WHAT'S MINE'S MINE

By George MacDonald

IN THREE VOLUMES

VOL. I. 

CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 

CHAPTER

 I. HOW COME THEY THERE? II. A SHORT GLANCE OVER THE SHOULDER III. THE GIRLS' FIRST WALK IV. THE SHOP IN THE VILLAGE V. THE CHIEF VI. WORK AND WAGE VII. MOTHER AND SONVIII. A MORNING CALL IX. MR. SERCOMBE X. THE PLOUGH-BULLS XI. THE FIR-GROVE XII. AMONG THE HILLSXIII. THE LAKE XIV. THE WOLVES XV. THE GULF THAT DIVIDED XVI. THE CLAN CHRISTMASXVII. BETWEEN DANCING AND SUPPER

WHAT'S MINE'S MINE. 

CHAPTER I. 

HOW COME THEY THERE?

The room was handsomely furnished, but such as I would quarrel withnone for calling common, for it certainly was uninteresting. Not athing in it had to do with genuine individual choice, but merelywith the fashion and custom of the class to which its occupiersbelonged. It was a dining-room, of good size, appointed with all thethings a dining-room "ought" to have, mostly new, and entirelyexpensive--mirrored sideboard in oak; heavy chairs, just the dozen, in fawn-coloured morocco seats and backs--the dining-room, in short, of a London-house inhabited by rich middle-class people. A big fireblazed in the low round-backed grate, whose flashes were reflectedin the steel fender and the ugly fire-irons that were never used. Asnowy cloth of linen, finer than ordinary, for there was pride inthe housekeeping, covered the large dining-table, and a company, evidently a family, was eating its breakfast. But how come thesepeople THERE?

For, supposing my reader one of the company, let him rise from thewell-appointed table--its silver, bright as the complex motions ofbutler's elbows can make it; its china, ornate though not elegant;its ham, huge, and neither too fat nor too lean; its game-pie, withnothing to be desired in composition, or in flavour natural orartificial;--let him rise from these and go to the left of the twowindows, for there are two opposite each other, the room having beenenlarged by being built out: if he be such a one as I would have fora reader, might I choose--a reader whose heart, not merely his eye, mirrors what he sees--one who not merely beholds the outward showsof things, but catches a glimpse of the soul that looks out of them, whose garment and revelation they are;--if he be such, I say, hewill stand, for more than a moment, speechless with something akinto that which made the morning stars sing together. 

He finds himself gazing far over western seas, while yet the sun isin the east. They lie clear and cold, pale and cold, broken withislands scattering thinner to the horizon, which is jagged here andthere with yet another. The ocean looks a wild, yet peacefulmingling of lake and land. Some of the islands are green from shoreto shore, of low yet broken surface; others are mere rocks, with abold front to the sea, one or two of them strange both in form andcharacter. Over the pale blue sea hangs the pale blue sky, fleckedwith a few cold white clouds that look as if they disowned the earththey had got so high--though none the less her children, and doomedto descend again to her bosom. A keen little wind is out, crispingthe surface of the sea in patches--a pretty large crisping to beseen from that height, for the window looks over hill above hill tothe sea. Life, quiet yet eager, is all about; the solitude itself isalive, content to be a solitude because it is alive. Its life needsnothing from beyond--is independent even of the few sails of fishingboats that here and there with their red brown break the blue of thewater. 

If my reader, gently obedient to my thaumaturgy, will now turn andcross to the other window, let him as he does so beware of casting aglance on his right towards the place he has left at the table, forthe room will now look to him tenfold commonplace, so that he toowill be inclined to ask, "How come these and their belongings HERE--just HERE?"--let him first look from the window. There he seeshills of heather rolling away eastward, at middle distance beginningto rise into mountains, and farther yet, on the horizon, showingsnow on their crests--though that may disappear and return severaltimes before settling down for the winter. It is a solemn and verystill region--not a PRETTY country at all, but great--beautiful withthe beauties of colour and variety of surface; while, far in thedistance, where the mountains and the clouds have business together, its aspect rises to grandeur. To his first glance probably not atree will be discoverable; the second will fall upon a solitaryclump of firs, like a mole on the cheek of one of the hills not faroff, a hill steeper than most of them, and green to the top. 

Is my reader seized with that form of divine longing which wonderswhat lies over the nearest hill? Does he fancy, ascending the otherside to its crest, some sweet face of highland girl, singing songsof the old centuries while yet there was a people in these wastes?Why should he imagine in the presence of the actual? why dream whenthe eyes can see? He has but to return to the table to reseathimself by the side of one of the prettiest of girls!

She is fair, yet with a glowing tinge under her fairness whichflames out only in her eyes, and seldom reddens her skin. She hasbrown hair with just a suspicion of red and no more, and a wavinessthat turns to curl at the ends. She has a good forehead, arched alittle, not without a look of habitation, though whence that comesit might be hard to say. There are no great clouds on that sky ofthe face, but there is a soft dimness that might turn to rain. Shehas a straight nose, not too large for the imperfect yet decidedlyGreek contour; a doubtful, rather straight, thin-lipped mouth, whichseems to dissolve into a bewitching smile, and reveals perfectteeth--and a good deal more to the eyes that can read it. When themouth smiles, the eyes light up, which is a good sign. Their shapeis long oval--and their colour when unlighted, much that of anunpeeled almond; when she smiles, they grow red. She has an objectin life which can hardly be called a mission. She is rather tall, and quite graceful, though not altogether natural in her movements. Her dress gives a feathery impression to one who rather receivesthan notes the look of ladies. She has a good hand--not the dollhand so much admired of those who can judge only of quantity andknow nothing of quality, but a fine sensible hand, --the best thingabout her: a hand may be too small just as well as too large. 

Poor mother earth! what a load of disappointing women, made fit forfine things, and running all to self and show, she carries on herweary old back! From all such, good Lord deliver us!--except it befor our discipline or their awaking. 

Near her at the breakfast table sits one of aspect so different, that you could ill believe they belonged to the same family. She isyounger and taller--tall indeed, but not ungraceful, though by nomeans beautiful. She has all the features that belong to aface--among them not a good one. Stay! I am wrong: there were intruth, dominant over the rest, TWO good features--her two eyes, dark as eyes well could be without being all pupil, large, andrather long like her sister's until she looked at you, and then theyopened wide. They did not flash or glow, but were full of the lightthat tries to see--questioning eyes. They were simple eyes--I willnot say without arriere pensee, for there was no end of thinkingfaculty, if not yet thought, behind them, --but honest eyes thatlooked at you from the root of eyes, with neither attack nor defencein them. If she was not so graceful as her sister, she was hardlymore than a girl, and had a remnant of that curiously lovelymingling of grace and clumsiness which we see in long-legged growinggirls. I will give her the advantage of not being further described, except so far as this--that her hair was long and black, that hercomplexion was dark, with something of a freckly unevenness, andthat her hands were larger and yet better than her sister's. 

There is one truth about a plain face, that may not have occurred tomany: its ugliness accompanies a condition of larger undevelopment, for all ugliness that is not evil, is undevelopment; and so impliesthe larger material and possibility of development. The idea of nocountenance is yet carried out, and this kind will take moredeveloping for the completion of its idea, and may result in agreater beauty. I would therefore advise any young man of aspirationin the matter of beauty, to choose a plain woman for wife--IFTHROUGH HER PLAINNESS SHE IS YET LOVELY IN HIS EYES; for theloveliness is herself, victorious over the plainness, and her face, so far from complete and yet serving her loveliness, has in it roomfor completion on a grander scale than possibly most handsome faces. In a handsome face one sees the lines of its coming perfection, andhas a glimpse of what it must be when finished: few are prophetsenough for a plain face. A keen surprise of beauty waits many a man, if he be pure enough to come near the transfiguration of the homelyface he loved. 

This plain face was a solemn one, and the solemnity suited theplainness. It was not specially expressive--did not look speciallyintelligent; there was more of latent than operative power init--while her sister's had more expression than power. Both werelady-like; whether they were ladies, my reader may determine. Thereare common ladies and there are rare ladies; the former MAY becountesses; the latter MAY be peasants. 

There were two younger girls at the table, of whom I will saynothing more than that one of them looked awkward, promised to behandsome, and was apparently a good soul; the other was pretty, andlooked pert. 

The family possessed two young men, but they were not here; one wasa partner in the business from which his father had practicallyretired; the other was that day expected from Oxford. 

The mother, a woman with many autumnal reminders of spring abouther, sat at the head of the table, and regarded her queendom with asmile a little set, perhaps, but bright. She had the look of a womanon good terms with her motherhood, with society, with theuniverse--yet had scarce a shadow of assumption on her countenance. For if she felt as one who had a claim upon things to go pleasantlywith her, had she not put in her claim, and had it acknowledged? Hersmile was a sweet white-toothed smile, true if shallow, and a morethan tolerably happy one--often irradiating THE GOVERNORopposite--for so was the head styled by the whole family from motherto chit. 

He was the only one at the table on whose countenance a shadow--asof some end unattained--was visible. He had tried to get intoparliament, and had not succeeded; but I will not presume to saythat was the source of the shadow. He did not look discontented, oreven peevish; there was indeed a certain radiance of success abouthim-only above the cloudy horizon of his thick, dark eyebrows, seemed to hang a thundery atmosphere. His forehead was large, buthis features rather small; he had, however, grown a trifle fat, which tended to make up. In his youth he must have been verynice-looking, probably too pretty to be handsome. In good health andwhen things went well, as they had mostly done with him, he wassweet-tempered; what he might be in other conditions was seldomconjectured. But was that a sleeping thunder-cloud, or only theshadow of his eyebrows?

He had a good opinion of himself-on what grounds I do not know; buthe was rich, and I know no better ground; I doubt if there is anymore certain soil for growing a good opinion of oneself. Certainly, the more you try to raise one by doing what is right and worthdoing, the less you succeed. 

Mr. Peregrine Palmer had finished his breakfast, and sat for a whilelooking at nothing in particular, plunged in deep thought aboutnothing at all, while the girls went on with theirs. He was a littleabove the middle height, and looked not much older than his wife;his black hair had but begun to be touched with silver; he seemed aman without an atom of care more than humanity counts reasonable;his speech was not unlike that of an Englishman, for, although bornin Glasgow, he had been to Oxford. He spoke respectfully to hiswife, and with a pleasant playfulness to his daughters; his mannerwas nowise made to order, but natural enough; his grammar was asgood as conversation requires; everything was respectable abouthim-and yet-he was one remove at least from a gentleman. Somethinghard to define was lacking to that idea of perfection. 

Mr. Peregrine Palmer's grandfather had begun to make the familyfortune by developing a little secret still in a remote highlandglen, which had acquired a reputation for its whisky, into a greatsuperterrene distillery. Both he and his son made money by it, andit had "done well" for Mr. Peregrine also. With all three of themthe making of money had been the great calling of life. They werediligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving Mammon, andfounding claim to consideration on the fact. Neither Jacob nor JohnPalmer's worst enemy had ever called him a hypocrite: neither hadbeen suspected of thinking to serve Mammon and God. Both had goneregularly to church, but neither had taught in a Sunday school, oronce gone to a week-day sermon. Peregrine had built a church and aschool. He did not now take any active part in the distillery, butworked mainly in money itself. 

Jacob, the son of a ship-chandler in Greenock, had never thoughtabout gentleman or no gentleman; but his son John had entertainedthe difference, and done his best to make a gentleman of Peregrine;and neither Peregrine nor any of his family ever doubted hisfather's success; and if he had not quite succeeded, I would havethe blame laid on Peregrine and not on either father or grandfather. For a man to GROW a gentleman, it is of great consequence that hisgrandfather should have been an honest man; but if a man BE agentleman, it matters little what his grandfather or grandmothereither was. Nay--if a man be a gentleman, it is of the smallestconsequence, except for its own sake, whether the world counts himone or not. 

Mr. Peregrine Palmer rose from the table with a merry remark on theprolongation of the meal by his girls, and went towards the door. 

"Are you going to shoot?" asked his wife. 

"Not to-day. But I am going to look after my guns. I daresay they'vegot them all right, but there's nothing like seeing to a thingyourself!"

Mr. Palmer had this virtue, and this very gentlemanlike way--that healways gave his wife as full an answer as he would another lady. Hewas not given to marital brevity. 

He was there for the grouse-shooting--not exactly, only "as itwere. " He did not care VERY much about the sport, and had he carednothing, would have been there all the same. Other people, in whathe counted his social position, shot grouse, and he liked to do whatother people did, for then he felt all right: if ever he tried thegate of heaven, it would be because other people did. But theprimary cause of his being so far in the north was the simple factthat he had had the chance of buying a property very cheap--a fineproperty of mist and cloud, heather and rock, mountain and moor, andwith no such reputation for grouse as to enhance its price. "Myestate" sounded well, and after a time of good preserving he wouldbe able to let it well, he trusted. No sooner was it bought than hiswife and daughters were eager to visit it; and the man of business, perceiving it would cost him much less if they passed their autumnsthere instead of on the continent, proceeded at once to enlarge thehouse and make it comfortable. If they should never go a secondtime, it would, with its perfect appointments, make the shootingthere more attractive!

They had arrived the day before. The journey had been fatiguing, fora great part of it was by road; but they were all in splendidhealth, and not too tired to get up at a reasonable hour the nextday. 

CHAPTER II. 

A SHORT GLANCE OVER THE SHOULDER. 

Mr. Peregrine was the first of the Palmer family to learn that therewas a Palmer coat of arms. He learned it at college, and on thiswise. 

One day a fellow-student, who pleased himself with what he calledphilology, remarked that his father must have been a hit of ahumorist to name him Peregrine:--"except indeed it be a familyname!" he added. 

"I never thought about it, " said Peregrine. "I don't quite know whatyou mean. "

The fact was he had no glimmer of what he meant. 

"Nothing profound, " returned the other. "Only don't you seePeregrine means pilgrim? It is the same as the Italian pellegrino, from the Latin, peregrinus, which means one that goes about thefields, --what in Scotland you call a LANDLOUPER. "

"Well, but, " returned Peregrine, hesitatingly, "I don't find myselfmuch wiser. Peregrine means a pilgrim, you say, but what of that?All names mean something, I suppose! It don't matter much. "

"What is your coat of arms?"

"I don't know. "

"Why did your father call you Peregrine?"

"I don't know that either. I suppose because he liked the name. "

"Why should he have liked it?" continued the other, who was given tothe Socratic method. 

"I know no more than the man in the moon. "

"What does your surname mean?"

"Something to do with palms, I suppose. "

"Doubtless. "

"You see I don't go in for that kind of thing like you!"

"Any man who cares about the cut of his coat, might have a littlecuriosity about the cut of his name: it sits to him a good dealcloser!"

"That is true--so close that you can't do anything with it. I can'tpull mine off however you criticize it!"

"You can change it any day. Would you like to change it?"

"No, thank you, Mr. Stokes!" returned Peregrine dryly. 

"I didn't mean with mine, " growled the other. "My name is anhistorical one too--but that is not in question. --Do you know yourcrest ought to be a hairy worm?"

"Why?"

"Don't you know the palmer-worm? It got its name where you gotyours!"

"Well, we all come from Adam!"

"What! worms and all?"

"Surely. We're all worms, the parson says. Come, put me through;it's time for lunch. Or, if you prefer, let me burst in ignorance. Idon't mind. "

"Well, then, I will explain. The palmer was a pilgrim: when he camehome, he carried a palm-branch to show he had been to the holyland. "

"Did the hairy worm go to the holy land too?"

"He is called a palmer-worm because he has feet enough to go anynumber of pilgrimages. But you are such a land-louper, you ought toblazon two hairy worms saltier-wise. "

"I don't understand. "

"Why, your name, interpreted to half an ear, is just PILGRIMPILGRIM!"

"I wonder if my father meant it!"

"That I cannot even guess at, not having the pleasure of knowingyour father. But it does look like a paternal joke!"

His friend sought out for him the coat and crest of the Palmers; butfor the latter, strongly recommended a departure: the freshfamily-branch would suit the worm so well!--his crest ought to betwo worms crossed, tufted, the tufts ouched in gold. It was notheraldic language, but with Peregrine passed well enough. Still hedid not take to the worms, but contented himself with the ordinarycrest. He was henceforth, however, better pleased with his name, forhe fancied in it something of the dignity of a doubled surname. 

