoing ministers was the cause of God. He dared not do otherwise than make it his very own, he felt with rising courage and kindling hope.

“Look, see, Kenneth! there goes Mr. Grahame of White-rashes, and he has got old Auldearn on his arm. Don’t you see old Bruce’s broad blue bonnet? What a grand day this will be for the old man! His face has pretty much the same look as it wore when he released Lewis Cranstown from his ignominious imprisonment in his henhouse at Auldearn. And does not Mr. Grahame look jubilant! I wish Mary had been up in town to see something of all this. How she would have enjoyed it! I must send her a long letter this veiy night and tell her all about it Is it not delightful, Kenneth, to think that in one short week we shall see them all again after so long?—though there will be lots of pain for me in this first visit to the glen. I know that well enough,” said Esmae.

“Maxwell,” said a pleasant voice at Kenneth^ other side, “you are not too jubilant to-day, I hope, to speak to an old friend.”

For a moment Kenneth glanced unrecognizingly at the owner of the sunburned bearded face, and then he exclaimed joyfully, “Mr. Falconer—you!—is it possible! ”

“Yes; I got here at dawn—travelled furiously to be in time. I heard what was likely to happen as soon as my steamer arrived at Southampton. All my news was waiting for me there. I have been perfectly starved for want of anything of the kind nearly ail the time I was in Egypt.”

“Well, you certainly have come in the nick of time. This is just the day for coming up from the land of bondage,” said Kenneth with a joyous smile.

“It is really almost too many good things for Maxwell to have in one day—you and the Disruption. I doubt whether he will be able to stand them all,” laughed Esmae, who had just been introduced.

“Yes; I felt sure that I should find him in the thickest of the foray. I have been on the outlook for you all morning; but it is certainly a piece of good fortune stumbling on you in this wonderful crowd.”

“What do you say to joining the procession, gentlemen? Is that not the proper place for you both? ” said Esmae after a moment, as he glanced inquiringly from one to the other of his clerical companions. “I have half a mind to do so myself, though I do not feel quite worthy of a place in these fine battalions; but I am certainly an out-and-out Free Churchman now.”

“And you, Falconer? ” said Kenneth in a questioning tone, looking with keen anxiety into his friend’s face.

“Why, Kenneth, you surely did not think I was going to forsake my Church, though I used to think, and still do, that this whole matter has been blundered. They are John Knox’s successors after all. I cast in my lot with them from this day forward. But mind, Kenneth, you must not set your clock to this being the millennium yet, or you will be sure to meet with sore disappointment.”

“Of course not. At all events, it is certainly the wilderness for the people who have just come out of Egypt Why, you have been nearly as long there as the Israelites were, Mr. Falconer. I began quite to despair of ever meeting Kenneth’s ideal. It is years now since I heard of your going abroad for your health.”

“Yes, indeed, it is five long years now; during three of them T was a good-for-nothing invalid, a burden to everybody.”

“And for the other two he has been working as hard among the Syrian Arabs as he used to do among the Edinburgh ones, you see. I do know something about your doings, Mr. Falconer, though no thanks to you.”

“Ah, now, there he is, beginning with his reproaches already. It is quite true. I was never able to overcome my inveterate distaste to letter-writing; but I am sure my companion, Mr. Fraser, did enough to serve for both, and I heard of you from his correspondents, as you, doubtless, did of me.”

“Oh no, I can answer for it, he often pined sadly for news of you, Mr. Falconer. But come, it is surely high time for ub to show our colours and walk along with the Free ministers to Canonmills,” said Esmae, again taking Kenneth’s arm. And so the trio took their place in the ranks of the long procession.

Kenneth Maxwell walked between his friends with a very glad heart And it was not one of the least happy events of this memorable day that these two friends were both by his side. For had they not both been given back to him from sorrowful depths! Mr. Falconer looked a strong man now, and was telling him, as they walked together, that he had come back to take up his old work once more. And Esmae, had he not had his healing too?

• • • • • •

“I will stake a ten-pound note with you, Major Innes, that forty will cover the whole secession,” said Mr. Burnett Burnett in his most emphatic tone as he sat at the head of the old dining-table of Rinaultrie Castle.

The cloth had just been removed, and the richly-cut decanters were being slid along its dark, shining surface. The young hostess had, with her mother, just retired to the new boudoir which had been fitted up with all fashionable elegances for her coming as a bride to the old house six months previously—it being, indeed, the only room throughout the castle which was to Mrs. Burnett Burnett’s liking as yet; but her husband had given his promise that at the end of the next shooting season the house would be delivered into the hands of workmen while they spent the winter abroad.

Mr. Cranstown, senior, had not been enjoying his usual good health for some weeks past, and was nothing loath to avail himself of his daughter’s invitation, and to accompany his wife on a short visit to Rinaultrie. He was seated at the dining-table now along with Major Innes, who, with the Rev. Peter Coutts of Netherley and the Rev. Mr. Brown of Ardmore, made the guests of the evening.

Another member of the Presbytery had, with his wife, been invited to this dinner-party. But Mr. and Mrs. Irvine, on this occasion, declined, as they had invariably done, the polite invitation of the present laird of Rinaultrie. Probably their absence was conducive to the ease of some of the other guests. Mr. Coutts evidently felt it to be so, as he laid his elbows on the table and blinked around, saying, in an oracular tone,—

“It would be highly unbecoming to my mind for me, a placed clergyman of the ancient Establishment, to be laying a wager; but if it were not a carnal practice, and a spendthrift and ruinous one, I may say I would agree humbly, to the extent of a ten-pound note, with our highly sensible and accomplished host It may be a bold step, but I have the courage, in spite of all the boastful statements of the Non-intrusionists to the contrary and again he blinked round above his spectacles as if to gauge the impression which his declaration of such courage made on his audience.

“It is a lamentable shissim, be it great or small,” groaned Mr. Brown, as he helped himself to another glass of the fine old port wine from the Rinaultrie cellars.

“Well, for my part, Mr. Coutts, I shall be heartily sorry if the laird and you were to win your bet—”

“I never made one, sir; I only hazarded an opinion.”

“Oh well, your opinion be it,” replied Mr. Cranstown impatiently. “But I must say, it strikes me that the larger the secession the better for the Establishment. It will not be difficult to fill the vacated pulpits, and the Church will be well rid of those pestilent firebrands. In fact, if they do not all decamp after the decision of the courts, I consider it a case for the police.”

“Oh, oh, that is going rather too far, Cranstown,” cried Major Innes. “But never fear, no such measures will be necessary. The highfliers are going to do the thing in a downright gallant way this Assembly. I have it on reliable authority.”