His first glance at his wife was because she crossed the field ofhis vision; his second glance was because of her beauty; his thirdbecause her name was SHELLEY. It is marvellous how whimsicallysentimental commonplace people can be where their own interestingpersonality is concerned: her name he instantly associated withSCALLOP-SHELL, and began to make inquiry about her. Learning thather other name was Miriam, one also of the holy land--

"A most remarkable coincidence!--a mere coincidence of course!" hesaid to himself. "Evidently that is the woman destined to be thecompanion of my pilgrimage!"

When their first child was born, the father was greatly exercised asto a fitting name for him. He turned up an old botany book, andsought out the scientific names of different palms. CHAMAEROPS wouldnot do, for it was a dwarf-palm; BORASSUS might do, seeing it was aboy--only it stood for a FAN-PALM; CORYPHA would not be bad for agirl, only it was the name of a heathen goddess, and would not gowell with the idea of a holy palmer. COCOA, PHOENIX, and ARECA, oneafter the other, went in at his eyes and through his head; none ofthem pleased him. His wife, however, who in her smiling way hadfallen in with his whim, helped him out of his difficulty. She wasthe daughter of nonconformist parents in Lancashire, and had beenencouraged when a child to read a certain old-fashioned book calledThe Pilgrim's Progress, which her husband had never seen. He did notread it now, but accepting her suggestion, named the boy Christian. When a daughter came, he would have had her Christiana, but his wifepersuaded him to be content with Christina. They named their secondson Valentine, after Mr. Valiant-for-truth. Their second daughterwas Mercy; and for the third and fourth, Hope and Grace seemed nearenough. So the family had a cool glow of puritanism about it, whilenothing was farther from the thoughts of any of them than what theirnames signified. All, except the mother, associated them with thecrusades for the rescue of the sepulchre of the Lord from thepagans; not a thought did one of them spend on the rescue of a livesoul from the sepulchre of low desires, mean thoughts, and crawlingselfishness. 

CHAPTER III. 

THE GIRLS' FIRST WALK. 

The Governor, Peregrine and Palmer as he was, did not care aboutwalking at any time, not even when he HAD to do it because otherpeople did; the mother, of whom there would have been little lefthad the sweetness in her moral, and the house-keeping in herpractical nature, been subtracted, had things to see to withindoors: the young people must go out by themselves! They put on theirhats, and issued. 

The temperature was keen, though it was now nearly the middle ofAugust, by which time in those northern regions the earth has begunto get a little warm: the house stood high, and the atmosphere wasthin. There was a certain sense of sadness in the pale sky and itscold brightness; but these young people felt no cold, and perceivedno sadness. The air was exhilarating, and they breathed deep breathsof a pleasure more akin to the spiritual than they were capable ofknowing. For as they gazed around them, they thought, like Hamlet'smother in the presence of her invisible husband, that they saw allthere was to be seen. They did not know nature: in the school towhich they had gone they patronized instead of revering her. Shewrought upon them nevertheless after her own fashion with herchildren, unheedful whether they knew what she was about or not. Themere space, the mere height from which they looked, the rarity ofthe air, the soft aspiration of earth towards heaven, made them allmore of children. 

But not one of them being capable of enjoying anything by herself, together they were unable to enjoy much; and, like the miser who, when he cannot much enjoy his money, desires more, began to desiremore company to share in the already withering satisfaction of theirnew possession--to help them, that is, to get pleasure out of it, asout of a new dress. It is a good thing to desire to share a goodthing, but it is not well to be unable alone to enjoy a good thing. It is our enjoyment that should make us desirous to share. What isthere to share if the thing be of no value in itself? To enjoy aloneis to be able to share. No participation can make that of valuewhich in itself is of none. It is not love alone but pride also, andoften only pride, that leads to the desire for another to be presentwith us in possession. 

The girls grew weary of the show around them because it was soquiet, so regardless of their presence, so moveless, so monotonous. Endless change was going on, but it was too slow for them to see;had it been rapid, its motions were not of a kind to interest them. Ere half an hour they had begun to think with regret of Piccadillyand Regent street--for they had passed the season in London. Thereis a good deal counted social which is merely gregarious. Doubtlesshumanity is better company than a bare hill-side; but not a littledepends on how near we come to the humanity, and how near we come tothe hill. I doubt if one who could not enjoy a bare hill-side alone, would enjoy that hill-side in any company; if he thought he did, Isuspect it would be that the company enabled him, not to forgethimself in what he saw, but to be more pleasantly aware of himselfthan the lone hill would permit him to be;--for the mere hill hasits relation to that true self which the common self is so anxiousto avoid and forget. The girls, however, went on and on, led mainlyby the animal delight of motion, the two younger making many adiversion up the hill on the one side, and down the hill on theother, shrieking at everything fresh that pleased them. 

The house they had just left stood on the projecting shoulder of ahill, here and there planted with firs. Of the hardy trees there wasa thicket at the back of the house, while toward the south, lesshardy ones grew in the shrubbery, though they would never, becauseof the sea-breezes, come to any height. The carriage-drive to thehouse joined two not very distant points on the same road, and therewas no lodge at either gate. It was a rough, country road, a gooddeal rutted, and seldom repaired. Opposite the gates rose the steepslope of a heathery hill, along the flank of which the girls werenow walking. On their right lay a piece of rough moorland, coveredwith heather, patches of bracken, and coarse grass. A few yards tothe right, it sank in a steep descent. Such was the disposition ofthe ground for some distance along the road--on one side the hill, on the other a narrow level, and abrupt descent. 

As they advanced they caught sight of a ruin rising above the browof the descent: the two younger darted across the heather toward it;the two elder continued their walk along the road, graduallydescending towards a valley. 

"I wonder what we shall see round the corner there!" said Mercy, theyounger of the two. 

"The same over again, I suppose!" answered Christina. "What a roughroad it is! I've twice nearly sprained my ankle!"

"I was thinking of what I saw the other day in somebody'stravels--about his interest in every turn of the road, alwayslooking for what was to come next. "

"Time enough when it comes, in my opinion!" rejoined Christina. 

For she was like any other mirror--quite ready to receive what wasthrown upon her, but incapable of originating anything, almostincapable of using anything. 

As they descended, and the hill-side, here covered with bracken andboulders, grew higher and higher above them, the valley, in frontand on the right, gradually opened, here and there showing a glimpseof a small stream that cantered steadily toward the sea, nowtumbling over a rock, now sullen in a brown pool. Arriving at lengthat a shoulder of the hill round which the road turned, a whole mileof the brook lay before them. It came down a narrow valley, withscraps of meadow in the bottom; but immediately below them thevalley was of some width, and was good land from side to side, wheregreen oats waved their feathery grace, and the yellow barley wasnearly ready for the sickle. No more than the barren hill, however, had the fertile valley anything for them. Their talk was of the lastball they were at. 

The sisters were about as good friends as such negative creaturescould be; and they would be such friends all their lives, if on theone hand neither of them grew to anything better, and on the otherno jealousy, or marked difference of social position throughmarriage, intervened. They loved each other, if not tenderly, yetwith the genuineness of healthy family-habit--a thing not to bedespised, for it keeps the door open for something better. In itselfit is not at all to be reckoned upon, for habit is but the merestshadow of reality. Still it is not a small thing, as families go, ifsisters and brothers do not dislike each other. 

They were criticizing certain of the young men they had met at thesaid ball. Being, in their development, if not in their nature, commonplace, what should they talk about but clothes or young men?And why, although an excellent type of its kind, should I take thetrouble to record their conversation? To read, it might have amusedme--or even interested, as may a carrot painted by a Dutchman; butwere I a painter, I should be sorry to paint carrots, and the girls'talk is not for my pen. At the same time I confess myself incapableof doing it justice. When one is annoyed at the sight of thingsmeant to be and not beautiful, there is danger of not giving themeven the poor fair-play they stand in so much the more need of thatit can do so little for them. 

But now they changed the subject of their talk. They had come to apoint of the road not far from the ruin to which the children hadrun across the heather. 

"Look, Chrissy! It IS an old castle!" said Mercy. "I wonder whetherit is on our land!"

"Not much to be proud of!" replied the other. "It is nothing but thewalls of a square house!"

"Not just a common square house! Look at that pepper-pot on one ofthe corners!--I wonder how it is all the old castles get deserted!"

"Because they are old. It's well to desert them before they tumbledown. "

"But they wouldn't tumble down if they weren't neglected. Think ofWarwick castle! Stone doesn't rot like wood! Just see the thicknessof those walls!"

"Yes, they are thick! But stone too has its way of rotting. Westminster palace is wearing through, flake by flake. The weatherwill be at the lords before long. "

"That's what Valentine would call a sign of the times. I say, what aradical he is, Chrissy!--Look! the old place is just like an emptyegg-shell! I know, if it had been mine, I wouldn't have let it cometo that!"

"You say so because it never was yours: if it had been, you wouldknow how uncomfortable it was!"

"I should like to know, " said Mercy, after a little pause, duringwhich they stood looking at the ruin, "whether the owners leave suchplaces because they get fastidious and want better, or because theyare too poor to keep them up! At all events a man must be poor toSELL the house that belonged to his ancestors!--It must be miserableto grow poor after being used to plenty!--I wonder whose is the oldplace!"

"Oh, the governor's, I suppose! He has all hereabout for miles. "

"I hope it is ours! I SHOULD like to build it up again! I would livein it myself!"

"I'm afraid the governor won't advance your share for that purpose!"

"I love old things!" said Mercy. 

"I believe you take your old doll to bed with you yet!" rejoinedChristina. "I am different to you!" she continued, with Frenchifiedgrammar; "I like things as new as ever I can have them!"

"I like new things well enough, Chrissy--you know I do! It isnatural. The earth herself has new clothes once a year. It is butonce a year, I grant!"

"Often enough for an old granny like her!"

"Look what a pretty cottage!--down there, half-way to the burn! It'slike an English cottage! Those we saw as we came along were eitherlike a piece of the earth, or so white as to look ghastly! This onelooks neat and comfortable, and has trees about it!"

The ruin, once a fortified house and called a castle, stood on asloping root or spur that ran from the hill down to the bank of thestream, where it stopped abruptly with a steep scaur, at whose footlay a dark pool. On the same spur, half-way to the burn, stood alow, stone-built, thatched cottage, with a little grove about it, mostly of the hardy, contented, musical fir--a tree that would seemto have less regard to earthly prosperity than most, and looks likea pilgrim and a stranger: not caring much, it thrives where othertrees cannot. There might have been a hundred of them, mingled, instrangest contrast, with a few delicate silver birches, about thecottage. It stood toward the east side of the sinking ridge, whichhad a steep descent, both east and west, to the fields below. Theslopes were green with sweet grass, and apparently smooth as a lawn. Not far from where the cottage seemed to rest rather than rise orstand, the burn rushed right against the side of the spur, as if togo straight through it, but turned abruptly, and flowed along theside to the end of it, where its way to the sea was open. On thepoint of the ridge were a few more firs: except these, those aboutthe cottage, the mole on the hill-cheek, and the plantation aboutthe New House, up or down was not a tree to be seen. The girls stoodfor a moment looking. 

"It's really quite pretty!" said Christina with condescension. "Ithas actually something of what one misses here so much--a certaincosy look! Tidy it is too! As you say, Mercy, it might be in England--only for the poverty of its trees. --And oh those wretched barehills!" she added, as she turned away and moved on. 

"Wait till the heather is quite out: then you will have colour tomake up for the bareness. "

"Tell true now, Mercy: that you are Scotch need not keep you fromspeaking the truth:--don't you think heather just--well--just aleetle magentaish?--not a colour to be altogether admired?--just alittle vulgar, don't you know? The fashion has changed so muchwithin the last few years!"

"No, I don't think so; and if I did I should be ashamed of it. Isuppose poor old mother Earth ought to go to the pre-Raphaelites tobe taught how to dress herself!"

Mercy spoke with some warmth, but Christina was not sufficientlyinterested to be cross. She made no answer. 

They were now at the part of the road which crossed the descendingspur as it left the hill-side. Here they stopped again, and lookeddown the rocky slope. There was hardly anything green betwixt themand the old ruin--little but stones on a mass of rock; butimmediately beyond the ruin the green began: there it seemed as if awave of the meadow had risen and overflowed the spur, leaving itsturf behind it. Catching sight of Hope and Grace as they ran aboutthe ruin, they went to join them, the one drawn by a vague interestin the exuviae of vanished life, the other by mere curiosity to seeinside the care-worn, protesting walls. Through a gap that mightonce have been a door, they entered the heart of the sad unhopingthing dropt by the Past on its way to oblivion: nothing looks sounlike life as a dead body, nothing so unfit for human dwelling as along-forsaken house. 

Finding in one corner a broken stair, they clambered up to a gap inthe east wall; and as they reached it, heard the sound of a horse'sfeet. Looking down . The road, they saw a gig approaching with twomen. It had reached a part not so steep, and was coming at a trot. 

"Why!" exclaimed Christina, "there's Val!--and some one with him!"

"I heard the governor say to mamma, " returned Mercy, "that Val wasgoing to bring a college friend with him, --'for a pop at thegrouse, ' he said. I wonder what he will be like!"

"He's a good-big-looking fellow, " said Christina. 

They drew nearer. 

"You might have said a big, good-looking fellow!" rejoined Mercy. 

"He really is handsome!--Now mind, Mercy, I was the first todiscover it!" said Christina. 

"Indeed you were not!--At least I was the first to SAY it!" returnedMercy. "But you will take him all to yourself anyhow, and I am sureI don't care!"

Yet the girls were not vulgar--they were only common. They did andsaid vulgar things because they had not the sensitive vitality toshrink from them. They had not been well taught--that is roused toLIVE: in the family was not a breath of aspiration. There was plentyof ambition, that is, aspiration turned hell-ward. They thoughtthemselves as far from vulgar as any lady in any land, being in thisvulgar--that they despised the people they called vulgar, yetthought much of themselves for not being vulgar. There was little inthem the world would call vulgar; but the world and its ways arevulgar; its breeding will not pass with the ushers of the highcountries. The worst in that of these girls was a FAST, disagreeableway of talking, which they owed to a certain governess they had hadfor a while. 

They hastened to the road. The gig came up. Valentine threw thereins to his companion, jumped out, embraced his sisters, and seemedglad to see them. Had he met them after a like interval at home, hewould have given them a cooler greeting; but he had travelled somany miles that they seemed not to have met for quite a long time. 

"My friend, Mr. Sercombe, " he said, jerking his head toward the gig. 

Mr. Sercombe raised his POT-LID--the last fashion in head-gear--andacquaintance was made. 

"We'll drive on, Sercombe, " said Valentine, jumping up. "You see, Chris, we're half dead with hunger! Do you think we shall findanything to eat?"

"Judging by what we left at breakfast, " replied Christina, "I shouldsay you will find enough for--one of you; but you had better go andsee. "

CHAPTER IV. 

THE SHOP IN THE VILLAGE. 

Two or three days have passed. The sun had been set for an hour, andthe night is already rather dark notwithstanding the long twilightof these northern regions, for a blanket of vapour has gathered overthe heaven, and a few stray drops have begun to fall from it. A thinwind now and then wakes, and gives a feeble puff, but seemsimmediately to change its mind and resolve not to blow, but let therain come down. A drearier-looking spot for human abode it would bedifficult to imagine, except it were as much of the sandy Sahara, orof the ashy, sage-covered waste of western America. A muddy roadwound through huts of turf--among them one or two of clay, and oneor two of stone, which were more like cottages. Hardly one had awindow two feet square, and many of their windows had no glass. Inalmost all of them the only chimney was little more than a hole inthe middle of the thatch. This rendered the absence of glass in thewindows not so objectionable; for, left without ordered path to itsoutlet, the smoke preferred a circuitous route, and lingered by theway, filling the air. Peat-smoke, however, is both wholesome andpleasant, nor was there mingled with it any disagreeable smell ofcooking. Outside were no lamps; the road was unlighted save by thefew rays that here and there crept from a window, casting a doubtfulglimmer on the mire. 

One of the better cottages sent out a little better light, thoughonly from a tallow candle, through the open upper half of a doorhorizontally divided in two. Except by that same half-door, indeed, little light could enter the place, for its one window was filledwith all sorts of little things for sale. Small and inconvenient forthe humblest commerce, this was not merely the best, it was the onlyshop in the hamlet. 

There were two persons in it, one before and one behind the counter. The latter was a young woman, the former a man. 

He was leaning over the counter--whether from weariness, listlessness, or interest in his talk with the girl behind, it wouldnot have been easy, in the dim light and deep shadow, to say. Heseemed quite at home, yet the young woman treated him with a marked, though unembarrassed respect. The candle stood to one side of themupon the counter, making a ghastly halo in the damp air; and in thelight puff that occasionally came in at the door, casting the shadowof one of a pair of scales, now on this now on that of the twofaces. The young woman was tall and dark, with a large forehead:--somuch could be seen; but the sweetness of her mouth, the bluenessof her eyes, the extreme darkness of her hair, were not to bedistinguished. The man also was dark. His coat was of some roughbrown material, probably dyed and woven in the village, and his kiltof tartan. They were more than well worn--looked even in that poorlight a little shabby. On his head was the highland bonnet called aglengarry. His profile was remarkable--hardly less than grand, witha certain aquiline expression, although the nose was not roman. Hiseyes appeared very dark, but in the daylight were greenish hazel. Usually he talked with the girl in Gaelic, but was now speakingEnglish, a far purer English than that of most English people, though with something of the character of book-English asdistinguished from conversation-English, and a very perceptibleaccent. 

"And when was it you heard from Lachlan, Annie?" he asked. 

After a moment's pause, during which she had been putting awaythings in a drawer of the counter--not so big as many a kitchendresser--

"Last Thursday it was, sir, " answered the girl. "You know we hearevery month, sometimes oftener. "

"Yes; I know that. --I hope the dear fellow is well?"

"He is quite well and of good hope. He says he will soon come andsee us now. "

"And take you away, Annie?"

"Well, sir, " returned Annie, after a moment's hesitation, "he doesnot SAY so!"

"If he did not mean it, he would be a rascal, and I should have tokill him. But my life on Lachlan's honesty!"

"Thank you, sir. He would lay down his for you. "

"Not if you said to him, DON'T!-eh, Annie?"

"But he would, Macruadh!" returned the young woman, almost angrily. "Are not you his chief?"

"Ah, that is all over now, my girl! There are no chiefs, and noclans any more! The chiefs that need not, yet sell their land likeEsau for a mess of pottage--and their brothers with it! And theSasunnach who buys it, claims rights over them that never grew onthe land or were hid in its caves! Thank God, the poor man is nottheir slave, but he is the worse off, for they will not let him eat, and he has nowhere to go. My heart is like to break for my people. Sometimes I feel as if I would gladly die. "

"Oh, sir! don't say that!" expostulated the young woman, and hervoice trembled. "Every heart in Glenruadh is glad when it goes wellwith the Macruadh. "

"Yes, yes; I know you all love my father's son and my uncle'snephew; but how can it go well with the Macruadh when it goes illwith his clan? There is no way now for a chief to be the father ofhis people; we are all poor together! My uncle--God rest hissoul!--they managed it so, I suppose, as to persuade him there wasno help for it! Well, a man must be an honest man, even if there beno way but ruin! God knows, as we've all heard my father say ahundred times from the pulpit, there's no ruin but dishonesty! Forpoverty and hard work, he's a poor creature would crouch for those!"

"He who well goes down hill, holds his head up!" said Annie, and apause followed. 

"There are strangers at the New House, we hear, " she said. 

"From a distance I saw some young ladies, and one or two men. Idon't desire to see more of them. God forbid I should wish them anymanner of harm! but--I hardly understand myself--I don't like to seethem there. I am afraid it is pride. They are rich, I hear, so weshall not be troubled with attention from them; they will look downupon us. "

"Look down on the Macruadh!" exclaimed Annie, as if she could notbelieve her ears. 

"Not that I should heed that!" he went on. "A cock on the barn-ridgelooks down on you, and you don't feel offended! What I do dread islooking down on them. There is something in me that can hate, Annie, and I fear it. There is something about the land--I don't care aboutmoney, but I feel like a miser about the land!--I don't mean ANYland; I shouldn't care to buy land unless it had once been ours; butwhat came down to me from my own people--with my own people uponit--I would rather turn the spigot of the molten gold and let it rundown the abyss, than a rood of that slip from me! I feel it even adisgrace to have lost what of it I never had!"

"Indeed, Macruadh, " said Annie, "it's a hard time! There is no moneyin the country! And fast the people are going after Lachlan!"

"I shall miss you, Annie!"

"You are very kind to us all, sir. "

"Are you not all my own! And you have to take care of for Lachlan'ssake besides. He left you solemnly to my charge--as if that had beennecessary, the foolish fellow, when we are foster-brothers!"

Again came a pause. 

"Not a gentleman-farmer left from one end of the strath to theother!" said the chief at length. "When Ian is at home, we feel justlike two old turkey-cocks left alone in the yard!"

"Say two golden eagles, sir, on the cliff of the rock. "

"Don't compare us to the eagle, Annie. I do not love the bird. He isvery proud and greedy and cruel, and never will know the hand thattames him. He is the bird of the monarch or the earl, not the birdof the father of his people. But he is beautiful, and I do not killhim. "

"They shot another, the female bird, last week! All the birds aregoing! Soon there will be nothing but the great sheep and the littlegrouse. The capercailzie's gone, and the ptarmigan's gone!--Well, there's a world beyond!"

"Where the birds go, Annie?--Well, it may be! But the ptarmigan's notgone yet, though there are not many; and for the capercailzie--onlywho that loves them will be here to see!--But do you really thinkthere is a heaven for all God's creatures, Annie? Ian does. "

"I don't know what I said to make you think so, sir! When the heartaches the tongue mistakes. But how is my lady, your mother?"

"Pretty well, thank you--wonderfully cheerful. It is time I wenthome to her. Lachlan would think I was playing him false, and makinglove to you on my own account!"

"No fear! He would know better than that! He would know too, if shewas not belonging to Lachlan, her father's daughter would not lether chief humble himself. "

"You're one of the old sort, Annie! Good night. Mind you tellLachlan I never miss a chance of looking in to see how you aregetting on. "

"I will. Good night, Macruadh. "

They shook hands over the counter, and the young chief took hisdeparture. 

As he stood up, he showed a fine-made, powerful frame, over six feetin height, and perfectly poised. With a great easy stride he sweptsilently out of the shop; nor from gait any more than look would onehave thought he had been all day at work on the remnant of propertyhe could call his own. 

To a cit it would have seemed strange that one sprung frominnumerable patriarchal ancestors holding the land of the country, should talk so familiarly with a girl in a miserable little shop ina most miserable hamlet; it would have seemed stranger yet that sucha one should toil at the labour the soul of a cit despises; butstranger than both it would seem to him, if he saw how such a man istempted to look down upon HIM. 

If less CLEVERNESS is required for country affairs, they leave themore room for thinking. There are great and small in every class;here and there is a ploughman that understands Burns, here and therea large-minded shopkeeper, here and there perhaps an unselfishduke. Doubtless most of the youth's ancestors would likewise haveheld such labour unworthy of a gentleman, and would have preferreddriving to their hills a herd of lowland cattle; but this, the lastMacruadh, had now and then a peep into the kingdom of heaven. 

CHAPTER V. 

THE CHIEF. 

The Macruadh strode into the dark, and down the village, wasting notime in picking his way--thence into the yet deeper dark of themoorland hills. The rain was beginning to come down in earnest, buthe did not heed it; he was thoroughbred, and feared no element. Anumbrella was to him a ludicrous thing: how could a little rain--ashe would have called it had it come down in torrents--hurt any one!

The Macruadh, as the few who yet held by the sore-frayed, fast-vanishing skirt of clanship, called him, was the son of thelast minister of the parish-a godly man, who lived that which hecould ill explain, and was immeasurably better than those parts ofhis creed which, from a sense of duty, he pushed to the front. Forhe held devoutly by the root of which he spoke too little, and itsupplied much sap to his life and teaching--out of the pulpit. Hewas a genial, friendly, and by nature even merry man, always readyto share what he had, and making no show of having what he had not, either in wisdom, knowledge, or earthly goods. His father andbrother had been owners of the property and chiefs of the clan, muchbeloved by the poor of it, and not a little misunderstood by most ofthe more nourishing. For a great hunger after larger means, theambition of the mammon-ruled world, had arisen in the land, and withit a rage for emigration. The uncle of the present Macruadh did allhe could to keep his people at home, lived on a couple of hundreds ayear himself, and let many of his farms to his gentlemen-tacksmen, as they were called, at lower rents; but it was unavailing; oneafter another departed, until his land lay in a measure waste, andhe grew very poor, mourning far more over his clan and his countrythan his poverty. In more prosperous times he had scraped together alittle money, meaning it, if he could but avoid spending it in hisold age, for his brother, who must soon succeed him; for he washimself a bachelor--the result of a romantic attachment and sorrowin his youth; but he lent it to a company which failed, and so lostit. At length he believed himself compelled, for the good of hispeople, to part with all but a mere remnant of the property. Fromthe man to whom he sold it, Mr. Peregrine Palmer bought it for twicethe money, and had still a good bargain. But the hopes of the lairdwere disappointed: in the sheep it fed, and the grouse it might bebrought to breed, lay all its value in the market; there was noincrease in the demand for labour; and more and more of thepeasantry emigrated, or were driven to other parts of the country. Such was the present treatment of the land, causing human life toebb from it, and working directly counter to the creative God. 

The laird retired to the humble cottage of his brother the pastor, just married rather late in life--where every comfort love couldgive waited for him; but the thought that he could have done betterfor his people by retaining the land soon wore him out; and havingmade a certain disposition of the purchase-money, he died. 

What remained of the property came to the minister. As for thechieftainship, that had almost died before the chief; but, revivingby union with the reverence felt for the minister, it tookthereafter a higher form. When the minister died, the idea of ittransmitted to his son was of a peculiarly sacred character; whilein the eyes of the people, the authority of the chief and theinfluence of the minister seemed to meet reborn in Alisternotwithstanding his youth. In himself he was much beloved, and inlove the blessed rule, blessed where understood, holds, that to himthat hath shall be given, he only who has being fit to receive. Thelove the people bore to his father, both pastor and chief, crownedhead and heart of Alister. Scarce man or woman of the poor remnantof the clan did not love the young Macruadh. 

On his side was true response. With a renewed and renovatingconscience, and a vivid sense that all things had to be made new, hepossessed an old strong heart, clinging first to his father andmother, and then to the shadow even of any good thing that had comefloating down the ages. Call it a dream, a wild ideal, a foolishfancy--call it what you please, he was filled with the notion ofdoing something in his own person and family, having the remnant ofthe clan for the nucleus of his endeavour, to restore to a vitalreality, let it be of smallest extent, that most ancient ofgovernments, the patriarchal, which, all around, had rotted into thefeudal, in its turn rapidly disintegrating into the mere dust andashes of the kingdom of the dead, over which Mammon reigns supreme. There may have been youthful presumption and some folly in thenotion, but it sprang neither from presumption nor folly, but fromsimple humanity, and his sense of the responsibility he neithercould nor would avoid, as the person upon whom had devolved theheadship, however shadowy, of a house, ruinous indeed, but not yetrazed. 

The castle on the ridge stood the symbol of the family condition. Ithad, however, been a ruin much longer than any one alive couldremember. Alister's uncle had lived in a house on the spot where Mr. Peregrine Palmer's now stood; the man who bought it had pulled itdown to build that which Mr. Palmer had since enlarged. It was but ahumble affair--a great cottage in stone, much in the style of thatin which the young chief now lived--only six times the size, withthe one feature indispensable to the notion of a chief's residence, a large hall. Some would say it was but a huge kitchen; but it wasthe sacred place of the house, in which served the angel ofhospitality. THERE was always plenty to eat and drink for any comer, whether he had "claim" or not: the question of claim where was need, was not thought of. When the old house had to make room for the new, the staves of the last of its half-pipes of claret, one of whichused always to stand on tap amidst the peat-smoke, yielded its finalministration to humanity by serving to cook a few meals for masonand carpenter. 

The property of Clanruadh, for it was regarded as clan-propertyBECAUSE belonging to the chief, stretched in old time away out ofsight in all directions--nobody, in several, could tell exactly howfar, for the undrawn boundary lines lay in regions of mist andcloud, in regions stony, rocky, desert, to which a red deer, not tosay a stray sheep, rarely ascended. At one time it took in a portionat least of every hill to be seen from the spot where stood theruin. The chief had now but a small farm, consisting of some fairsoil on the slope of a hill, and some very good in the valley onboth sides of the burn; with a hill-pasture that was not worthmeasuring in acres, for it abounded in rocks, and was prolific inheather and ling, with patches of coarse grass here and there, andsome extent of good high-valley grass, to which the small blackcattle and black-faced sheep were driven in summer. Beyondperiodical burnings of the heather, this uplifted portion receivedno attention save from the mist, the snow, the rain, the sun, andthe sweet air. A few grouse and black game bred on it, and manymountain-hares, with martens, wild cats, and other VERMIN. But sotender of life was the Macruadh that, though he did not spare theselast, he did not like killing even a fox or a hooded crow, and nevershot a bird for sport, or would let another shoot one, though thepoorest would now and then beg a bird or two from him, sure ofhaving their request. It seemed to him as if the creatures werealmost a part of his clan, of which also he had to take care againsta greedy world. But as the deer and the birds ranged where theywould, it was not much he could do for them--as little almost as forthe men and women that had gone over the sea, and were lost to theircountry in Canada. 

Regret, and not any murmur, stirred the mind of Alister Macruadhwhen he thought of the change that had passed on all things aroundhim. He had been too well taught for grumbling--least of all at whatwas plainly the will of the Supreme--inasmuch as, however man mightbe to blame, the thing was there. Personal regrets he had nonebeyond those of family feeling and transmitted SENTIMENT. He wasable to understand something of the signs of the times, and saw thatnothing could bring back the old way--saw that nothing comesback--at least in the same form; saw that there had been much thatought not to come back, and that, if patriarchal ways were ever toreturn, they must rise out of, and be administered upon loftierprinciples--must begin afresh, and be wrought out afresh from thebosom of a new Abraham, capable of so bringing up his children thata new development of the one natural system, of government should bepossible with and through them. Perhaps even now, in the new countryto which so many of his people were gone, some shadowy reappearanceof the old fashion might have begun to take shape on a higher level, with loftier aims, and in circumstances holding out fewertemptations to the evils of the past!

Alister could not, at his years, have generated such thoughts butfor the wisdom that had gone before him--first the large-mindedspeculation of his father, who was capable even of discarding hisprejudices where he saw they might mislead him; and next, theresponse of his mother to the same: she was the only one whoentirely understood her husband. Isobel Macruadh was a woman of realthinking-power. Her sons being but boys when their father died, sheat once took the part of mediator between the mind of the father andthat of his sons; and besides guiding them on the same principles, often told them things their father had said, and talked with themof things they had heard him say. 

One of the chief lessons he left them wrought well for the castingout of all with which the feudal system had debased the patriarchal;and the poverty shared with the clan had powerfully helped: it wasspoken against the growing talionic regard of human relations--that, namely, the conditions of a bargain fulfilled on both sides, all isfulfilled between the bargaining parties. 

"In the possibility of any bargain, " he had said, "are involvedeternal conditions: there is relationship--there is brotherhood. Even to give with a denial of claim, to be kind under protest, is aninjury, is charity without the love, is salt without the saltness. If we spent our lives in charity we should never overtake neglectedclaims--claims neglected from the very beginning of the relations ofmen. If a man say, 'I have not been unjust; I owed the man nothing;'he sides with Death--says with the typical murderer, 'Am I mybrother's keeper?' builds the tombs of those his fathers slew. "

In the bosom of young Alister Macruadh, the fatherly relation of thestrong to the weak survived the disappearance of most of the outwardsigns of clan-kindred: the chieftainship was SUBLIMED in him. Themore the body of outer fact died, the stronger grew in him thespirit of the relation. As some savage element of a race willreappear in an individual of it after ages of civilization, so maygood old ways of thinking and feeling, modes long gone out offashion and practice, survive and revive modified by circumstance, in an individual of a new age. Such a one will see the customs ofhis ancestors glorified in the mists of the past; what is noble inthem will appeal to all that is best in his nature, spurring themost generous of his impulses, and stirring up the conscience thatwould be void of offence. When the operative force of such regardshas been fostered by the teaching of a revered parent; when theinfluences he has left behind are nourished and tended, withthorough belief and devoted care, by her who shared his authority inlife, and now bears alone the family sceptre, there can be no boundset to their possible potency in a mind of high spiritual order. Theprimary impulse became with Alister a large portion of his religion:he was the shepherd of the much ravaged and dwindled Macruadh-fold;it was his church, in which the love of the neighbour wasintensified in the love of the relation and dependent. To aid andguard this his flock, was Alister's divine service. It wasassociated with a great dislike of dogma, originating in the recoilof the truth within him from much that was commonly held and taughtfor true. 

Call the thing enthusiasm or what you will, so you believe it there, and genuine. 