“Well, it may be so. Perhaps our curiosity on that point may soon be satisfied—that is to say if anything was done the first day of the Assembly. The news should be in yesterday’s paper. You have sent a special messenger for yours, laird, have you not? ”

“I have. Ah, there it comes, I suppose. But what a tremendous ring! Why, that is surely the visitors’ bell—a very rare one at this or indeed any hour in this open house. Oh, by the way, it is probably Captain Groves and his friend,— Lewis’s acquaintances, you know. Ada said they had invited themselves; but I do not think she expected them till the end of the week. Yes, it must be they; I hear voices.—Show the gentlemen in and place chairs,” added the host, turning to the servant who stood behind his chair, a smart butler in unexceptionable broadcloth who had replaced old Mr. Duff with his rusty attire.

Several footsteps seemed now traversing the old hall The door was thrown open and Mr. Kenneth Maxwell was announced, followed by Mr. Falconer, and an Edinburgh solicitor well known by sight to all the party. It was evident to a discerning eye that Boston’s enmity to his ancient rival had not yet been extinguished, as had many of his former bitternesses during these more prosperous days. He rose haughtily from his chair and glancing at Kenneth, said,—

“I think, perhaps, there may be some mistake, sir. Perhaps you are unaware that Rinaultrie Castle has changed hands since you were a guest here.”

“I am quite aware of that fact,” replied Kenneth. Indeed it is with reference to it that I am here now accompanied by these two gentlemen.”

Boston now, for the first time, caught Bight of Mr. Falconer. He glanced at him for a moment, and then a visibly uneasy expression flitted across his face, for he had known by sight his mother’s minister, though he had not sought closer acquaintance with him.

“Mr. Falconer has just returned to Edinburgh after an absence of five years. He has been kind enough to accompany me here to-night on important business; and Mr. Grant has been good enough to do us a similar favour,” said Kenneth, now stepping aside to make way for the other two gentlemen.

“Ah, this is an unexpected pleasure, Mr. Grant,” said Mr. Cranstown, going forward to shake hands at once, though there evidently lurked beneath his bland smile no warmer welcome than Boston had bestowed on Kenneth. “It is not often certainly that two busy lawyers meet holiday-making at this season,” he added interrogatively.

Mr. Grant was an astute-looking man in his prime, tall and firmly knit, though with a slight stoop; a rim of wavy auburn hair fringed his prematurely bald crown; keen-eyed, thin-lipped, with a strong perception of humour mingling with his strong sagacity, both which qualities, indeed, he was known to a large circle of friends and clients to possess in a high degree. Mr. Grant was, in fact, as great a social favourite and as much an esteemed member of his profession as Mr. Cranstown was not He bowed coldly now as he glanced round, saying, in a dear voice,—

“Unfortunately, this is no holiday visit to the country. I have been engaged by these gentlemen on their business. We requested an interview with you, sir, in your business-room,” he added, turning to Boston, “Your servant, however, said that he had orders to show us here. If agreeable to you, perhaps, we can now adjourn to a private interview. I think I should recommend it under the circumstances.”

“Oh, we are all friends here, all of one mind, I think, Mr. Grant, so there is no need of secrecy,” said Mr. Cranstown. “I expect it is the news of the Assembly doings which you have been kind enough to bring to us. I am glad to think we are on the same side on that question, Mr. Grant,” he added blandly.

“As to that, the news is that the Disruption has taken place. It did so the day before yesterday, on the opening of the Assembly. Four hundred ministers and a still larger number of elders left the Establishment There is now a Free Church of Scotland.”

“You do not say so, sir!” cried Mr. Coutts, with a start which caused his heavy spectacles to descend upon his wine-glasses, making sad havoc there.

“Four hundred ministers gone! Most extraordinary! ” echoed Mr. Brown, taking a heavy pinch of snuff as he put his head to the side to ruminate on the news.

“There, I told you,” jerked Major Innes, fidgeting about in his chair; “I have won my bet It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good. I am a richer man by ten pounds through the impoverishing of these poor fellows. I declare I shall send it as a donation to the new Free Church.”

“And very good news this is; just what I hoped would happen,” said Mr. Cranstown smiling blandly. “Gentlemen, charge your glasses. There is a toast in which I know we shall all heartily join—to the prosperity of the ancient Church of our fathers, now rid of its disturbers.—Mr. Grant, pray take your place, and you, gentleman, Mr.— I did not catch the name, pardon me. Our host seems absent—Are you quite stunned at having lost your bet, eh, laird? ”

Boston still stood silent and motionless, with one hand on the back of the chair from which he had risen. He was glancing strangely towards Mr. Grant, who he perceived was about to speak.

“Thank you, Mr. Cranstown,” he said, as he declined to occupy the chair which had been placed for him, “but I think my clients will agree with me that the better course is to proceed at once to business. And since you have given me permission to do so in the presence of these gentlemen, I will now deliver to you a sealed packet which my client^ Mr. Falconer, received from your mother a few weeks previous to her death, to be handed to you, her son, Boston Black, to whom, as you will see, it is addressed;” and so saying, Mr. Grant made a step forward and laid the packet in Boston’s hand.

Boston seemed to take it mechanically. It lay in his fingers as he struggled with overmastering agitation, which for the moment precluded speech. Letting the packet drop from his hand as if it scorched him, with a desperate effort he gasped out, “There is—there must be some mistake. You are under some misapprehension.”

“Hey, what is all this about? Let me see,” said Mr. Cranstown, arranging his eyeglass as he picked up the packet from the floor and glanced at the address. “‘ Black, formerly known as Burnett, ” he read slowly. “It may be a hoax, but you had better have a look at it, Boston, before you consign it to the waste-paper basket Hey, what can it mean? You’d better open it and see,” he added, looking with a quick air of annoyance towards his son-in-law, whose perturbed appearance he observed for the first time.

“It means simply,” said Mr. Grant, “that this person’s proper designation is Black, not Burnett; that his sole connection with the family whose estates he now illegally holds is that his mother, when her son Boston Black was a year old, married, as her second husband, Mr. Richard Burnett, the owner of Rinaultrie’s younger brother, and it would appear legal heir to the entailed estates, though the fact was not discovered during his lifetime. Andrew Black, a carpenter by trade, who emigrated to America and there married your mother, was your father,” added Mr. Grant, turning to face Boston. “I have the facts in writing from my client, Mr. Falconer here, who got them from your mother. May I now request that you will open the sealed packet in which they are all to be found, and satisfy yourself as to the truth of these statements.”

“It is false! it is a lie from beginning to end! She was not in her right mind when she made these statements to me—or to anybody else. It was within an hour of her death; they will not stand in any court of justice!” cried Boston, glancing round with a white defiant face; but he was trembling visibly, and had now to lean for support heavily on the back of his high carved chair.

“Ah, then this statement is not quite new to you, Mr. Black,” said Mr. Grant, a quick look of quiet satisfaction stealing into his keen face at the progress of his case. “We supposed you to be in entire ignorance. This is more than we counted on, and will, I feel sure, simplify the case for all parties concerned,” he added, glancing round.