It was only towards the poor of a decayed clan he had opportunity ofexercising the cherished relation; almost all who were not poor hademigrated before the lands were sold; and indeed it was only thepoor who set store by their unity with the old head. Not a few ofthe clan, removed elsewhither, would have smiled degenerate, andwith scorn in their amusement, at the idea of Alister's clinging toany supposed reality in the position he could claim. Among suchnevertheless were several who, having made money by trade, wouldeach have been glad enough to keep up old traditions, and been readyeven to revive older, had the headship fallen to him. But in thehands of a man whom, from the top of their wealth, they regarded asbut a poor farmer, they forgot all about it--along with a few othermore important and older-world matters; for where Mammon gets in hisfoot, he will soon be lord of the house, and turn not merely Rank, his rival demon, out of doors, but God himself. Alister indeed livedin a dream; he did not know how far the sea of hearts had ebbed, leaving him alone on the mount of his vision; but he dreamed a dreamthat was worth dreaming; comfort and help flowed from it to thoseabout him, nor did it fail to yield his own soul refreshment also. All dreams are not false; some dreams are truer than the plainestfacts. Fact at best is but a garment of truth, which has tenthousand changes of raiment woven in the same loom. Let the dreameronly do the truth of his dream, and one day he will realize all thatwas worth realizing in it--and a great deal more and better than itcontained. Alister had no far-reaching visions of anything to comeout of his; he had, like the true man he was, only the desire tolive up to his idea of what the people looked up to in him. The onething that troubled him was, that his uncle, whom he loved sodearly, should have sold the land. 

Doubtless there was pride mingled with his devotion, and pride is anevil thing. Still it was a human and not a devilish pride. I wouldnot be misunderstood as defending pride, or even excusing it in anyshape; it is a thing that must be got rid of at all costs; but evenfor evil we must speak the truth; and the pride of a good man, evilas it is, and in him more evil than in an evil man, yet cannot be initself such a bad thing as the pride of a bad man. The good manwould at once recognize and reject the pride of a bad man. A pridethat loves cannot be so bad as a pride that hates. Yet if the goodman do not cast out his pride, it will sink him lower than the badman's, for it will degenerate into a worse pride than that of anybad man. Each must bring its own divinely-ordained consequence. 

There is one other point in the character of the Macruadh which Imust mention ere I pass on; in this region, and at this time, it wasa great peculiarity, one that yielded satisfaction to few of theclan, and made him even despised in the strath: he hated whisky, andall the drinking customs associated with it. In this he was notoriginal; he had not come to hate it from noting the degradation andcrime that attended it, or that as poverty grew, drunkenness grew, men who had used it in moderation taking more and more ascircumstances became more adverse, turning sadness into slavery: hehad been brought up to hate it. His father, who, as a clergymandoing his endeavour for the welfare of his flock, found himselfgreatly thwarted by its deadening influences, rendering men callousnot only to the special vice itself, but to worse vices as well, hadbanished it from his table and his house; while the mother had fromtheir very childhood instilled a loathing of the national weaknessand its physical means into the minds of her sons. In her childhoodshe had seen its evils in her own father: by no means a drunkard, hewas the less of a father because he did as others did. Never anevening passed without his drinking his stated portion ofwhisky-toddy, growing more and more subject to attacks of hadtemper, with consequent injustice and unkindness. The recollectionmay have made her too sweeping in her condemnation of the habit, butI doubt it; and anyhow a habit is not a man, and we need not muchcondemn that kind of injustice. We need not be tender over a habitwhich, though not all bad, yet leads to endless results that are allbad. I would follow such to its grave without many tears!

Isobel Macruadh was one of those rare women who preserve in yearsthe influence gained in youth; and the thing that lay at the root ofthe fact was her justice. For though her highland temper wouldoccasionally burst out in hot flame, everyone knew that if she werein the wrong, she would see it and say it before any one else wouldtell her of it. This justice it was, ready against herself as foranother, that fixed the influence which her goodness and herteaching of righteousness gained. 

Her eldest child, a girl, died in infancy. Alister and Ian were herwhole earthly family, and they worshipped her. 

CHAPTER VI. 

WORK AND WAGE. 

Alister strode through the night, revolving no questions hard tosolve, though such were not strangers to him. He had not been to auniversity like his brother, but he had had a good educationalbeginning--who ever had more than a beginning?--chiefly from hisfather, who for his time and opportunity was even a learned man--andbetter, a man who knew what things were worth a man's human while, and what were not: he could and did think about things that a manmust think about or perish; and his son Alister had made himselfable to think about what he did not know, by doing the thing he didknow. But now, as he walked, fighting with the wind, his bonnet oflittle shelter pulled down on his forehead, he was thinking mostlyof Lachlan his foster-brother, whose devotion had done much tonourish in him the sense that he was head of the clan. He had notfar to go to reach his home--about a couple of miles. 

He had left the village a quarter of the way behind him, whenthrough the darkness he spied something darker yet by the roadside. Going up to it, he found an old woman, half sitting, half standing, with a load of peats in a creel upon her back, unable, apparently, for the moment at least, to proceed. Alister knew at once by hershape and posture who she was. 

"Ah, mistress Conal!" he said, "I am sorry to see you resting onsuch a night so near your own door. It means you have filled yourcreel too full, and tired yourself too much. "

"I am not too much tired, Macruadh!" returned the old woman, who wasproud and cross-tempered, and had a reputation for witchcraft, whichdid her neither much good nor much harm. 

"Well, whether you are tired or not, I believe I am the stronger ofthe two!"

"Small doubt of that, Alister!" said mistress Conal with a sigh. 

"Then I will take your creel, and you will soon be home. Come along!It is going to be a wild night!"

So saying he took the rope from the neck of the old woman rightgently, and threw the creel with a strong swing over his shoulder. This dislodged a few of the topmost of the peats which the poor oldthing had been a long way to fetch. She heard them fall, and one ofthem struck her foot. She started up, almost in a rage. 

"Sir! sir! my peats!" she cried. "What would you be throwing awaythe good peats into the dark for, letting that swallow them theyshould swallow!"

These words, as all that passed between them, were spoken neither inScotch nor English, but in Gaelic--which, were I able to write itdown, most of my readers would no more understand than they wouldPhoenician: we must therefore content ourselves with what theirconversation comes to in English, which, if deficient compared withGaelic in vowel-sounds, yet serves to say most things capable ofbeing said. 

"I am sorry, mistress Conal; but we'll not be losing them, " returnedthe laird gently, and began to feel about the road for the fallenpeats. 

"How many were there, do you think, of them that fell?" he asked, rising after a vain search. 

"How should I be knowing! But I am sure there would be nigh six ofthem!" answered the woman, in a tone of deep annoyance--nor was itmuch wonder; they were precious to the cold, feeble age that hadgone so far to fetch so few. 

The laird again stooped his long back, and searched and searched, feeling on all sides around him. He picked up three. Not another, after searching for several minutes, could he find. 

"I'm thinking that must be all of them, but I find only three!" hesaid. "Come, let us go home! You must not make your cough worse forone or two peats, perhaps none!"

"Three, Macruadh, three!" insisted the old woman in wavering voice, broken by coughing; for, having once guessed six, she was notinclined to lower her idea of her having. 

"Well, well! we'll count them when we get home!" said Alister, andgave his hand to her to help her up. 

She yielded grumbling, and, bowed still though relieved from her burden, tottered by his side along the dark, muddy, wind-and-rain-haunted road. 

"Did you see my niece to-night at the shop?" she asked; for she wasproud of being so nearly related to those who kept the shop of thehamlet. 

"That I did, " answered the chief; and a little talk followed aboutLachlan in Canada. 

No one could have perceived from the way in which the old womanaccepted his service, and the tone in which she spoke to him whilehe bent under her burden, that she no less than loved her chief; buteverybody only smiled at mistress Conal's rough speech. That night, ere she went to bed, she prayed for the Macruadh as she never prayedfor one of her immediate family. And if there was a good deal ofsuperstition mingled with her prayer, the main thing in it wasgenuine, that is, the love that prompted it; and if God heard onlyperfect prayers, how could he be the prayer-hearing God?

Her dwelling stood but a stone's-throw from the road, and presentlythey turned up to it by a short steep ascent. It was a poor hut, mostly built of turf; but turf makes warm walls, impervious to thewind, and it was a place of her own!--that is, she had it toherself, a luxury many cannot even imagine, while to others to heable to be alone at will seems one of the original necessities oflife. Even the Lord, who probably had not always a room to himselfin the poor houses he staid at, could not do without solitude;therefore not unfrequently spent the night in the open air, on thequiet, star-served hill: there even for him it would seem to havebeen easier to find an entrance into that deeper solitude which, itis true, he did not need in order to find his Father and his God, but which apparently he did need in order to come into closestcontact with him who was the one joy of his life, whether his hardlife on earth, or his blessed life in heaven. 

The Macruadh set down the creel, and taking out peat after peat, piled them up against the wall, where already a good many waitedtheir turn to be laid on the fire; for, as the old woman said, shemust carry a few when she could, and get ahead with her store erethe winter came, or she would soon be devoured: there was a deaththat always prowled about old people, she said, watching for thefire to go out. Many of the Celts are by nature poets, and mistressConal often spoke in a manner seldom heard from the lips of alowland woman. The common forms of Gaelic are more poetic than thoseof most languages, and could have originated only with a poeticpeople, while mistress Conal was by no means an ordinary type of herpeople; maugre her ill temper and gruffness, she thought as well asspoke like a poetess. This, conjoined with the gift of the secondsight, had helped to her reputation as a witch. 

As the chief piled the peats, he counted them. She sat watching himand them from a stone that made part of a rude rampart to thehearth. 

"I told you so, Macruadh!" she said, the moment she saw his handreturn empty from the bottom of the creel. "I was positive thereshould be three more!--But what's on the road is not with thedevil. "

"I am very sorry!" said the chief, who thought it wiser not tocontradict her. 

He would have searched his sporan for a coin to make up to her forthe supposed loss of her peats; but he knew well enough there wasnot a coin in it. He shook hands with her, bade her good night, andwent, closing the door carefully behind him against a great gust ofwind that struggled to enter, threatening to sweep the fire she wasnow blowing at with her wrinkled, leather-like lips, off the hearthaltogether--a thing that had happened before, to the danger of thewhole building, itself of the substance burning in the middle of itsfloor. 

The Macruadh ran down the last few steep steps of the path, andjumped into the road. Through the darkness came the sound of onespringing aside with a great start, and the click of a gun-lock. 

"Who goes there?" cried a rather tremulous voice. 

"The Macruadh, " answered the chief. 

The utterance apparently conveyed nothing. 

"Do you belong to these parts?" said the voice. 

A former Macruadh might have answered, "No; these parts belong tome;" Alister curtly replied, "I do. "

"Here then, my good fellow! take my game-bag, and carry it as far asthe New House--if you know where I mean. I will give you ashilling. "

One moment the chief spent in repressing a foolish indignation; thenext he spent in reflection. 

Had he seen how pale and tired was the youth with the gun, he wouldhave offered to carry his bag for him; to offer and to be asked, however, most people find different; and here the offer of paymentadded to the difficulty. But the word SHILLING had raised the visionof the old woman in her lonely cottage, brooding over the loss, realor imaginary mattered nothing, of her three far-borne peats. What ahappy night, through all the wind and the rain, would a silvershilling under her chaff pillow give her! The thought froze thechief's pride, and warmed his heart. What right had he to deny hersuch a pleasure! It would cost him nothing! It would even bring hima little amusement! The chief of Clanruadh carrying his game-bag fora Sasunnach fellow to earn a shilling! the idea had a touch ofhumorous consolation in it. I will not assert the consolation strongenough to cast quite out a certain feeling of shame that mingledwith his amusement--a shame which--is it not odd!--he would not havefelt had his sporan been full of sovereigns. But the shame was notaltogether a shameful one; a fanciful fear of degrading thechieftainship, and a vague sense of the thing being an imposition, had each a part in it. There could be nothing dishonest, however, inthus earning a shilling for poor mistress Conal!

"I will carry your bag, " he said, "but I must have the shillingfirst, if you please. "

"Oh!" rejoined Valentine Palmer. "You do not trust me! How then am Ito trust you?"

"Sir!" exclaimed Alister--and, again finding himself on the point ofbeing foolish, laughed. 

"I will pay you when the job is done, " said Valentine. 

"That is quite fair, but it does not suit my purpose, " returnedAlister. 

They were walking along the road side by side, but each couldscarcely see anything of the other. The sportsman was searching hispockets to find a shilling. He succeeded, and, groping, put it inAlister's hand, with the words--

"All right! it is only a shilling! There it is! But it is not yoursyet: here is the bag!"

Alister took the bag, turned, and ran back. 

"Hillo!" cried Valentine. 

But Alister had disappeared, and as soon as he turned up the softpath to the cottage, his steps became inaudible through the wind. 

He opened the door, went in, laid the shilling on the back of theold woman's hand, and without a word hurried out again, and down tothe road. The stranger was some distance ahead, tramping wearily onthrough the darkness, and grumbling at his folly in bribing a fellowwith a shilling to carry off his game-bag. Alister overtook him. 

"Oh, here you are after all!" exclaimed Valentine. "I thought youhad made off with work and wages both! What did you do it for?"

"I wanted to give the shilling to an old woman close by. "

"Your mother--eh?"

"No. "

"Your grandmother?"

"No. "

"SOME relation then!" insisted the stranger. 

"Doubtless, " answered the laird, and Valentine thought him a surlyfellow. 

They walked on in silence. The youth could hardly keep up withAlister, who thought him ill bred, and did not care for his company. 

"Why do you walk so fast?" said Valentine. 

"Because I want to get home, " replied Alister. 

"But I paid you to keep me company!"

"You paid me to carry your bag. I will leave it at the New House. "

His coolness roused the weary youth. 

"You rascal!" he said; "you keep alongside of me, or I'll pepperyou. "

As he spoke, he shifted his gun. But Alister had already, with a fewlong strides, put a space of utter darkness between them. He hadtaken the shilling, and must carry the bag, but did not feel boundto personal attendance. At the same time he could not deny there wasreason in the man's unwillingness to trust him. What had he abouthim to give him in pledge? Nothing but his watch, his father's, agift of THE PRINCE to the head of the family!--he could not profanethat by depositing it for a game-bag! He must yield to his employer, moderate his pace, and move side by side with the Sasunnach!

Again they walked some distance in silence. Alister began todiscover that his companion was weary, and his good heart spoke. 

"Let me carry your gun, " he said. 

"See you damned!" returned Valentine, with an angry laugh. 

"You fancy your gun protects your bag?"

"I do. "

The same instant the gun was drawn, with swift quiet force, throughthe loop of his arm from behind. Feeling himself defenceless, hesprang at the highlander, but he eluded him, and in a moment was outof his reach, lost in the darkness. He heard the lock of one barrelsnap: it was not loaded; the second barrel went off, and he gave agreat jump, imagining himself struck. The next instant the gun wasbelow his arm again. 

"It will be lighter to carry now!" said the Macruadh; "but if youlike I will take it. "

"Take it, then. But no!--By Jove, I wish there was light enough tosee what sort of a rascal you look!"

"You are not very polite!"

"Mind your own politeness. I was never so roughly served in mylife!--by a fellow too that had taken my money! If I knew where tofind a magistrate in this beastly place, --"

"You would tell him I emptied your gun because you threatened mewith it!"

"You were going off with my bag!"

"Because I undertook to carry your bag, was I bound to endure yourcompany?"

"Alister!" said a quiet voice out of the darkness. 

The highlander started, and in a tone strangely tremulous, yet witha kind of triumph in it, answered--

"Ian!"

The one word said, he stood still, but as in the act to run, staringinto the darkness. The next moment he flung down the game-bag, andtwo men were in each other's arms. 

"Where are you from, Ian?" said the chief at length, in a voicebroken with gladness. 

All Valentine understood of the question, for it was in Gaelic, wasits emotion, and he scorned a fellow to show the least sign ofbreaking down. 

"Straight from Moscow, " answered the new-comer. "How is our mother?"

"Well, Ian, thank God!"

"Then, thank God, all is well!"

"What brought you home in such haste?"

"I had a bad dream about my mother, and was a little anxious. Therewas more reason too, which I will tell you afterwards. "

"What were you doing in Moscow? Have you a furlough?"

"No; I am a sort of deserter. I would have thrown up my commission, but had not a chance. In Moscow I was teaching in a school to keepout of the way of the police. But I will tell you all by and by. "

The voice was low, veiled, and sad; the joy of the meeting rippledthrough it like a brook. 

The brothers had forgotten the stranger, and stood talking till thepatience of Valentine was as much exhausted as his strength. 

"Are you going to stand there all night?" he said at last. "This isno doubt very interesting to you, but it is rather a bore to one whocan neither see you, nor understand a word you say. "

"Is the gentleman a friend of yours, Alister?" asked Ian. 

"Not exactly. --But he is a Sasunnach, " he concluded in English, "andwe ought not to be speaking Gaelic. "

"I beg his pardon, " said Ian. "Will you introduce me?"

"It is impossible; I do not know his name. I never saw him, anddon't see him now. But he insists on my company. "

"That is a great compliment. How far?"

"To the New House. "

"I paid him a shilling to carry my bag, " said Valentine. "He tookthe shilling, and was going to walk off with my bag!"

"Well?"

"Well indeed! Not at all well! How was I to know--"

"But he didn't--did he?" said Ian, whose voice seemed now to tinglewith amusement. "--Alister, you were wrong. "

It was an illogical face-about, but Alister responded at once. 

"I know it, " he said. "The moment I heard your voice, I knewit. --How is it, Ian, "--here he fell back into Gaelic--"that when youare by me, I know what is right so much quicker? I don't understandit. I meant to do right, but--"

"But your pride got up. Alister, you always set out well--nobly--andthen comes the devil's turn! Then you begin to do as if yourepented! You don't carry the thing right straight out. I hate tosee the devil make a fool of a man like you! Do YOU not know that inyour own country you owe a stranger hospitality?"

"My own country!" echoed Alister with a groan. 

"Yes, your own country--and perhaps more yours than it was yourgrandfather's! You know who said, 'The meek shall inherit theearth'! If it be not ours in God's way, I for one would not care tocall it mine another way. "--Here he changed again to English. --"Butwe must not keep the gentleman standing while we talk!"

"Thank you!" said Valentine. "The fact is, I'm dead beat. "

"Have you anything I could carry for you?" asked Ian. 

"No, I thank you. --Yes; there! if you don't mind taking my gun?--youspeak like a gentleman!"

"I will take it with pleasure. "

He took the gun, and they started. 

"If you choose, Alister, " said his brother, once more in Gaelic, "tobreak through conventionalities, you must not expect people to allowyou to creep inside them again the moment you please. "

But the young fellow's fatigue had touched Alister. 

"Are you a big man?" he said, taking Valentine gently by the arm. 

"Not so big as you, I'll lay you a sovereign, " answered Valentine, wondering why he should ask. 

"Then look here!" said Alister; "you get astride my shoulders, andI'll carry you home. I believe you're hungry, and that takes thepith out of you!--Come, " he went on, perceiving some sign ofreluctance in the youth, "you'll break down if you walk muchfarther!--Here, Ian! you take the bag; you can manage that and thegun too!"

Valentine murmured some objection; but the brothers took the thing somuch as a matter of course, and he felt so terribly exhausted--for hehad lost his way, and been out since the morning--that he yielded. 

Alister doubled himself up on his heels; Valentine got his wearylegs over his stalwart shoulders; the chief rose with him as if hehad been no heavier than mistress Conal's creel, and bore him alongmuch relieved in his aching limbs. 

So little was the chief oppressed by his burden, that he and hisbrother kept up a stream of conversation, every now and thenforgetting their manners and gliding off into Gaelic, but as oftenrecollecting themselves, apologizing, and starting afresh upon thepath of English. Long before they reached the end of their journey, Valentine, able from his perch to listen in some measure of ease, came to understand that he had to do, not with rustics, but, whatever their peculiarities, with gentlemen of a noteworthy sort. 

The brothers, in the joy of their reunion, talked much of things athome and abroad, avoiding things personal and domestic as often asthey spoke English; but when they saw the lights of the New House, asilence fell upon them. At the door, Alister set his burdencarefully down. 

"There!" he said with a laugh, "I hope I have earned my shilling!"

"Ten times over, " answered Valentine; "but I know better now thanoffer to pay you. I thank you with all my heart. "

The door opened, Ian gave the gun and the bag to the butler, and thebrothers bade Valentine good night. 

Valentine had a strange tale to tell. Sercombe refused to accept hisconclusions: if he had offered the men half a crown apiece, he said, they would have pocketed the money. 

CHAPTER VII. 

MOTHER AND SON. 

The sun was shining bright, and the laird was out in his fields. Hisoats were nearly ready for the scythe, and he was judging where hehad best begin to cut them. 

His fields lay chiefly along the banks of the stream, occupying thewhole breadth of the valley on the east side of the ridge where thecottage stood. On the west side of the ridge, nearly parallel to, and not many yards from it, a small brook ran to join the stream:this was a march betwixt the chief's land and Mr. PeregrinePalmer's. Their respective limit was not everywhere so well defined. 

The air was clear and clean, and full of life. The wind was asleep. A consciousness of work approaching completion filled earth andair--a mood of calm expectation, as of a man who sees his enddrawing nigh, and awaits the saving judgment of the father ofspirits. There was no song of birds--only a crow from the yard, orthe cry of a blackcock from the hill; the two streams were left todo all the singing, and they did their best, though their water waslow. The day was of the evening of the year; in the full sunshinewas present the twilight and the coming night, but there was a senseof readiness on all sides. The fruits of the earth must be housed;that alone remained to be done. 

When the laird had made up his mind, he turned towards the house--alowly cottage, more extensive than many farmhouses, but looking nobetter. It was well built, with an outside wall of rough stone andlime, and another wall of turf within, lined in parts with wood, making it as warm a nest as any house of the size could be. Thedoor, picturesque with abundant repair, opened by a latch into thekitchen. 

For long years the floor of the kitchen had been an earthen one, with the fire on a hearth in the middle of it, as in all thecottages; and the smoke rose into the roof, keeping it very dry andwarm, if also very sooty, and thence into the air through a hole inthe middle. But some ten years before this time, Alister and Ian, mere lads, had built a chimney outside, and opening the wall, removed the hearth to it--with the smoke also, which now had its ownprivate way to liberty. They then paved the floor with such stonesas they could find, in the fields and on the hill, sufficiently flatand smooth on one side, and by sinking them according to theirthickness, managed to get a tolerably even surface. Many otherimprovements followed; and although it was a poor place still, itwould at the time of Dr. Johnson's visit to the highlands have beencounted a good house, not to be despised by unambitious knight orpoor baronet. Nor was the time yet over, when ladies and gentlemen, of all courtesy and good breeding, might be found in such houses. 

In the kitchen a deal-dresser, scoured white, stood under one of thetiny windows, giving light enough for a clean-souled cook--and whatwindow-light would ever be enough for one of a different sort? Therewere only four panes in it, but it opened and closed with a button, and so was superior to many windows. There was a larger on theopposite side, which at times in the winter nights when the cold wasgreat, they filled bodily with a barricade of turf. Here, in thekitchen, the chief takes his meals with his lady-mother. She and Ianhave just finished their breakfast, and gone to the other end of thehouse. The laird broke his fast long ago. 

A fire is burning on the hearth--small, for the mid-day-meal is notyet on its way. Everything is tidy; the hearth is swept up, and thedishes are washed: the barefooted girl is reaching the last of themto its place on the rack hehind the dresser. She is a red-haired, blue-eyed Celt, with a pretty face, and a refinement of motion andspeech rarer in some other peasantries. 

The chief enters, and takes from the wall an old-fashioned gun. Hewants a bird or two, for Ian's home-coming is a great event. 

"I saw a big stag last night down by the burn, sir, " said the girl, "feeding as if he had been the red cow. "

"I don't want him to-day, Nancy, " returned her master. "Had he bighorns?"

"Great horns, sir; but it was too dark to count the tines. "

"When was it? Why did you not tell me?"

"I thought it was morning, sir, and when I got up it was the middleof the night. The moon was so shiny that I went to the door andlooked out. Just at the narrow leap, I saw him plain. "

"If you should see him again, Nancy, scare him. I don't want theSasunnachs at the New House to see him. "

"Hadn't you better take him yourself, Macruadh? He would make finehams for the winter!"

"Mind your own business, Nancy, and hold your tongue, " said thechief, with a smile that took all the harshness from the words. "Don't you tell any one you saw him. For what you know he may be thebig stag!"

"Sure no one would kill HIM, sir!" answered the girl aghast. 

"I hope not. But get the stoving-pot ready, Nancy; I'm going to finda bird or two. Lest I should not succeed, have a couple of chickensat hand. "

"Sir, the mistress has commanded them already. "

"That is well; but do not kill them except I am not back in time. "

"I understand, sir. "

Macruadh knew the stag as well as the horse he rode, and that hishabit had for some time been to come down at night and feed on thesmall border of rich grass on the south side of the burn, between itand the abrupt heathery rise of the hill. For there the burn ran sonear the hill, and the ground was so covered with huge masses ofgrey rock, that there was hardly room for cultivation, and the bankwas left in grass. 

The stalking of the stag was the passion of the highlander in thatpart of the country. He cared little for shooting the grouse, blackor red, and almost despised those whose ambition was a full bag ofsuch game; he dreamed day and night of killing deer. The chief, however, was in this matter more of a man without being less of ahighlander. He loved the deer so much, saw them so much a part ofthe glory of mountain and sky, sunshine and storm, that he liked tosee them living, not dead, and only now and then shot one, when thefamily had need of it. He felt himself indeed almost the father ofthe deer as well as of his clan, and mourned greatly that he coulddo so little now, from the limited range of his property, to protectthem. His love for live creatures was not quite equal to that of St. Francis, for he had not conceived the thought of turning wolf or foxfrom the error of his ways; but even the creatures that preyed uponothers he killed only from a sense of duty, and with no pleasure intheir death. The heartlessness of the common type of sportsman wasloathsome to him. When there was not much doing on the farm, hewould sometimes be out all night with his gun, it is true, but hewould seldom fire it, and then only at some beast of prey; on thehill-side or in the valley he would lie watching the ways and doingsof the many creatures that roam the night--each with its object, each with its reasons, each with its fitting of means to ends. Oneof the grounds of his dislike to the new possessors of the old landwas the raid he feared upon the wild animals. 

The laird gone, I will take my reader into the PARLOUR, as theycalled in English their one sitting-room. Shall I first tell himwhat the room was like, or first describe the two persons in it? Ledup to a picture, I certainly should not look first at the frame; buta description is a process of painting rather than a picture; andwhen you cannot see the thing in one, but must take each part byitself, and in your mind get it into relation with the rest, thereis an advantage, I think, in having a notion of the frame first. Forone thing, you cannot see the persons without imagining theirsurroundings, and if those should be unfittingly imagined, theyinterfere with the truth of the persons, and you may not be able toget them right after. 

The room, then, was about fifteen feet by twelve, and the ceilingwas low. On the white walls hung a few frames, of which two or threecontained water-colours--not very good, but not displeasing; severalheld miniature portraits--mostly in red coats, and one or two asilhouette. Opposite the door hung a target of hide, round, andbossed with brass. Alister had come upon it in the house, covering ameal-barrel, to which service it had probably been put in aid of itseluding a search for arms after the battle of Culloden. Never moreto cover man's food from mice, or his person from an enemy, it wasraised to the WALHALLA of the parlour. Under it rested, horizontallyupon two nails, the sword of the chief--a long and broad ANDREWFERRARA, with a plated basket-hilt; beside it hung a dirk--longerthan usual, and fine in form, with a carved hilt in the shape of aneagle's head and neck, and its sheath, whose leather was dry andflaky with age, heavily mounted in silver. Below these was acard-table of marquetry with spindle-legs, and on it a work-box ofivory, inlaid with silver and ebony. In the corner stood a harp, anErard, golden and gracious, not a string of it broken. In the middleof the room was a small square table, covered with a green cloth. Anold-fashioned easy chair stood by the chimney; and one sat in itwhom to see was to forget her surroundings. 

In middle age she is still beautiful, with the rare beauty thatshines from the root of the being. Her hair is of the darkest brown, almost black; her eyes are very dark, and her skin is very fair, though the soft bloom, as of reflected sunset, is gone from hercheek, and her hair shows lines of keen silver. Her features arefine, clear, and regular--the chin a little strong perhaps, not forthe size, but the fineness of the rest; her form is that of ayounger woman; her hand and foot are long and delicate. A morerefined and courteous presence could not have been found in theisland. The dignity of her carriage nowise marred its grace, orbetrayed the least consciousness; she looked dignified because shewas dignified. That form of falsehood which consists in assuming thelook of what one fain would be, was, as much as any other, impossible to Isobel Macruadh. She wore no cap; her hair wasgathered in a large knot near the top of her head. Her gown was of adark print; she had no ornament except a ring with a single ruby. She was working a bit of net into lace. 

She could speak Gaelic as well as any in the glen--perhaps better;but to her sons she always spoke English. To them indeed English wastheir mother-tongue, in the sense that English only came addressedto themselves from her lips. There were, she said, plenty to teachthem Gaelic; she must see to their English. 

The one window of the parlour, though not large, was of tolerablesize; but little light entered, so shaded was it with a rose-tree ina pot on the sill. By the wall opposite was a couch, and on thecouch lay Ian with a book in his hand--a book in a strange language. His mother and he would sometimes be a whole morning together andexchange no more than a word or two, though many a look and smile. It seemed enough for each to be in the other's company. There was aquite peculiar hond between the two. Like so many of the young menof that country, Ian had been intended for the army; but there wasin him this much of the spirit of the eagle he resembled, that hepassionately loved freedom, and had almost a gypsy's delight inwandering. When he left college, he became tutor in a Russian familyof distinction, and after that accepted a commission in thehousehold troops of the Czar. But wherever he went, he seemed, as hesaid once to his mother, almost physically aware of a linestretching between him and her, which seemed to vibrate when he grewanxious about her. The bond between him and his brother was equallystrong, but in feeling different. Between him and Alister it was acable; between him and his mother a harpstring; in the one case itwas a muscle, in the other a nerve. The one retained, the other drewhim. Given to roaming as he was, again and again he returned, frompure love-longing, to what he always felt as the PROTECTION of hismother. It was protection indeed he often had sought--protectionfrom his own glooms, which nothing but her love seemed able totenuate. 

He was tall--if an inch above six feet be tall, but not of hisbrother's fine proportion. He was thin, with long slender fingersand feet like his mother's. His small, strong bones were coveredwith little more than hard muscle, but every motion of limb or bodywas grace. At times, when lost in thought and unconscious ofmovement, an observer might have imagined him in conversation withsome one unseen, towards whom he was carrying himself with courtesy:plain it was that courtesy with him was not a graft upon the fineststock, but an essential element. His forehead was rather low, freckled, and crowned with hair of a foxy red; his eyes were of theglass-gray or green loved of our elder poets; his nose was a veryeagle in itself--large and fine. He more resembled the mask of thedead Shakspere than any other I have met, only in him theproportions were a little exaggerated; his nose was a little toolarge, and his mouth a little too small for the mask; but themingled sweetness and strength in the curves of the latter preventedthe impression of weakness generally given by the association ofsuch a nose and such a mouth. On his short upper lip was a smalllight moustache, and on his face not a hair more. In rest hiscountenance wore a great calmness, but a calmness that might seemrooted in sadness. 

While the mother might, more than once in a day, differ tofault-finding from her elder-born--whom she admired, notwithstanding, as well as loved, from the bottom of her heart--she was never KNOWNto say a word in opposition to the younger. It was even whisperedthat she was afraid of him. It was not so; but her reverence for Ianwas such that, even when she felt bound not to agree with him, sheseldom had the confidence that, differing from HIM, she was in theright. Sometimes in the middle of the night she would slip like aghost into the room where he lay, and sit by his bed till the blackcock, the gray cock, the red cock crew. The son might be awake allthe time, and the mother suspect him awake, yet no word pass betweenthem. She would rise and go as she came. Her feeling for her youngerson was like that of Hannah for her eldest--intensest love mixedwith strangest reverence. But there were vast alternations andinexplicable minglings in her thoughts of him. At one moment shewould regard him as gifted beyond his fellows for some great work, at another be filled with a horrible fear that he was in rebellionagainst the God of his life. Doubtless mothers are far too ready tothink THEIR sons above the ordinary breed of sons: self, unpossessedof God, will worship itself in its offspring; yet the sons whom HOLYmothers have regarded as born to great things and who have passed awaywithout sign, may have gone on toward their great things. Whether thismother thought too much of her son or not, there were questions movingin his mind which she could not have understood--even then when he wouldcreep to her bed in the morning to forget in her arms the terribledreams of the night, or when at evening he would draw his little stoolto her knee, unable or unwilling to enjoy his book anywhere but by herside. 