“You scoundrel, do you mean to say that you have imposed on me? I will not stand it I will be at the bottom of your villainy, I will! ” cried Mr. Cranstown, with clenched fist, suddenly moved by a tempest of the wildest passion as the situation began to dawn on him.

“Softly, softly; there may be some mistake yet,” muttered Major Innes, laying his hand on the factor’s arm as he tore open the packet in a frenzy of rage.

“Mistake! what mistake can there be? Don’t you see the fellow is self-condemned? I shall sift out his villainy to its dregs,” roared Mr. Cranstown, striking his fist heavily on the table.

Stop! how dare you touch my property! Give me these papers,’ cried Boston, making a plunge towards the packet But it was too late. Mr. Cranstown had cut the strings now, and out of the parcel were slipping pell-mell on the dark mahogany old yellow scraps of paper.

With them was a sheet of ordinary note-paper, which Mr. Cranstown seemed about to take up and read, when Mr. Falconer suddenly stepped forward, saying, “Pardon me, but I think that is the letter which Mrs. Richard Burnett told me she had written to her son, asking his forgiveness for the wrong which she had done him in so long concealing his name from him—a course which I believe to have been entered on by her without any intent of wrong, though it has had such disastrous consequences to more than one of the parties con cerned. If you will allow me to make the suggestion, Mr. Cranstown, I think that letter should be placed in Mr. Black’s own keeping at once. The other papers I believe to be marriage certificates, baptismal registers, and the like; in fact, all the links necessary to prove Mrs. Richard Burnett’s statement as made to me, and which I urged her to share without delay with her son. May I also, gentlemen, take the liberty of explaining why that packet has been so long withheld from the person to whom it belonged. I cannot altogether free myself from the charge of negligence in the matter, though you will probably acknowledge that I have some excuse. On my way home from the visit referred to I was attacked by dangerous hemorrhage, which for a time rendered me unconscious. Reduced by it to complete prostration, I was, as soon as it was possible to have me moved, ordered off to a warm climate as my last chance for lifa My books and papers were carefully stowed away in boxes by a young student whom I engaged for the purpose, and were unopened by me since then till yesterday, when, on my return to Edinburgh, I had the pleasure of seeing for the first time, and of being introduced to,

Mr. Esmae Burnett In a subsequent talk with Mr. Maxwell, my own friend and his, I learned the stoxy of his failure to succeed to his father’s estates through some discovery in the ‘entail which proved his cousin Boston to be the legal heir. Then, of course, I at once remembered my forgotten trust, and hurried to make what reparation I could. How it came to pass that the whole circumstance entirely slumbered in my memory for so long is certainly not easy for me to understand, and still less can it be for my neighbours. The fact that I was on the verge of a dangerous illness, already with its grasp on me, when my sick parishioner made this statement, and that in the months of extreme weakness which followed it all became absolutely effaced from my recollection, will, I trust, be accepted as some excuse, though it does not hinder me from considerable self-reproach. Strangely enough, one of the first things which revealed itself to our view, when Mr. Maxwell searched my boxes of papers yesterday, was the packet now before you. We were therefore able to proceed here without delay, Mr. Grant kindly consenting to accompany us.”

Perfect stillness reigned as Mr. Falconer spoke. Boston stood as if in a dream, and Mr. Cranstown paused in his search among the papers, holding Boston’s letter in his hand as he listened intently to Mr. Falconer’s words.

“Well, I think we must all agree that Mr. Black should have his mother’s letter put into his hands unread by any,” said Mr. Grant, holding out his hand to the factor, who held the letter between his fingers.

As if mechanically, Mr. Cranstown suffered it to be taken from him. Boston seized the proffered letter with a fierce gesture. Crumpling it in his hand, he thrust it into his pocket without ever glancing at it, and then he looked towards his father-in-law as if he meant to obtain forcible possession of the remainder of the packet “You wretched scoundrel, you miserable underling!” cried Mr. Cranstown as he brandished a bunch of yellow papers at which he had just glanced, “here is enough of proof to ruin you twenty times over. Oh, you lying villain, how you have imposed on me ! You got into my business by false pretences. You have robbed me of my daughter, disgraced her for life. You have done all this and more, you low hypocrite that you are. I believe you knew from the day you set foot in Rin-aultrie that you were the son of a base-born carpenter—that you had no more right to enter this house than any tramp.’”

Boston, who had again covered his face, now raised it, and, convulsed with agitation, gasped out, “I swear that I never knew it then. Before God I swear it If I had, it might have been better for me to-day.—Sir,” he said, turning like a hunted animal to Mr. Grant, “you do not know how I have suffered. You do not know what a cruel lot mine has been. From early boyhood I looked on myself as a wronged member of my family. The thought stung me to the quick that while he, Esmae Burnett, had all the privileges, I—I never doubted then, with the same blood in my veins—was nobody. From the first day we met I was haunted by a vivid sense of the wrong j and when I made—quite by chance—the discovery that legally this place belonged to me, can you wonder that it was a joyful one) No word from my mother till an hour before her death ever led me to doubt my parentage, until the extraordinary statement which she made then. I did not believe it then—I do not now,” he added with clenched hand, as he glanced wildly round. Was there not even a forlorn hope for him? he seemed to ask by his gaze even more than by his words.

“You did not wish to believe it You do not now. It is natural, I admit,” said Mr. Grant in a clear, quiet voice. “But, unfortunately, Mr. Black, your rejection of facts has cheated another man out of his rights for a considerable period. You cannot expect to be permitted to do so any longer. My client, Mr. Esmae Burnett, has authorized me to take the necessary steps for reinstating him in his estates. I may mention that he is at the Burnett Arms now. He declined to accompany us here, prompted, doubtless, by his good feeling. He asked me to say, by the way, that he did not wish in any way unduly to hasten your departure from the castle; that he hoped you and—”

“Mercy upon us! look at the factor. He’s in a fit surely,” shouted Mr. Brown.

All eyes were now turned towards Mr. Cranstown, who lay back in his chair, with a purple hue suffusing his face, breathing heavily, and apparently fast losing consciousness. Major Innes instantly sprang to his aid, while Mr. Brown’s loud exclamation brought the butler, who, indeed, had been in close proximity to the outside of the door during the recent conversation, prompted, doubtless, by a lively interest in his master’s affairs, and with a consciousness that something quite unusual was going on over the walnuts and the wine tonight The commotion spread. Presently Ada, pale and agitated, followed by her mother, hurried into the room. The sofa, in a corner of the great hall on which the unconscious man had been laid, now became the centre of interest There were two people, however, who seemed to have greater claims on their thoughts than even the precarious condition of the sick man. One was Boston, who still stood motionless, with bowed head leaning on the high-backed chair. The other was Mr. Falconer, who had approached the cowering figure and now laid his hand on Boston’s arm, saying in a soft, pitying tone, “Do not forget that the darkest, saddest hour of our lives is sometimes but the ushering in of better days for us— sometimes brings us nearer to God than we ever were before. May it be so with you. ‘ A broken and a contrite heart I will not despise.’ This is His message to you, even now.”