What gave him his unconscious power over his mother, was, first, thethings he said, and next, the things he did not say; for he seemedto her to dwell always in a rich silence. Yet throughout was sheaware of a something between them, across which they could not meet;and it was in part her distress at the seeming impossibility ofeffecting a spiritual union with her son, that made her so desirousof personal proximity to him. Such union is by most thinking peoplepresumed impossible without consent of opinion, and this mistakerendered her unable to FEEL near him, to be at home with him. If shehad believed that they understood each other, that they were of likeOPINION, she would not have been half so unhappy when he went away, would not have longed half so grievously for his return. Ian on hispart understood his mother, but knew she did not understand him, andwas therefore troubled. Hence it resulted that always after a timecame the hour--which never came to her--when he could endureproximity without oneness no longer, and would suddenly announce hisdeparture. And after a day or two of his absence, the mother wouldbe doubly wretched to find a sort of relief in it, and would spendwakeful nights trying to oust it as the merest fancy, persuadingherself that she was miserable, and nothing but miserable, in theloss of her darling. 

Naturally then she would turn more to Alister, and his love was astrengthening tonic to her sick motherhood. He was never jealous ofeither. Their love for each other was to him a love. He too wouldmourn deeply over his brother's departure, but it became at once hisbusiness to comfort his mother. And while she had no suspicion ofthe degree to which he suffered, it drew her with fresh love to herelder born, and gave her renewal of the quiet satisfaction in himthat was never absent, when she saw how he too missed Ian. Theirmutual affection was indeed as true and strong as a mother coulddesire it. "If such love, " she said to herself, "had appeared in themiddle of its history instead of now at its close, the transmittedaffection would have been enough to bind the clan together forcenturies more!"

It was with a prelusive smile that shone on the mother's heart likethe opening of heaven, that Ian lowered his book to answer herquestion. She had said--

"Did you not feel the cold very much at St. Petersburg last winter, Ian?"

"Yes, mother, at times, " he answered. "But everybody wears fur; thepeasant his sheep-skin, the noble his silver fox. They have to fightthe cold! Nose and toes are in constant danger. Did I never tell youwhat happened to me once in that way? I don't think I ever did!"

"You never tell me anything, Ian!" said his mother, looking at himwith a loving sadness. 

"I was suddenly stopped in the street by what I took for anunheard-of insult: I actually thought my great proboscis was beingpulled! If I had been as fiery as Alister, the man would have foundhis back, and I should have lost my nose. Without the least warninga handful of snow was thrust in my face, and my nose had not even achance of snorting with indignation, it found itself so twisted inevery direction at once! But I have a way, in any sudden occurrence, of feeling perplexed enough to want to be sure before doinganything, and if it has sometimes hindered me from what wasexpedient, it has oftener saved me from what would have been wrong:in another instant I was able to do justice to the promptitude of afellow Christian for the preservation of my nose, already whiteningin frosty death: he was rubbing it hard with snow, the orthodoxremedy! My whole face presently sharpened into one burning spot, andtaking off my hat, I thanked the man for his most kind attention. Hepointed out to me that time spent in explaining the condition of mynose, would have been pure loss: the danger was pressing, and heattacked it at once! I was indeed entirely unconscious of the stateof my beak--the worst symptom of any!"

"I trust, Ian, you will not go back to Russia!" said his mother, after a little more talk about frost-biting. "Surely there is workfor you at home!"

"What can I do at home, mother? You have no money to buy me acommission, and I am not much good at farm-work. Alister says I amnot worth a horseman's wages!"

"You could find teaching at home; or you could go into the church. We might manage that, for you would only have to attend the divinityclasses. "

"Mother! would you put me into one of the priests' offices that Imay eat a piece of bread? As for teaching, there are too many hungrystudents for that: I could not take the bread out of their mouths!And in truth, mother, I could not endure it--except it were requiredof me. I can live on as little as any, but it must be with someliberty. I have surely inherited the spirit of some old sea-rover, it is so difficult for me to rest! I am a very thistle-down forwandering! I must know how my fellow-creatures live! I should liketo BE one man after another--each for an hour or two!"

"Your father used to say there was much Norse blood in the family. "

"There it is, mother! I cannot help it!"

"I don't like your holding the Czar's commission, Ian--somehow Idon't like it! He is a tyrant!"

"I am going to throw it up, mother. "

"I am glad of that! How did you ever get it?"

"Oddly enough, through the man that pulled my nose. I had a chanceafterwards of doing him a good turn, which he was most generous inacknowledging; and as he belonged to the court, I had the offer of alieutenant's commission. The Scotch are in favour. "

A deep cloud had settled on the face of the young man. The ladylooked at him for a moment with keenest mother-eyes, suppressed adeep sigh, and betook herself again to her work. 

Ere she thought how he might take it, another question broke fromher lips. 

"What sort of church had you to go to in St. Petersburg, Ian?" shesaid. 

Ian was silent a moment, thinking how to be true, and not hurt hermore than could not be helped. 

"There are a thousand places of worship there, mother, " he returned, with a curious smile. 

"Any presbyterian place?" she asked. 

"I believe so, " he replied. 

"Ian, you haven't given up praying?"

"If ever I prayed, mother, I certainly have not given it up. "

"Ever prayed, Ian! When a mere child you prayed like an agedChristian!"

"Ah, mother, that was a sad pity! I asked for things of which I feltno need! I was a hypocrite! I ought to have prayed like a littlechild!"

The mother was silent: she it was who had taught him to praythus--making him pray aloud in her hearing! and this was the result!The premature blossom had withered! she said to herself. But it wasno blossom, only a muslin flower!

"Then you didn't go to church!" she said at length. 

"Not often, mother dear, " he answered. "When I do go, I like to goto the church of the country I happen to be in. Going to church andpraying to God are not the same thing. "

"Then you do say your prayers? Oh, do not tell me you never bow downbefore your maker!"

"Shall I tell you where I think I did once pray to God, mother?" hesaid, after a little pause, anxious to soothe her suffering. "Atleast I did think then that I prayed!" he added. 

"It was not this morning, then, before you left your chamber?"

"No, mother, " answered Ian; "I did not pray this morning, and Inever say prayers. "

The mother gave a gasp, but answered nothing. Ian went on again. 

"I should like to tell you, mother, about that time when I am almostsure I prayed!"

"I should like to hear about it, " she answered, with strangestminglings of emotion. At one and the same instant she felt partedfrom her son by a gulf into which she must cast herself to find him, and that he stood on a height of sacred experience which she nevercould hope to climb. "Oh for his father to talk to him!" she said toherself. He was a power on her soul which she almost feared. If hewere to put forth his power, might he not drag her down intounbelief?

It was the first time they had come so close in their talk. Themoment his mother spoke out, Ian had responded. He was anxious to beopen with her so far as he could, and forced his naturaltaciturnity, the prime cause of which was his thoughtfulness: it washard to talk where was so much thinking to be done, so little timeto do it in, and so little progress made by it! But wherever hecould keep his mother company, there he would not leave her! Just ashe opened his mouth, however, to begin his narration, the door ofthe room also opened, flung wide by the small red hand of Nancy, andtwo young ladies entered. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

A MORNING CALL. 

Had Valentine known who the brothers were, or where they lived, hewould before now have called to thank them again for their kindnessto him; but he imagined they had some distance to go afterdepositing him, and had not yet discovered his mistake. The visitnow paid had nothing to do with him. 

The two elder girls, curious about the pretty cottage, had comewandering down the spur, or hill-toe, as far as its precincts--ifprecincts they may be called where was no fence, only a little groveand a less garden. Beside the door stood a milk-pail and a churn, set out to be sweetened by the sun and wind. It was very rural, theythought, and very homely, but not so attractive as some cottages inthe south:--it indicated a rusticity honoured by the mostunceremonious visit from its superiors. Thus without hesitationconcluding, Christina, followed by Mercy, walked in at the opendoor, found a barefooted girl in the kitchen, and spoke pleasantlyto her. She, in simple hospitality forgetting herself, made answerin Gaelic; and, never doubting the ladies had come to call upon hermistress, led the way, and the girls, without thinking, followed herto the parlour. 

As they came, they had been talking. Had they been in any degreetruly educated, they would have been quite capable of an opinion oftheir own, for they had good enough faculties; but they had neverbeen really taught to read; therefore, with the utmost confidence, they had been passing judgment upon a book from which they had notgathered the slightest notion as to the idea or intention of thewriter. Christina was of that numerous class of readers, who, if youshow one thing better or worse than another, will without hesitationreport that you love the one and hate the other. If you say, forinstance, that it is a worse and yet more shameful thing for a manto break his wife's heart by systematic neglect, than to strike herand be sorry for it, such readers give out that you approve ofwife-beating, and perhaps write to expostulate with you on yourbrutality. If you express pleasure that a poor maniac should havesucceeded in escaping through the door of death from his hauntingdemon, they accuse you of advocating suicide. But Mercy was not yetafloat on the sea of essential LIE whereon Christina swung to everywave. 

One question they had been discussing was, whether the hero of thestory was worthy the name of lover, seeing he deferred offering hishand to the girl because she told her mother a FIB to account forher being with him in the garden after dark. "It was cowardly andunfair, " said Christina: "was it not for HIS sake she did it?" Mercydid not think to say "WAS IT?" as she well might. "Don't you see, Chrissy, " she said, "he reasoned this way: 'If she tell her mother alie, she may tell me a lie some day too!'?" So indeed the youth didreason; but it occurred to neither of his critics to note the factthat he would not have minded the girl's telling her mother the lie, if he could have been certain she would never tell HIM one! Inregard to her hiding from him certain passages with anothergentleman, occurring between this event and his proposal, Christinajudged he had no right to know them, and if he had, theirconcealment was what he deserved. 

When the girl, who would have thought it rude to ask their names--ifI mistake not, it was a point in highland hospitality to entertainwithout such inquiry--led the way to the parlour, they followedexpecting they did not know what: they had heard of the cowhouse, thestable, and even the pigsty, being under the same roof in these parts!When the opening door disclosed "lady" Macruadh, every inch a chieftain'swidow, their conventional breeding failed them a little; though incapableof recognizing a refinement beyond their own, they were not incapableof feeling its influence; and they had not yet learned how to be rudewith propriety in unproved circumstances--still less how to be graciouswithout a moment's notice. But when a young man sprang from a couch, and the stately lady rose and advanced to receive them, it was toolate to retreat, and for a moment they stood abashed, feeling, I amglad to say, like intruders. The behaviour of the lady and gentleman, however, speedily set them partially at ease. The latter, with movementsmore than graceful, for they were gracious, and altogether free ofscroll-pattern or Polonius-flourish, placed chairs, and invited themto be seated, and the former began to talk as if their entrance werethe least unexpected thing in the world. Leaving them to explaintheir visit or not as they saw fit, she spoke of the weather, theharvest, the shooting; feared the gentlemen would be disappointed:the birds were quite healthy, but not numerous--they had too manyenemies to multiply! asked if they had seen the view from such andsuch a point;--in short, carried herself as one to whom cordialityto strangers was an easy duty. But she was not taken with them. Herorder of civilization was higher than theirs; and the simplicity aswell as old-fashioned finish of her consciousness recoiled a little--though she had not experience enough of a certain kind to be ableat once to say what it was in the manner and expression of the youngladies that did not please her. 

Mammon, gaining more and more of the upper hand in all socialrelations, has done much to lower the PETITE as well as the GRANDEMORALE of the country--the good breeding as well as the honesty. Unmannerliness with the completest self-possession, is a poorsubstitute for stiffness, a poorer for courtesy. Respect andgraciousness from each to each is of the very essence ofChristianity, independently of rank, or possession, or relation. Acertain roughness and rudeness have usurped upon the intercourse ofthe century. It comes of the spread of imagined greatness; truegreatness, unconscious of itself, cannot find expression other thangracious. In the presence of another, a man of true breeding is butfaintly aware of his own self, and keenly aware of the other's self. Before the human--that bush which, however trodden and peeled, yetburns with the divine presence--the man who thinks of the homage dueto him, and not of the homage owing by him, is essentially rude. Mammon is slowly stifling and desiccating Rank; both are miserabledeities, but the one is yet meaner than the other. Unrefinedfamilies with money are received with open arms and honours paid, incircles where a better breeding than theirs has hitherto prevailed:this, working along with the natural law of corruption where is noaspiration, has gradually caused the deterioration of which I speak. Courtesy will never regain her former position, but she will beraised to a much higher; like Duty she will be known as a daughterof the living God, "the first stocke father of gentilnes;" for inhis neighbour every man will see a revelation of the Most High. 

Without being able to recognize the superiority of a woman who livedin a cottage, the young ladies felt and disliked it; and the matronfelt the commonness of the girls, without knowing what exactly itwas. The girls, on the other hand, were interested in the young man:he looked like a gentleman! Ian was interested in the young women:he thought they were shy, when they were only "put out, " and wishedto make them comfortable--in which he quickly succeeded. Hisunconsciously commanding air in the midst of his great courtesy, roused their admiration, and they had not been many minutes in hiscompany ere they were satisfied that, however it was to be accountedfor, the young man was in truth very much of a gentleman. It was anunexpected discovery of northern produce, and "the estate" gatheredinterest in their eyes. Christina did the greater part of thetalking, hut both did their best to be agreeable. 

Ian saw quite as well as his mother what ordinary girls they were, but, accustomed to the newer modes in manner and speech, he was notshocked by movements and phrases that annoyed her. The motherapprehended fascination, and was uneasy, though far from showing it. 

When they rose, Ian attended them to the door, leaving his motheranxious, for she feared he would accompany them home. Till hereturned, she did not resume her seat. 

The girls took their way along the ridge in silence, till the ruinwas between them and the cottage, when they burst into laughter. They were ladies enough not to laugh till out of sight, but notladies enough to see there was nothing to laugh at. 

"A harp, too!" said Christina. "Mercy, I believe we are on the topof mount Ararat, and have this very moment left the real Noah's ark, patched into a cottage! Who CAN they be?"

"Gentlefolk evidently, " said Mercy, "--perhaps old-fashioned peoplefrom Inverness. "

"The young man must have been to college!--In the north, you know, "continued Christina, thinking with pride that her brother was atOxford, "nothing is easier than to get an education, such as it is!It costs in fact next to nothing. Ploughmen send their sons to St. Andrew's and Aberdeen to make gentlemen of them! Fancy!"

"You must allow this case a successful one!"

"I didn't mean HIS father was a ploughman! That is impossible!Besides, I heard him call that very respectable person MOTHER! Sheis not a ploughman's wife, but evidently a lady of the middleclass. "

Christina did not count herself or her people to belong to themiddle class. How it was it is not quite easy to say--perhaps thetone of implied contempt with which the father spoke of the lowerclasses, and the quiet negation with which the mother would alludeto shopkeepers, may have had to do with it--but the young people allimagined themselves to belong to the upper classes! It was a pitythere was no title in the family--but any of the girls might wellmarry a coronet! There were indeed persons higher than they; a dukewas higher; the queen was higher--but that was pleasant! it was niceto have a few to look up to!

On anyone living in a humble house, not to say a poor cottage, theylooked down, as the case might be, with indifference or patronage;they little dreamed how, had she known all about them, therespectable person in the cottage would have looked down upon THEM!At the same time the laugh in which they now indulged was notaltogether one of amusement; it was in part an effort to avengethemselves of a certain uncomfortable feeling of rebuke. 

"I will tell you my theory, Mercy!" Christina went on. "The lady isthe widow of an Indian officer--perhaps a colonel. Some of theirwidows are left very poor, though, their husbands having been in theservice of their country, they think no small beer of themselves!The young man has a military air which he may have got from hisfather; or he may be an officer himself: young officers are alwayspoor; that's what makes them so nice to flirt with. I wonder whetherhe really IS an officer! We've actually called upon the people, andcome away too, without knowing their names!"

"I suppose they're from the New House!" said Ian, returning after hehad bowed the ladies from the threshold, with the reward of abewitching smile from the elder, and a shy glance from the younger. 

"Where else could they be from?" returned his mother; "--come tomake our poor country yet poorer!"

"They're not English!"

"Not they!--vulgar people from Glasgow!"

"I think you are too hard on them, mother! They are not exactlyvulgar. I thought, indeed, there was a sort of gentleness about themyou do not often meet in Scotch girls!"

"In the lowlands, I grant, Ian; but the daughter of the pooresttacksman of the Macruadhs has a manner and a modesty I have seen inno Sasunnach girl yet. Those girls are bold!"

"Self-possessed, perhaps!" said Ian. 

Upon the awkwardness he took for shyness, had followed a reaction. It was with the young ladies a part of good breeding, whatevermistake they made, not to look otherwise than contented withthemselves: having for a moment failed in this principle, they wereeager to make up for it. 

"Girls are different from what they used to be, I fancy, mother!"added Ian thoughtfully. 

"The world changes very fast!" said the mother sadly. She wasthinking, like Rebecca, if her sons took a fancy to these who werenot daughters of the land, what good would her life do her. 

"Ah, mother dear, " said Ian, "I have never"--and as he spoke thecloud deepened on his forehead--"seen more than one woman whose waysand manners reminded me of you!"

"And what was she?" the mother asked, in pleased alarm. 

But she almost repented the question when she saw how low the clouddescended on his countenance. 

"A princess, mother. She is dead, " he answered, and turning walkedso gently from the room that it was impossible for his mother todetain him. 

CHAPTER IX. 

ME. SERCOMBE. 

The next morning, soon after sunrise, the laird began to cut hisbarley. Ian would gladly have helped, but Alister had a notion thatsuch labour was not fit for him. 

"I had a comical interview this morning, " said the chief, enteringthe kitchen at dinner-time. "I was out before my people, and wasstanding by the burn-side near the foot-bridge, when I heardsomebody shouting, and looked up. There was a big English fellowin gray on the top of the ridge, with his gun on his shoulder, hollo-ing. I knew he was English by his hollo-ing. It was plain itwas to me, but not choosing to be at his beck and call, I took noheed. 'Hullo, you there! wake up!' he cried. 'What should I wake upfor?' I returned. 'To carry my bag. You don't seem to have anythingto do! I'll give you five shillings. '"

"You see to what you expose yourself by your unconventlonalities, Alister!" said his brother, with rnock gravity. 

"It was not the fellow we carried home the other night, Ian; it wasone twice his size. It would take all I have to carry HIM as far!"

"The other must have pointed you out to him!"

"It was much too dark for him to know me again!"

"You forget the hall-lamp!" said Ian. 

"Ah, yes, to be sure! I had forgotten!" answered Alister. "To tellthe truth, I thought, when I took his shilling, he would never knowme from Nebuchadnezzar: that is the one thing I am ashamed of in theaffair--I did in the dark what perhaps I should not have done in thedaylight!--I don't mean I would not have carried him and his bagtoo! I refer only to the shilling! Now, of course, I will hold myface to it; but I thought it better to be short with a fellow likethat. "

"Well?"

"'You'll want prepayment, no doubt!' he went on, putting his hand inhis pocket. Those Sasunnach fellows think every highlandman keen asa hawk after their dirty money!"

"They have but too good reason in some parts!" said the mother. "Itis not so bad here yet, but there is a great difference in thatrespect. The old breed is fast disappearing. What with thedifficulty of living by the hardest work, and the occasional chanceof earning a shilling easily, many have turned both idle andgreedy. "

"That's for you and your shilling, Alister!" said Ian. 

"I confess, " returned Alister, "if I had foreseen what an idea ofthe gentlemen of the country I might give, I should have hesitated. But I haven't begun to be ashamed yet!"

"Ashamed, Alister!" cried Ian. "What does it matter what a fellowlike that thinks of you?"

"And mistress Conal has her shilling!" said the mother. 

"If the thing was right, " pursued Ian, "no harm can come of it; ifit was not right, no end of harm may come. Are you sure it was goodfor mistress Conal to have that shilling, Alister? What if it bedrawing away her heart from him who is watching his old child in herturf-hut? What if the devil be grinning at her from, that shilling?"

"Ian! if God had not meant her to have the shilling, he would nothave let Alister earn it. "

"Certainly God can take care of her from a shilling!" said Ian, withone of his strangely sweet smiles. "I was only trying Alister, mother. "

"I confess I did not like the thought of it at first, " resumed Mrs. Macruadh; "but it was mere pride; for when I thought of your father, I knew he would have been pleased with Alister. "

"Then, mother, I am glad; and I don't care what Ian, or anySasunnach under the sun, may think of me. "

"But you haven't told us, " said Ian, "how the thing ended. "

"I said to the fellow, " resumed Alister, "that I had my shearing todo, and hadn't the time to go with him. 'Is this your season forsheep-shearing?' said he. 'We call cutting the corn shearing, ' Ianswered, 'because in these parts we use the reaping hook. ' 'That isa great waste of labour!' he returned. I did not tell him that someof our land would smash his machines like toys. 'How?' I asked. 'Itcosts so much more, ' he said. 'But it feeds so many more!' Ireplied. 'Oh yes, of course, if you don't want the farmer to make aliving!' 'I manage to make a living, ' I said. 'Then you are thefarmer?' 'So it would appear. ' 'I beg your pardon; I thought--''You thought I was an idle fellow, glad of an easy job to keep thelife in me!' 'You were deuced glad of a job the other night, theytell me!' 'So I was. I wanted a shilling for a poor woman, andhadn't one to give her without going home a mile and a half for it!'By this time he had come down, and I had gone a few steps to meethim; I did not want to seem unfriendly. 'Upon my word, it was verygood of you! The old lady ought to be grateful!' he said. 'So oughtwe all, ' I answered, '--I to your friend for the shilling, and he tome for taking his bag. He did me one good turn for my poor woman, and I did him another for his poor leg!' 'So you're quits!' said he. 'Not at all, ' I answered; 'on the contrary, we are under mutualobligation. ' 'I don't see the difference!--Hillo, there's a hare!'And up went his gun to his shoulder. 'None of that!' I cried, andknocked up the barrel. 'What do you mean?' he roared, lookingfurious. 'Get out of the way, or I'll shoot you. ' 'Murder as well aspoaching!' I said. 'Poaching!' he shouted. 'That rabbit is mine, ' Ianswered; 'I will not have it killed. ' 'Cool!--on Mr. Palmer'sland!' said he. 'The land is mine, and I am my own gamekeeper!' Irejoined. 'You look like it!' he said. 'You go after yourbirds!--not in this direction though, ' I answered, and turned andleft him. "

"You were rough with him!" said Ian. 

"I did lose my temper rather. "

"It was a mistake on his part. "

"I expected to hear him fire, " Alister continued, "for there was therabbit he took for a hare lurching slowly away! I'm glad he didn't:I always feel bad after a row!--Can a conscience ever get toofastidious, Ian?"

"The only way to find that out is always to obey it. "

"So long as it agrees with the Bible, Ian!" interposed the mother. 

"The Bible is a big book, mother, and the things in it are of manysorts, " returned Ian. "The Lord did not go with every thing in it. "

"Ian! Ian! I am shocked to hear you!"

"It is the truth, mother. "

"What WOULD your father say!"

"'He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy ofme. '"

Ian rose from the table, knelt by his mother, and laid his head onher shoulder. 

She was silent, pained by his words, and put her arm round him as ifto shelter him from the evil one. Homage to will and word of theMaster, apart from the acceptance of certain doctrines concerninghim, was in her eyes not merely defective but dangerous. To love theLord with the love of truest obedience; to believe him the son ofGod and the saver of men with absolute acceptance of the heart, wasfar from enough! it was but sentimental affection!

A certain young preacher in Scotland some years ago, accused by anold lady of preaching works, took refuge in the Lord's sermon on themount: "Ow ay!" answered the partisan, "but he was a varra yoong monwhan he preacht that sermon!"

Alister rose and went: there was to him something specially sacredin the communion of his mother and brother. Heartily he held withIan, but shrank from any difference with his mother. For her sake hereceived Sunday after Sunday in silence what was to him a bushel ofdust with here and there a bit of mouldy bread in it; but the motherdid not imagine any great coincidence of opinion between her andAlister any more than between her and Ian. She had not the faintestnotion how much genuine faith both of them had, or how it surpassedher own in vitality. 

But while Ian seemed to his brother, who knew him best, hardlytouched with earthly stain, Alister, notwithstanding his large anddominant humanity, was still in the troublous condition of onetrying to do right against a powerful fermentation of pride. He heldnoblest principles; but the sediment of generations was too easilystirred up to cloud them. He was not quite honest in his attitudetowards some of his ancestors, judging them far more leniently thanhe would have judged others. He loved his neighbour, but hisneighbour was mostly of his own family or his own clan. He MIGHThave been unjust for the sake of his own--a small fault in the eyesof the world, but a great fault indeed in a nature like his, capableof being so much beyond it. For, while the faults of a good mancannot be such evil things as the faults of a bad man, they are moreblameworthy, and greater faults than the same would be in a bad man:we must not confuse the guilt of the person with the abstract evilof the thing. 

Ian was one of those blessed few who doubt in virtue of a largerfaith. While its roots were seeking a deeper soil, it could not showso fast a growth above ground, He doubted most about the things heloved best, while he devoted the energies of a mind whose keennessalmost masked its power, to discover possible ways of believingthem. To the wise his doubts would have been his best credentials;they were worth tenfold the faith of most. It was truth, and highertruth, he was always seeking. The sadness which coloured his deepestindividuality, only one thing could ever remove--the consciouspresence of the Eternal. This is true of all sadness, but Ian knewit. 

He overtook Alister on his way to the barley-field. 

"I have been trying to find out wherein lay the falseness of theposition in which you found yourself this morning, " he said. "Therecould be nothing wrong in doing a small thing for its reward anymore than a great one; where I think you went wrong was in ASSUMINGyour social position afterwards: you should have waited for itsbeing accorded you. There was no occasion to be offended with theman. You ought to have seen how you must look to him, and given himtime. I don't perceive why you should be so gracious to old mistressConal, and so hard upon him. Certainly you would not speak as he didto any man, but he has been brought up differently; he is not such agentleman as you cannot help being. In a word, you ought to havetreated him as an inferior, and been more polite to him. "

CHAPTER X. 

THE PLOUGH-BULLS. 

Partly, it may be, from such incidents at the outset of theiracquaintance, there was for some time no further meeting betwixt anyof the chief's family and that of the new laird. There was indeedlittle to draw them together except common isolation. Valentinewould have been pleased to show gratitude to his helpers on thatstormy night, but after his sisters' account of their call, he feltnot only ashamed, which was right, but ashamed to show his shame, which was a fresh shame. The girls on their part made so much ofwhat they counted the ridiculous elements of their "adventure, "that, natural vengeance on their untruthfulness, they camethemselves to see in it almost only what was ridiculous. In the samespirit Mr. Sercombe recounted his adventure with Alister, whichannoyed his host, who had but little acquaintance with theboundaries of his land. From the additional servants they had hiredin the vicinity, the people of the New House gathered correctinformation concerning the people at the cottage, but the honour inwhich they were held only added to the ridicule they associated withthem. On the other side also there was little inclination towards apursuit of intercourse. Mrs. Macruadh, from Nancy's account and thebehaviour of the girls, divined the explanation of their visit; and, as their mother did not follow it up, took no notice of it. In themind of Mercy, however, lurked a little thorn, with the bluntestpossible sting of suspicion, every time she joined in a laugh at thepeople of the cottage, that she was not quite just to them. 

The shooting, such as it was, went on, the sleeping and the eating, the walking and the talking. Long letters were written from the NewHouse to female friends--letters with the flourishes if not thematter of wit, and funny tales concerning the natives, whom, becauseof their poor houses and unintelligibility, they represented assemi-savages. The young men went back to Oxford; and the time forthe return of the family to civilization seemed drawing nigh. 

It happened about this time, however, that a certain speculation inwhich Mr. Peregrine Palmer was very materially interested, failedutterly, depriving him of the consciousness of a good manythousands, and producing in him the feeling of a lady of moderatemeans when she loses her purse: he must save it off something! Forthough he spent freely, he placed a great value on money--as well hemight, seeing it gave him all the distinction which beforeeverything else he prized. He did not know what a poor thing it isto be distinguished among men, therefore did not like losing histhousands. Having by failure sinned against Mammon, he must dosomething to ease the money-conscience that ruled his conduct; andthe first thing that occurred to him was, to leave his wife anddaughters where they were for the winter. None of them were in theleast delicate; his wife professed herself fond of a country life;it would give the girls a good opportunity for practice, drawing, and study generally, and he would find them a suitable governess! Hetalked the matter over with Mrs. Palmer. She did not mind much, andwould not object. He would spend Christmas with them, he said, andbring down Christian, and perhaps Mr. Sercombe. 

The girls did not like the idea. It was so cold in the country inwinter, and the snow would be so deep! they would be starved todeath! But, of course--if the governor had made up his mind to becruel!

The thing was settled. It was only for one winter! It would be a newexperience for them, and they would enjoy their next SEASON all themore! The governor had promised to send them down new furs, and agreat boxful of novels! He did not apprise them that he meant tosell their horses. Their horses were his! He was an indulgent fatherand did not stint them, but he was not going to ask their leave! Atthe same time he had not the courage to tell them. 

He took his wife with him as far as Inverness for a day or two, thatshe might lay in a good stock of everything antagonistic to cold. 

When father and mother were gone from the house, the girls feltLARKY. They had no wish to do anything they would not do if theirparents were at home, but they had some sense of relief in thethought that they could do whatever they liked. A more sympathetichistorian might say, and I am nowise inclined to contradict him, that it was only the reaction from the pain of parting, and theinstinct to make the best of their loneliness. However it was, theelder girls resolved on a walk to the village, to see what might beseen, and in particular the young woman at the shop, of whom theyhad heard their brother and Mr. Sercombe speak with admiration, qualified with the remark that she was so proper they could hardlyget a civil word out of her. She was in fact too scrupulously politefor their taste. 

It was a bright, pleasant, frosty morning, perfectly still, with anair like wine. The harvest had vanished from the fields. The sunshone on millions of tiny dew-suns, threaded on forsakenspider-webs. A few small, white, frozen clouds flecked the sky. Thepurple heather was not yet gone, and not any snow had yet fallen inthe valley. The burn was large, for there had been a good deal ofrain, but it was not much darker than its usual brown ofsmoke-crystal. They tripped gaily along. If they had littlespiritual, they had much innocent animal life, which no greatdisappointments or keen twinges of conscience had yet damped. Theywere hut human kittens--and not of the finest breed. 

As they crossed the root of the spur, and looked down on the autumnfields to the east of it, they spied something going on which theydid not understand. Stopping, and gazing more intently, they beheldwhat seemed a contest between man and beast, but its nature theycould not yet distinguish. Gradually it grew plain that two of thecattle of the country, wild and shaggy, were rebelling againstcontrol. They were in fact two young bulls, of the small blackhighland breed, accustomed to gallop over the rough hills, jumpinglike goats, which Alister had set himself the task of breaking tothe plough--by no means an easy one, or to be accomplishedsingle-handed by any but a man of some strength, and bothpersistence and patience. In the summer he had lost a horse, whichhe could ill afford to replace: if he could make these bulls work, they would save him the price of the horse, would cost less to keep, and require less attention! He bridled them by the nose, not withrings through the gristle, but with nose-bands of iron, bluntlyspiked inside, against which they could not pull hard without pain, and had made some progress, though he could by no means trust themyet: every now and then a fit of mingled wildness and stubbornnesswould seize them, and the contest would appear about to begin againfrom the beginning; but they seldom now held out very long. Thenose-band of one of them had come off, Alister had him by a horn ineach hand, and a fierce struggle was going on between them, whilethe other was pulling away from his companion as if determined totake to the hills. It was a good thing for them that share andcoulter were pretty deep in the ground, to the help of their master;for had they got away, they would have killed, or at least disabledthemselves. Presently, however, he had the nose-band on, and byforce and persuasion together got the better of them; the staggylittle furies gave in; and quickly gathering up his reins, he wentback to the plough-stilts, where each hand held at once a handle anda rein. With energetic obedience the, little animals began topull--so vigorously that it took nearly all the chief's strength tohold at once his plough and his team. 

It was something of a sight to the girls after a long dearth ofevents. Many things indeed upon which they scarce cast an eye whenthey came, they were now capable of regarding with a little feebleinterest. Nor, although ignorant of everything agricultural, werethey quite unused to animals; having horses they called their own, they would not unfrequently go to the stables to give their orders, or see that they were carried out. 

They waited for some time hoping the fight would begin again, anddrew a little nearer; then, as by common consent, left the road, passed the ruin, ran down the steep side of the ridge, and began totoil through the stubble towards the ploughman. A sharp straw wouldevery now and then go through a delicate stocking, and the damp soilgathered in great lumps on their shoes, but they plodded on, laughing merrily as they went. 