As the words fell on Boston’s ear they carried his thoughts back to one autumn evening long ago in the old bam at Auldearn, when he had heard them spoken by the same lips; but then they had fallen on a heart hard as stone. Oh, if he had but listened to them on that night, it might have all been different now, he thought, as he lifted his face and cast a furtive scared look towards the comer of the room where the little group bent over the unconscious man. After a moment he turned, and with a sudden appealing glance to Mr. Falconer, he said in a faint whisper, “Will you help me to my room! I don’t think I can walk without support I want to be alone. I suppose they will not hunt me out to-night? ” he muttered.

“Believe me, sir, Mr. Esmae Burnett seemed most eager that neither you nor your wife should be in the least disturbed,” said Mr. Falconer emphatically, as he drew the trembling arm in hia.

“Will you do me another favour?” whispered Boston with another scared glance towards the sofa. “Will you tell her about all this as soon as possible to-night—before she sleeps, if you can? She will go from me as well as Rinaultrie. It was the laird she married, not a nameless beggar like me,” he added in a bitter tone as he reached the door of his room.

Slowly turning round, he cast one strange despairing glance on his helper as he murmured his thanks for this service; then he shut himself in alone with all his stinging memories.

Deeming it more suitable that Mr. Grant should acquaint Mrs. Cranstown and her daughter with the changed position of affairs when the excitement of her husband’s sudden illness had somewhat subsided, Mr. Falconer left with him Boston’s request Experiencing that sense of relief which follows the performance of a disagreeable duty, Kenneth Maxwell and he hurried across the old courtyard on their way to the Burnett Arms, where they had arranged to spend the night At the gate of the manse they met Esmae giving a lingering good-night pat to old Ben, who stood by his side looking wistfully up in his face.

“Allow me to congratulate you, Mr. Burnett It is all proved. The packet more than did it Unfortunately it accomplished its work only too well. Mr. Cranstown got into such a paroxysm of passion when the whole truth dawned on him, that he brought on an attack of some kind—apoplectic, I fear. It made altogether a very painful scene; but he had returned to partial consciousness before we left I think the worst is over now. Mr. Grant has stayed behind for a little. He means, if possible, to acquaint Mrs. Cranstown and her daughter with the facts before he leaves, if they are sufficiently composed to listen to his statements. I am truly relieved and thankful to think of my negligence being so far repaired at last,” said Mr. Falconer, with a sigh of relief.

“So you are an exile from your beloved woods and glens no longer, Esmae,” murmured Kenneth with a joyous smile, as he drew his friend’s arm in his own.

“Yes; but it all seems so strangely mixed I can hardly realize it as a happy fact yet,” said Esmae. “I am sorry to hear that poor old Cran took the thing so much to heart. But I suppose it was just the case of the ‘last straw.’ He has evidently been breaking up for some time. I was shocked at the change in his appearance one day I happened to see him on the street in the beginning of the year. Billy Jack’s fatal accident and that painful business of Lewis’s, which ended in his being cashiered, were no doubt great blows to the old man.”

“What does your old friend Mr. Gordon say about this wonderful turn of fortune’s wheel? It would be very good news to his faithful heart, I am sure,” asked Kenneth presently.

“Oh, I doubt whether he quite realized it. His memory is much weaker since his stroke. I am not sure really whether he remembered this interlude of poor Boston’s at all, so my news about that fell rather flat. But when I went on to tell him about the Disruption, that seemed to rouse him a bit, only he took rather an inverted view of the situation as far as it concerns him, dear old Moderate that he is; yet it was wonderfully characteristic too. His kind heart still holds its place in the midst of the decay of other powers. He began to look round his study, where he has his bed now, and after a moment he said, shaking his head dolefully, ‘ Ah, Esmae, four hundred of them without manses and stipends, do you say? That’s a terrible plight for the poor fellows. It’s high time I were packing up then to make way for a better man.’ And then he added, ‘ I’ll leave most that is about the place to the poor man, except my double-barrel. You will just take that with you this very night, my boy.’ He insisted that I should, and here it is. Was not that dear old Gordon all overt” cried Esmae as he held up the gun.

“But, Kenneth,” he said suddenly, evidently visited by some preoccupation which made even a rival to the thought of his beloved restored home, “do you know where I went first? You can guess, I think,” he added in a lower tone “And now it is your turn to make your call there. I cannot promise that you will see Aunt Grizel, for she is in bed with an attack of rheumatism. She did give me an audience in her night-cap, but that was after earnest pleading. I doubt whether you will be similarly privileged. But if you will be content only with a sight of Mary, I think you may have that; at least I found her sitting all by herself in the oak parlour, deep in your beloved Wordsworth. Suppose you go and try to find her there too, while I take a run up Bramble Hill to see Donald Reid just for a minute. I want to be the first to tell him the news. Mary says he is just breaking his heart at the idea of having to leave his cottage at Whitsuntide That is the worst thing Boston has done, threatening to drive that poor old man out of house and home, when he knew how much my father liked him too; but, fortunately, he has not been left time to carry out that threat, since, after all, Boston had not a drop of Burnett blood in his veins, so he could not have been expected to have had the same heart for the tenants all about”

His friends then went on to tell him that Boston’s heart was even harder and more stained than he supposed. It was indeed acute pain to Esmae’s generous nature to accept such facts concerning one he had trusted so well and so long.

“Look here, Esmae,” said Kenneth in a nervous tone, breaking a long pained silence on Esmae’s part, “don’t you think it would be a liberty—too late, I mean, to call at Mirkwood at this hour?”

“Not a bit of it—on this fine moonlight night too,” replied Esmae, rousing himself into cheerfulness once more as he glanced into the eager face which looked at him; “especially as I took it upon me to inform Mary that you were just coming. Off with you, Ken; surely you are not going to prove a laggard in—eh?”

Mr. Falconer more than once during the day had an old suspicion roused; one, indeed, which had lingered in his mind since the evening on which he had first made the acquaintance of Mary Cassilis and Kenneth at the Manse of Whiterashea. With an amused shrug he said now, “Well, gentlemen, I perceive you have both your plans for the remainder of the evening. There is nothing left for an old bachelor like me but to make my way back to the inn, and solace myself with slippers and a pipe. No, don’t trouble yourself about me, MaxwelL I shall not lose my way, vast as the Binaultrie forests seem to be. I shall keep cautiously on the beaten track till I see the hospitable torch of the Burnett Arms. You go and manage your own affairs, my dear fellow,” he added, as he laid his hand on Kenneth’s shoulder.

It was indeed only a few weeks previously that Esmae had come to the knowledge of a hope long buried by a loyal heart. He learned at the same time of its beginning, and its subsequent sudden darkening on that spring morning near the place where they were standing now. It brought a sharp pang to Esmae as he listened to the story one night during the small hours as the friends sat together in their quiet room. It was deeply painful to him to find yet another instance in which Mary’s fidelity and love for her old playfellow had subjected her to such gross misunderstanding. The blow which she had so dreaded, and which she had so bravely struggled to avert, had long since been dealt, though one beloved gray head had been spared all its pain—a thought which had never failed to bring comfort to Esmae throughout the whole of his discipline. The trouble had been borne by him alone. Nor had it been without its benignant side, he felt many a time as the late busy years had sped by. And now, by a strange sharp turn of her wheel, Fortune had again given him back his beloved woods and glens. Might there not be even a deeper happiness in store for his faithful friend? It hardly took him by surprise when, after a long visit to Donald Reid, as he was slowly winding his way along the little foot-track which led from Bramble Hill to the highroad, he was met by Kenneth, who eagerly accosted him in a voice trembling with joy as he said, “Your blessing, Esmae! I too have won a rich inheritance this day; the best of earthly gifts, the one I most longed for, has come to me. Mary Cassilis has promised to be my wife.”

“Kenneth, this is glorious news! ” burst forth Esmae, with all his soul in his eyes as he wrung his friend’s hand. “You are the only man I ever knew half good enough for Mary, and she is the only girl in the world good enough for you,” and putting his arm in his happy friend’s, they walked along in silence for a little time. “Ha, the wind is rising. What a sudden blast! we are going to have a storm Burely,” said Esmae presently, as he glanced at the dark cloud which was hiding the moon. “Come, Ken; let us hurry back to the inn, and I shall join my companion bachelor. We must condole with each other now. But indeed I doubt whether he is much more to be counted on than yourself. I heard him saying to you, at a moment when, I believe, you were too preoccupied to listen, that when you went to Blairton to-morrow he would accompany you so far, and then strike off to the Manse of Whiterashes. I rather suspect there is a special attraction there in the shape of that bright-looking Miss Grahame.”

“Oh yes, I remember I used to imagine there was ages ago. I do hope it will all come right now!” exclaimed Kenneth, with the universal spirit of benevolence which invariably characterizes the happy lover.

“Then assuredly I shall have to fall back on Mr. Gordon. Never mind, I shall have Donald Reid too. O Kenneth, this is awfully good news of yours. It somehow makes me feel happier than anything has ever done. What a lucky fellow you are, to be sure. There is nobody else I have ever seen, or shall see, so good and so beautiful as Mary Cassilis.”

Just then another sudden gust of wind swept along the glen, making the old firs creak and swing drearily, and sending a shiver among the budding boughs. Was it nature’s sigh over the broken hope of the older generation? Would its wailing sound reach Robert Burnett’s ear to-night, as he slept with his fathers under the shadow of the hills he loved so well? Would it sound dirge-like to old Miss Cassilis, after her niece had left her for the night, having shared her happy woman’s secret with her guardian, who now lay wakeful among her pillows, making a weary journey into that dim, sad kingdom of what might have been?

CHAPTER XXII
Old Friends Meet.

“Shall I find thee still, but changed
With all thy being rearranged,
Passed through the crucible of time? ”
M. Arnold.

“Esmae seems rather dull all alone down at Binaultrie this spring. His letter to-day does not show his usual good spirits. Suppose, Mary, you write and ask him to come and stay with us for a little till his old hunger for the glen sends him back to it again,” said Kenneth Maxwell, glancing up from the letter which he had been reading to his wife, who sat opposite him at the breakfast-table of their home, a pleasant dwelling-house in an Edinburgh square.

“Yes, I think that is a very good idea. I believe Esmae will like to come very much when it is suggested to him; but, somehow, he never does seem to make plans for himself about anything. It really verges on the provoking, occasionally, as I was telling him last time we were at Rinaultrie. And then he often agrees quite as readily to a step that is secretly disagreeable to himself as to one which he thinks delightful.”

“Yes; and that very trait used often to prove a great snare to Esmae in the old days; but now, to my mind, it seems changed into an almost unalloyed virtua Dear fellow, he has such a sweet generous nature. Who else would make the sacrifices for others in things small and great which he does!

Indeed, it never enters into any comer of his thoughts that they are sacrifices. I wonder what Esmae would say if he knew that I had been using him to point a moral in my Bible-class the other day,” added Kenneth. “I was talking to my men about true natural courage. It seems to me that its essence consists just in the spirit of unselfishness, and Esmae Burnett has always had more of it than any other man I ever knew. What may possibly happen to himself in anything that has to be done or suffered never seems to cross his mind for a single moment”

“And so you think Esmae’s unselfishness is, after all, at the root of his not making plans; of that want of forethought which Aunt Grizel has always accused him of? I do not know whether you would find it quite so easy to convert her to your theory about Esmae as you do me, Kenneth, but, at all events, we shall take upon us to make a plan for him now. He must have a change. I shall write to him on the subject this very day.”

Two years had elapsed since Esmae had entered into possession of his lost inheritance. He would in no wise permit his return to his ancestral lands to be marked by any outward demonstrations of welcome. But though no bonfires flickered from the summits of his hills, and no acclamations were allowed to greet his ears from assembled tenants, yet he had his true welcome. For was there not a pure and steady flame of devoted love burning in many a heart that day towards their “young Rinaultrie,” many a low-murmured “God bless him,” which sounded more thrilling to those who listened to it than the most ringing cheers could have done?

But as the months crept on Esmae began to experience that “old woe of the world.” Nothing can be as it was before; “better, so call it, only not the same.” Change was written on many familiar surroundings which had closely entwined themselves round his heart in the old days. At the beginning of the second year of his return to Rinaultrie, the grave closed over one of his earliest and best friends. Donald Reid shut his eyes on the familiar glen, filled with bright visions of the new heavens and the new earth which had been his dearest theme for so long as he sat by his lonely ingle-neuk. The grass now grew rank over the once well-trodden little foot-track which led to his hut on the shoulder of Bramble Hill, and Esmae felt a lonelier and a poorer man as he passed it by.

Neither did the old manse gate seem to beckon to him with the inviting friendliness which it did of old when he knew that Mr. Gordon was to be found within the familiar precincts. He, too, had passed away. The living of Asloune was now in the hands of Mr. Home, a distant relative of Esmae’s mother, on whom he had been well pleased to bestow it. But it so happened that Mr. Home’s previous acquaintance with the Burnetts had been very slight, and Esmae frequently felt that, exemplary incumbent as the new minister was, he could never with him take the place of the kind faithful old family friend. Nor could the Rev. Alexander Grahame, the energetic and eloquent young minister of the new Free Church at Netherley, do so either. His own flock held him to be a paragon, and certainly he presented a great contrast to the Rev. Peter Coutts, who still occupied the old church, blinking down on half-empty pews as he galloped through his weekly discourse Ajid at Mirkwood there were changes which touched him more closely still. Though faithful in his visits to the ancient dowager-house, it seemed to him as if life and thought had gone away.

Old Miss Cassilis still kept her time-honoured place, but the years had come in which the pathetic avowal was frequently on her. lips that she had no pleasure in them. Miss Margaret Pimie was her faithful nurse and her constant companion. She had taken up her abode at Mirkwood when the time came for Mary Cassilis to forsake her old home for her new interests. With her going there certainly vanished much that was, pleasant and precious from Esmae’s daily life, and which had been so unconsciously interwoven with it that he hardly knew how much had been taken till that, too, became numbered with the past. It seemed so strange not to meet Mary among any of her old familiar haunts, so uncomfortable not to find her in the oak-parlour, ready as she had ever been to throw herself into all his interests, from the period of old boyish troubles, and all along the thorny path which lay between those days and the present But though with a changed home and a new name, his old friend had still an unchanged heart, and there was as warm a place in it as ever for the solitary Esmae.

On the afternoon of the day on which Kenneth had suggested that a change might be the best recipe for Esmae’s evident depression, as Mrs. Maxwell sat at her pretty writing-table in a comer of her drawing-room writing an eager invitation to her old playmate, a visitor was announced whose name she did not catch. Nor did the first glimpse of the stranger help her in the least to recognition.

She was a tall, elegant-looking young lady, dressed in deep mourning, with a pale face and dark expressive eyes which were fixed on Mary with an eager, questioning look, as she hurried forward holding out her hand.

“Mary, don’t you know me?” she cried; and with a quick smile of gladness crossing her mobile face, she added, “Oh, I am so glad you are not changed!”

“Norah! is it possible? Yes, it is really you,” said Mary.

“Yes, it is really me; come back again, a wiser Norah, I hope, than I was long ago, and a walking Norah too. Mary, do you see, I am not even lame now. My wheels were discarded before I had been a year away; but you know all the history of that from my letters, only, I daresay, it seems strange to see mfe just like other people. They have been harping on about it at Aunt Tawse’s, where I am staying, till I begin to feel quite a phenomenon. Of course, coming back again here has reminded me of it. I believe I have thought more about my poor old wheels and all that concerned them these last two days than I have done since they rolled away. They were my chrysalis, you see, Mary; at the proper time I emerged.”

“And you have come out such a beautiful butterfly, Norah,” said Mary, looking with admiring fondness at her graceful visitor.

“Oh no; not that; only a poor, crushed little moth—a much sadder Norah than I used to be. My gaiety is all gone. Oh, we have had such terrible sorrows, Mary, have we not? First, poor Jack’s accident, and then Lewis’s terrible death. I really think it was the shock of that which caused both papa’s and mamma’s death. It was strange, was it not, mamma’s dying before papa, though he had been ill for so many months? It was very terrible for him to have so many griefs when he was such an invalid. But he grew so different, Mary, so much gentler; and he regretted many things about the past. I must tell you more about that some time. Especially he used to seem to feel sorry when anything came to remind him of old Mr. Burnett of Rinaultrie. He was not a good business man, you know, and papa used to laugh at him for not being more money-making, and to sneer at his goodness of heart and his generous ways. But he often felt sad enough when he looked back on it all as he lay dying; and more than once, as I sat beside him, he said he wished he had the heart and the conscience of a child, like the old laird. And, Mary, he sometimes used to tell me about that terrible night, and how they found the dead man sitting in his library chair, looking so peaceful and so noble. I should like you to tell Mr. Esmae Burnett, some time when you have a quiet opportunity, how sorry my poor father was about these things. He must have behaved nobly, from all papa told me. And Boston—wasn’t that dreadful, Mary9 Poor Mr. Burnett!” said Norah, with an irrepressible twinkle of her old humour coming into her eyes. “But papa was so nice about that. He would not hear of Ada separating from her husband, as some of our relations wished. And when he got too weak to write to Ada himself, he used to dictate letters, very hard for me to send, I assure you, to advise her to try to be more considerate of the feelings of others, and less selfish in all her ways. They are in Canada now, you know. I expect she leads Boston rather a hard life. He does not seem to be very prosperous as yet, and they are very discontented with the portion papa left for Ada. She is always sending me grumbling letters about it But I am always glad to let them have as much of my money as I can, for I am sure they need it much more than I do. O Mary,! feel as if I had no heart for anything now, since poor papa died! He became such a happy charge, and used to lean so on me; and it was delightful to be able to help him. But now, I feel quite empty-handed. I have come all the way from Spezzia just to see you, and I am going back again after we have had one or two good talka”

“Ah, Norah, now that I have got you, I mean to keep fast hold of you. One or two good talks will not satisfy me, I warn you. Besides, you know, you have to make friends with my husband,” added Mary, with a happy smila “Oh yes, Mrs. Maxwell, I know I have to make friends with him, or rather he with me; for I still feel the aggrieved person. You know I confessed to you that I suffered frightful pangs of jealousy when I first heard of him as your accepted lover. Perhaps it was foolish of me; but, do you know, it quite pulled down a little castle in the air which I had long in my secret heart been building about you and Mr. Esmae Burnett, your old friend.”

“Yes; he was my ‘old friend,’ and is. Lovers we never were, though I know that is what some other people besides you, Norah, seemed to think would have been the orthodox arrangement Poor Aunt Grizel, for instance, once upon a time, all unknown to either Esmae or me, built a very airy castle about that matter; but, I am thankful to say, she never stooped to match-making. No such shadow ever crossed our old friendship, and Esmae is still, as he ever was, the dearest of brothers to me. I have just been writing to him, to beg him to come and see us. We think he seems rather dull at Rinaultrie all by himself.! do hope we shall be able to persuade him to pay us a visit; and then, Norah, you will see him, and be able yourself to tell him all about your father. He will be bo glad, I know.—Ah, excuse me for one moment Here comes an interruption to our talk. I see one of our Bible-women wants to have a word with me, and as she is a very useful and busy person, I must not detain her. You know ours is a mission-church, and we have many sick, poor, wretched people to look after. We find our band of Bible-women such a help.”

“Talking of your church, Mary,” said Norah, when her friend had again seated herself at her side, “I must not forget to tell you that when my father became so much changed, there were few things he seemed to regret more than his hardness to the Netherley tenants. But they have got their church at last. I was so glad to hear that came all right.” said Norah, brightening again as she glanced at Mary.

“Yes, Mr. Densil gave the site; and there is a nice church built, and a manse too. Alick Grahame is their minister.”

“And where are the other Grahames now? Oh, what agony it must have been for them to leave Whiterashes! ”

“It was; but they never wavered. Things did seem very dark for a time, but they brightened wonderfully; and Mrs. Grahame, who used to be so fearful about the troubles when they were in the distance, turned out the bravest of them alL

Of course life can never be quite the same after an uprooting like theirs. Mr. Grahame is minister in one of the best town charges now. And Helen, you know, or perhaps you may not have heard, is Mrs. Falconer. They were married at Christmas. Mr. Falconer is one of our ministers.”

“Mr. Falconer, the ‘ barn orator!’ Oh, I did once have such a wish to go and hear him preach at Auldearn, but they never would allow me. Papa was so opposed to everything of the kind in those days, you know.”

“Oh, but you must hear him preach one Sunday soon. I am sure you will like his sermons very much. He is my favourite preacher. He and my husband are very great friends. They are coming to dine with us this evening, and the Grahames too, so you will see them all.”

“It would be delightful to stay, and I confess it is very dull at Aunt Tawse’s; but I am afraid, Mary, it would not be kind to leave at a moment’s notice.”

Ah, I see you are a very considerate Norah now-a-days,” said Mary with a smile. “Well, I will tell you what we can do. We shall make a compromise. We can go to your aunt’s now and tell her that I want the loan of you to-night, and give her warning that presently I shall want you for a much longer loan,—break it to her gently, in fact Is not that the best plan? But here comes a visitor. I am afraid I shall not be able to go out with you at once.”

“Ah, that is as it used to be of old; you are going to be monopolized, and I shall be thrust out to the thorns and thistles of the wilderness!” cried Norah, as she sprang up from the low stool at Mary’s feet, where she had seated herself.

“Esmae, it is really you!” said her hostess, rising with a joyous air, as she caught sight of the visitor who was just being announced. “This is indeed a pleasant coincidence. I have just written a letter to you suggesting that you should do this very thing. Kenneth and I have both been hoping so much that 70a would be persuaded to come and pay us a long visit”

“I shall not be difficult to persuade, Mary. In fact, it is just what I have come to do. Here I am, bag and baggage. A very complete fit of dulness took possession of me, and I could stand it no longer,” said Esmae; and then he paused, and his eyes began to wander.

“Ah, I see you do not recognize my visitor any more than I did at first,” said Mary, as she perceived his glance rest for a moment with admiring inquiry on the other guest, whose present appearance evidently gave no suggestion of her being an old acquaintance. “Esmae,” said Mary in a joyous tone, as she looked from one to the other, “this is our Norah come back to us once more. It is indeed a happy day for me that brings two such dear old friends back again.”

• • • • • •

Part of the autumn day’s brightness had waned, but much of it was still left, and, as was characteristic of the north-eastern straths at this season, that which remained was of the rarest quality. Real dusk would not arrive for many hours; but the flood of dazzling sunlight had begun to ebb, the air had grown mellow, and the long peaceful shadows were lengthening on the great shoulders of the encompassing hilla The Aultrie had caught a yellow shimmer as it took its winding way between its green haughs, making low melodious concord of its rippling surge, filling the ear with haunting memories of the far-off sea. The grave, stately oaks and beeches of the Rinaultrie park stood motionless and voiceless against the opal sky. The whole scene expressed that sense of dreamy leisure which is, perhaps, the chief source of one’s enjoyment of such a scene at such an hour.

‘“And in the afternoon they came unto a land in which it seemed always afternoon.’ That might stand for a description of the glen as it is at present, I think,” said Kenneth Maxwell, glancing up from the recent book of poems which was evidently heightening the delight of this autumn holiday to more than him. He had been reading aloud some of his favourites to the group who were gathered round on the smooth dense turf under the pleasant shade of the old red beeches.

A merry company of guests were assembled at the castle this autumn. Mr. and Mrs. Esmae Burnett, recently returned from their honeymoon, were exercising together for the first time the gracious hospitality for which Rinaultrie had long been famous. All felt the occasion to be a very auspicious one. The bright young hostess was seated now on one of the pretty rustic chairs which were scattered about the lawns. She had been sewing, but her needlework seemed to have dropped unheeded on her lap as she sat with clasped fingers, her dark, expressive eyes glowing with pleasure as she listened to Kenneth’s melodious reading of his latest favourite poet.

Mrs. Grahame lay resting on a long bamboo chair; her two youngest girls were perched on its comers, revelling in their return to pleasant moors and mountains, after two summers spent among dusty streets.

Mr. Falconer, arrayed in a Turkish fez, lay stretched on the grass smoking a cigar, so disguised, his friend Kenneth had been telling him, that it would be difficult to recognize the toiling city missionary. Mrs. Falconer too was engaged in needlework; but, unlike her more visionary hostess, she was evidently throwing her whole heart into her occupation—the shaping of some garments for a women’s clothing club in which she was much interested, for Helen was practical and energetic, as of old. Poising her scissors with knitted brows over a web of shirting, if the truth must be told she regarded the reading aloud as, on the whole, rather an unfortunate interruption to the responsible work which she had on hand.

Esmae and Mary had been among the listeners till a few minutes previously, when the laird suddenly sprang from the pleasant turf where he had been lazily stretched, saying in an energetic tone,—

“This will never da I feel the lotus spell creeping over me rapidly. I am not going to stand it one moment longer. Gome, Mary, let us leave these ‘mild-eyed, melancholy lotus-eaters’ to their fate, and go and have a look about. You have not been introduced to half our improvements yet. Come; I decline to listen to that seductive philosophy any longerand, drawing Mary’s arm within his own, they strolled away.

Between these two there were now, as well as of old, ever-strengthening links of friendship, binding them together even as the ivy clasped the old garden wall under whose Bhadow they were standing now.

“Ah, Esmae,” Mary was saying with a happy smile, “I shall never accuse you of incapacity for making plans any more, after your having made the very big and very prompt one of carrying off Norah, just when we thought we had secured her for ourselves.”

“Yes, I acknowledge it was a very beautiful and wonderful plan for a fellow like me to make. But, Mary, after ail, you know, we do not believe it was our planning,” added Esmae with a grave smile. “I never understood till now what people meant when they asserted that marriages were made in heaven. I used to consider the proverb a Billy as well as a very trite one. But, Mary, I do feel every day more that my Nor&h is Heaven’s best gift to me. Our heavenly Father gave her just when I needed her most. She is such a darling, Mary, if you only knew.”

“As if I did not know—had not known for ever so long,” said Mary with a smile, in which archness mingled with satisfaction. For did she not remember one sorely troubled spring day in which her own regretful refrain had been, when the news of a certain surprising engagement reached her, “Ah, if it had only been Norah!” And did there not come to her a little sharp heartache even at this happy hour, as she called to mind the heavy sigh of the big gray stooping man as he muttered heavily, “My foolish little lad, if it had only been the other! ”

Surely he knew it all now—surely it would make his greatly loving heart happier even in heaven to know that his “little lad,” once wayward, blinded, straying, had been led by a way that he knew not into paths of righteousness and peace; that now all things, great and small, well or ill, in life were recognized by him as coming from the hand of a reconciled Father, and that to His divine love did he ascribe the full cup of human joy and love which was now his portion.

“Ah, here he comes, Kenneth the Second, or King Kenneth, as Norah calls him,” said Esmae, stepping forward to the avenue where what seemed a white bundle of shawls and lace was being borne along in the ample arms of a stout elderly nurse. “I want to inspect him, nurse. It must be three whole hours since I saw him last; he surely must have grown since then. Don’t you expect progress every shining hour, mother Mary? Come now, I mean to criticise your son. Well, in the first place, I don’t approve of that rag, and I am sure neither does he, if he could state his opinion,” said Esmae, as he tossed aside the dainty lace handkerchief which protected the tiny rosebud of a face. “I assure you, nurse, it is not necessary in the glen. Our pure breezes are adapted to the tenderest of complexions. Ah, just see that now, he evidently knows me quite well,” cried Esmae gleefully as the tiny fingers fixed on one of his with a decisive clasp.

“Quite rights my little Ken. Hold him fast Thine own and thy father’s friend forsake not,” said the happy mother as she bent over her treasure.

“But come now. You are going to be taken to see some other old friends. Here comes Norah’s pretty carriage to drive us to the Manse of Blairton,” she added, as a smart phaeton with a pair of white ponies came bowling along the avenue from the stables.

“Well, mind, don’t let them monopolize you too long at the manse,” said Esmae, as he helped Mrs. Maxwell into the carriage, and also proceeded to establish her nurse and her baby therein.

“Oh no, I shan’t be long. Baby must be in before dark, you see. It will be a short visit; but Kenneth told them I would take our son to see them this afternoon, and I am longing so much to have a sight of them besides,” said Mary as she drove away.

Seeing that her time was circumscribed, it was a double disappointment to Mary to perceive that there were other visitors already at the manse. A shining gig was waiting in front of the familiar porch as she drove up to it Its ancient cob was being held by the minister’s old groom, who evidently reckoned it rather beneath his dignity to keep watch over such a plebeian animal His eyes brightened as he recognized the “young lady of Mirkwood; ” and he peered with the utmost curiosity at the white bundle which the nurse, at her mistress’s request, displayed to him with dignified gratification.

“It’s Maister and Mistress Shanks that’s callin’—the new minister o’ Whiterashes,” volunteered Sandy; “and this is their trap,” he added, glancing with half-repressed contempt at the ill-groomed horse.

The presence of unwelcome visitors could not, however, altogether deprive this meeting of its joyfulness. In another moment Mary’s arm was round her dear old friend, who lay very frail and suffering now on her couch in the invalid’s neuk of the pleasant drawing-room.

“And this is our new cousin Kenneth, see, Dora,” said Mr. Irvine, who had appropriated the white bundle, and was bearing it proudly though cautiously in his arms. Then naturally there followed a minute, loving inspection of the small stranger, who comported himself with such admirable good behaviour that he won golden opinions from even Mr. Timothy Shanks, who was known not to be always lenient in his estimate of the frailties and follies of youth.

He wriggled on the edge of his chair, and rubbing his hands, said facetiously, “Mrs. Maxwell, I congratulate you most heartily on your good upbringing of your offspring. There is nothing, in my humble opingion, like early training. The infant conducts himself with admirable quietness. At such a tender age one would not have been much surprised at some outburst of original sin, as it were, in the matter of squalling, I may say.”

“I make no doubt he can lift up his voice nicely when he likes. You always jump to such hasty conclusions, Mr. Shanks,” snapped his wife, with a jerk of her parrot-topped parasol, which would have anywhere identified her with Miss Joan Pirnie, and was now her invariable appendage, as Mrs. Shanks, wife of the parish minister of Whiterashes.

“Indeed, I have heard,” she continued, nodding her head ominously as she spoke, “that it was anything but a good sign of an infant’s robustness if it had not good use of its lungs. The fact is, I know that various methods are resorted to for making them scream freely, so to speak. If, as Mr. Shanks seems to think, the child does not cry enough, I would really take measures, Mrs. Maxwell, if I were you. A good thump on the back, I have heard, was an excellent thing; and, for instance, a pinch on the leg could not do a child any harm, and it might answer the purpose,” wound up Mrs. Shanks, with an expressive nod of her ringlets towards the massive-looking nurse, who was glancing down with something of the mild contempt with which a sagacious Newfoundland regards a yelping spaniel.

“Ah, Joan, you know the saying, ‘ Old maids’ bairns,’ ” murmured Mr. Shanks, grinning, not altogether without malignity.

“Many thanks to you, Mr. Shanks; but I beg to remind you that I am a wedded wife—that it is more than a year and a half since I entered the holy estate of matrimony.”

“True, true, Joan; sorry I spoke,” murmured Mr. Shanks, with an uneasy wriggle, seeing that his levity had roused his quick-tempered spouse’s indignation, and evidently fearful of the consequences.

Master Kenneth, meanwhile, as if to vindicate the complete soundness of his organs, set up a vociferous roar, and was speedily carried off by his nurse, whose experienced eye observed that the fragile invalid was not likely to benefit by the unaccustomed noise.

It was pleasant, indeed, for Mary to sit by her old friend and hold the dear fading fingers in her warm grasp once more; but nothing in the way of talk beyond the merest commonplaces could be indulged in, as Mrs. Shanks, with her characteristic tendency to prolong her visits when she was least wanted, held her ground till the shadows lengthened on the manse lawn, and indoors the beginnings of twilight were creeping fast. Nurse had more than once appeared at the door of the drawingroom with a silent air of protest on behalf of her precious charge, so Mary had at last to take a reluctant farewell of her friend, with the promise of a long and, it was to be hoped, a more fortunate visit on the following day.

The sunset tints were resting on the manse garden, which lay in all its autumnal glory. “How sweet the dear old place looks!” said Mary, glancing round as she stood in the porch with Mr. Irvine. “It is so delightfully unchanged, this beautiful home of yours,” she added, casting her eye over the familiar flower-beds with their time-honoured plants, their pretty ribbon borders, the pleasant rosery, and all the delightful nooks of the garden she loved the best in the world.

The minister of Blairton was leaning against the trellised wall of the old porch. A dying sunbeam played on his face at the moment, and Mary noticed for the first time how worn and lined and sad it had grown.

“Yes,” he said, with a heavy sigh as he glanced round, “our old manse garden is beautiful as ever; but, after all, it was the ancient Church of Scotland which was my truest home, and with its breaking up my home feels gone. Change, uprooting, confusion is written now on everything I once held most dear. Ah, Mary, it is quite true: the good old times have passed away, and ‘weary are the new.’”

THE END.