The Macruadh was meditating the power of the frost to break up theclods of the field, when he saw the girls close to him. He pulled inhis cattle, and taking off his bonnet with one hand while the otherheld both reins--

"Excuse me, ladies, " he said; "my animals are young, and not quitebroken. "

They were not a little surprised at such a reception, and weredriven to conclude that the man must be the laird himself. They hadheard that he cultivated his own land, but had not thereforeimagined him labouring in his own person. 

In spite of the blindness produced by their conventional training, vulgarly called education, they could not fail to perceive somethingin the man worthy of their regard. Before them, on the alert towardhis cattle, but full of courtesy, stood a dark, handsome, weather-browned man, with an eagle air, not so pronounced as hisbrother's. His hair was long, and almost black, --in thick, softcurls over a small, well-set head. His glance had the flash thatcomes of victorious effort, and his free carriage was that of onewhom labour has nowise subdued, whose every muscle is instinct withready life. True even in trifles, he wore the dark beard that naturehad given him; disordered by the struggle with his bulls, itimparted a certain wild look that contrasted with his speech. Christina forgot that the man was a labourer like any other, butnoted that he did not manifest the least embarrassment in theirpresence, or any consciousness of a superfluity of favour in theirapproach: she did not know that neither would his hired servant, orthe poorest member of his clan. It was said of a certain Sutherlandclan that they were all gentlemen, and of a certain Argyll clan thatthey were all poets; of the Macruadhs it was said they were both. Asto Mercy, the first glance of the chiefs hazel eyes, lookingstraight into hers with genial respect, went deeper than any lookhad yet penetrated. 

Ladies in Alister's fields were not an everyday sight. Hardly beforehad his work been enlivened by such a presence; and the joy of itwas in his eyes, though his behaviour was calm. Christina thoughthow pleasant it would be to have him for a worshipping slave--sointerpenetrated with her charms that, like Una's lion, he wouldcrouch at her feet, come and go at her pleasure, live on her smiles, and be sad when she gave him none. She would make a gentleman ofhim, then leave him to dream of her! It would be a pleasant andinteresting task in the dullness of their winter's banishment, withthe days so short and the nights so unendurably long! The man washandsome!--she would do it!--and would proceed at once to initiatethe conquest of him!

The temptation to patronize not unfrequently presents an object forthe patronage superior to the would-be patron; for the temptation isone to which slight persons chiefly are exposed; it affords anoutlet for the vague activity of self-importance. Few have learnedthat one is of no value except to God and other men. Miss Palmerworshipped herself, and therefore would fain be worshipped--sodreamed of a friendship de haut en bas with the country fellow. 

She put on a smile--no difficult thing, for she was a good-naturedgirl. It looked to Alister quite natural. It was nevertheless, likeHamlet's false friends, "sent for. "

"Do you like ploughing?" she asked. 

Had she known the manners of the country, she would have added"laird, " or "Macruadh. "

"Yes I do, " Alister answered; "but I should plough all the same if Idid not. It has to be done. "

"But why should YOU do it?"

"Because I must, " laughed the laird. 

What ought she to answer? Should she condole with the man because hehad to work? It did not seem prudent! She would try another tack!

"You had some trouble with your oxen! We saw it from the road, andwere quite frightened. I hope you are not hurt. "

"There was no danger of that, " answered Alister with a smile. 

"What wild creatures they are! Ain't it rather hard work for them?They are so small!"

"They are as strong as horses, " answered the laird. "I have had mywork to break them! Indeed, I can hardly say I have done it yet!they would very much like to run their horns into me!"

"Then it MUST be dangerous! It shows that they were not meant towork!"

"They were meant to work if I can make them work. "

"Then you approve of slavery!" said Mercy

She hardly knew what made her oppose him. As yet she bad no opinionsof her own, though she did catch a thought sometimes, when ithappened to come within her reach. Alister smiled a curious smile. 

"I should, " he said, "if the right people were made slaves of. Iwould take shares in a company of Algerine pirates to rid the socialworld of certain types of the human!"

The girls looked at each other. "Sharp!" said Christina to herself. 

"What sorts would you have them take?" she asked. 

"Idle men in particular, " answered Alister. 

"Would you not have them take idle ladies as well?"

"I would see first how they behaved when the men were gone. "

"You believe, then, " said Mercy, "we have a right to make the loweranimals work?"

"I think it is our duty, " answered Alister. "At all events, if we donot, we must either kill them off by degrees, or cede them thisworld, and emigrate. But even that would be a bad thing for mylittle bulls there! It is not so many years since the last wolf waskilled--here, close by! and if the dogs turned to wolves again, where would they be? The domestic animals would then have wildbeasts instead of men for their masters! To have the world ahabitable one, man must rule. "

"Men are nothing but tyrants to them!" said Christina. 

"Most are, I admit. "

Ere he could prevent her, she had walked up to the near bull, andbegun to pat him. He poked a sharp wicked horn sideways at her, catching her cloak on it, and grazing her arm. She started back verywhite. Alister gave him a terrible tug. The beast shook his head, and began to paw the earth. 

"It wont do to go near him, " he said. "--But you needn't be afraid;he can't touch you. That iron band round his nose has spikes in it. "

"Poor fellow!" said Christina; "it is no wonder he should be out oftemper! It must hurt him dreadfully!"

"It does hurt him when he pulls against it, but not when he isquiet. "

"I call it cruel!"

"I do not. The fellow knows what is wanted of him--just as well asany naughty child. "

"How can he when he has no reason!"

"Oh, hasn't he!"

"Animals have no reason; they have only instinct!"

"They have plenty of reason--more than many men and women. They arenot so far off us as pride makes most people think! It is only thosethat don't know them that talk about the instinct of animals!"

"Do you know them?"

"Pretty well for a man; but they're often too much for me. "

"Anyhow that poor thing does not know better. "

"He knows enough; and if he did not, would you allow him to do as hepleased because he didn't know better? He wanted to put his horninto you a moment ago!"

"Still it must be hard to want very much to do a thing, and not beable to do it!" said Mercy. 

"I used to feel as if I could tear my old nurse to pieces when shewouldn't let me do as I wanted!" said Christina. 

"I suppose you do whatever you please now, ladies?"

"No, indeed. We wanted to go to London, and here we are for thewinter!"

"And you think it hard?"

"Yes, we do. "

"And so, from sympathy, you side with my cattle?"

"Well--yes!"

"You think I have no right to keep them captive, and make themwork?"

"None at all, " said Christina. 

"Then it is time I let them go!"

Alister made for the animals' heads. 

"No, no! please don't!" cried both the girls, turning, the onewhite, the other red. 

"Certainly not if you do not wish it!" answered Alister, staying hisstep. "If I did, however, you would be quite safe, for they wouldnot come near me. They would be off up that hill as hard as theycould tear, jumping everything that came in their way. "

"Is it not very dull here in the winter?" asked Christina, panting alittle, but trying to look as if she had known quite well he wasonly joking. 

"I do not find it dull. "

"Ah, but you are a man, and can do as you please!"

"I never could do as I pleased, and so I please as I do, " answeredAlister. 

"I do not quite understand you. "

"When you cannot do as you like, the best thing is to like what youhave to do. One's own way is not to be had in this world. There's abetter, though, which is to be had!"

"I have heard a parson talk like that, " said Mercy, "but never alayman!"

"My father was a parson as good as any layman. He would have laid meon my back in a moment--here as I stand!" said Alister, drawinghimself to his height. 

He broke suddenly into Gaelic, addressing the more troublesome ofthe bulls. No better pleased to stand still than to go on, he hadfallen to digging at his neighbour, who retorted with the hornconvenient, and presently there was a great mixing of bull andharness and cloddy earth. Turning quickly towards them, Alisterdropped a rein. In a moment the plough was out of the furrow, andthe bulls were straining every muscle, each to send the other intothe wilds of the unseen creation. Alister sprang to their heads, andtaking them by their noses forced them back into the line of thefurrow. Christina, thinking they had broken loose, fled; but therewas Mercy with the reins, hauling with all her might!

"Thank you, thank you!" said the laird, laughing with pleasure. "Youare a friend indeed!"

"Mercy! Mercy! come away directly, " cried Christina. 

But Mercy did not heed her. The laird took the reins, andadministering a blow each to the animals, made them stand still. 

There are tender-hearted people who virtually ohject to the wholescheme of creation; they would neither have force used nor painsuffered; they talk as if kindness could do everything, even whereit is not felt. Millions of human beings but for suffering wouldnever develop an atom of affection. The man who would spare DUEsuffering is not wise. It is folly to conclude a thing ought not tobe done because it hurts. There are powers to be born, creations tobe perfected, sinners to be redeemed, through the ministry of pain, that could be born, perfected, redeemed, in no other way. ButChristina was neither wise nor unwise after such fashion. She wasannoyed at finding the laird not easily to be brought to her feet, and Mercy already advanced to his good graces. She was not jealousof Mercy, for was she not beautiful and Mercy plain? but Mercy hadby her PLUCK secured an advantage, and the handsome ploughman lookedat her admiringly! Partly therefore because she was not pleased withhim, partly that she thought a little outcry would be telling, --

"Oh, you wicked man!" she cried, "you are hurting the poor brutes!"

"No more than is necessary, " he answered. 

"You are cruel!"

"Good morning, ladies. "

He just managed to take off his bonnet, for the four-leggedexplosions at the end of his plough were pulling madly. He slackenedhis reins, and away it went, like a sharp knife through a Dutchcheese. 

"You've made him quite cross!" said Mercy. 

"What a brute of a man!" said Christina. 

She never restrained herself from teasing cat or puppy for heramusement--did not even mind hurting it a little. Those capable ofdistinguishing between the qualities of resembling actions are few. There are some who will regard Alister as capable of vivisection. 

On one occasion when the brothers were boys, Alister having lost histemper in the pursuit of a runaway pony, fell upon it with his fiststhe moment he caught it. Ian put himself between, and received, without word or motion, more than one blow meant for the pony. 

"Donal was only in fun!" he said, as soon as Alister's anger hadspent itself. "Father would never have punished him like that!"

Alister was ashamed, and never again was guilty of such an outbreak. From that moment he began the serious endeavour to subjugate thepig, tiger, mule, or whatever animal he found in himself. Thereremained, however, this difference between them--that Alisterpunished without compunction, while Ian was sorely troubled athaving to cause any suffering. 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE FIR-GROVE. 

As the ladies went up the ridge, regarded in the neighbourhood asthe chief's pleasure-ground where nobody went except to call uponthe chief, they must, having mounted it lower down than where theydescended, pass the cottage. The grove of birch, mountain-ash, andfir which surrounded it, was planted quite irregularly, and a narrowfoot-path went winding through it to the door. Against one of thefirs was a rough bench turned to the west, and seated upon it theysaw Ian, smoking a formless mass of much defiled sea-foam, otherwisemeer-schaum. He rose, uncovered, and sat down again. But Christina, who regarded it as a praiseworthy kindness to address any onebeneath her, not only returned his salutation, but stopped, andsaid, "Good morning! We have been learning how they plough in Scotland, but I fear we annoyed the ploughman. "

"Fergus does sometimes LOOK surly, " said Ian, rising again, andgoing to her; "he has bad rheumatism, poor fellow! And then he can'tspeak a word of English, and is ashamed of it!"

"The man we saw spoke English very well. Is Fergus your brother'sname?"

"No; my brother's name is Alister--that is Gaelic for Alexander. "

"He was ploughing with two wild little oxen, and could hardly managethem. "

"Then it must have been Alister--only, excuse me, he could managethem perfectly. Alister could break a pair of buffaloes. "

"He seemed rather vexed, and I thought it might be that we made thecreatures troublesome. --I do not mean he was rude--only a littlerough to us. "

Ian smiled, and waited for more. 

"He did not like to be told he was hard on the animals. I only saidthe poor things did not know better!"

"Ah--I see!--He understands animals so well, he doesn't like to bemeddled with in his management of them. I daresay he told you that, if they didn't know better, he had to teach them better! They aretroublesome little wretches. --Yes, I confess he is a little touchyabout animals!"

Somehow Christina felt herself rebuked, and did not like it. He hadalmost told her that, if she had quarrelled with his ploughman-brother, the fault must be hers!

"But indeed, Captain Macruadh, " she said--for the people called himcaptain, "I am not ignorant about animals! We have horses of ourown, and know all about them. --Don't we, Mercy?"

"Yes, " said Mercy; "they take apples and sugar from our hands. "

"And you would have the chief's bulls tamed with apples and sugar!"returned Ian, laughing. "But the horses were tamed before ever yousaw them! If you had taken them wild, or even when they were foals, and taught them everything, then you would know a little about them. An acquaintance is not a friendship! My brother loves animals andunderstands them almost like human beings; he understands thembetter than some human beings, for the most cunning of the animalsare yet simple. He knows what they are thinking when I cannot read aword of their faces. I remember one terrible night, wintersago--there had been a blinding drift on and off during the day, andmy father and mother were getting anxious about him--how he camestaggering in, and fell on the floor, and a great lump in his plaidon his back began to wallow about, and forth crept his big colley!They had been to the hills to look after a few sheep, and the poordog was exhausted, and Alister carried him home at the risk of hislife. "

"A valuable animal, I don't doubt, " said Christina. 

"He had been, but was no more what the world calls valuable. He wasan old dog almost past work--but the wisest creature! Poor fellow, he never recovered that day on the hills! A week or so after, weburied him--in the hope of a blessed resurrection, " added Ian, witha smile. 

The girls looked at each other as much as to say, "Good heavens!" Hecaught the look, but said nothing, for he saw they had "nounderstanding. "

The brothers believed most devoutly that the God who is present atthe death-bed of the sparrow does not forget the sparrow when he isdead; for they had been taught that he is an unchanging God; "and, "argued Ian, "what God remembers, he thinks of, and what he thinksof, IS. " But Ian knew that what misses the heart falls under thefeet! A man is bound to SHARE his best, not to tumble hisSEED-PEARLS into the feeding-trough, to break the teeth of them thatare there at meat. He had but lifted a corner to give them a glimpseof the Life eternal, and the girls thought him ridiculous! The humancaterpillar that has not yet even begun to sicken with the growth ofher psyche-wings, is among the poorest of the human animals!

But Christina was not going to give in! Her one idea of the glory oflife was the subjugation of men. As if moved by a sudden impulse, she went close up to him. 

"Do not be angry with me, " she said, almost coaxingly, but with avisible mingling of boldness and shyness, neither of them quiteassumed; for, though conscious of her boldness, she was notfrightened; and there was something in the eagle-face that made iteasy to look shy. "I did not mean to be rude. I am sorry. "

"You mistake me, " he said gently. "I only wanted you to know youmisjudged my brother. "

"Then, if you have forgiven me, you will let me sit for a fewminutes! I am SO tired with walking in the sticky earth!"

"Do, pray, sit down, " responded Ian heartily, and led the way. 

But she sank gracefully at the foot of the next fir, while Mercy satdown on the bench. 

"Do go on with your pipe, " she said, looking up as she arranged herdress; "I am quite used to smoke. Papa would smoke in church if hedared!"

"Chrissy! You KNOW he NEVER smokes in the drawing-room!" criedMercy, scandalized. 

"I have seen him--when mamma was away. "

Ian began to be a little more interested in the plain one. But whatmust his mother think to see them sitting there together! He couldnot help it! if ladies chose to sit down, it was not for him toforbid them! And there WAS a glimmer of conscience in the younger!

Most men believe only what they find or imagine possible tothemselves. They may be sure of this, that there are men sodifferent from them that no judgment they pass upon them is worth astraw, simply because it does not apply to them. I assert of Ianthat neither beauty nor intellect attracted him. Imagination wouldentice him, but the least lack of principle would arrest itsinfluence. The simplest manifestation of a live conscience woulddraw him more than anything else. I do not mean the conscience thatproposes questions, but the conscience that loves right and turnsfrom wrong. 

Notwithstanding the damsel's invitation, he did not resume his pipe. He was simple, but not free and easy--too sensitive to the relationsof life to be familiar upon invitation with any girl. If she was notone with whom to hold real converse, it was impossible to blowdandelions with her, and talk must confine itself to thecommonplace. After gentlest assays to know what was possible, theresult might be that he grew courteously playful, or drew back, andconfined himself to the formal. 

In the conversation that followed, he soon found the younger capableof being interested, and, having seen much in many parts of theworld, had plenty to tell her. Christina smiled sweetly, takingeverything with over-gentle politeness, but looking as if all thatinterested her was, that there they were, talking about it. Provokedat last by her persistent lack of GENUINE reception, Ian was temptedto try her with something different: perhaps she might be moved tohorror! Any feeling would be a FIND! He thought he would tell theman adventure he had read in a book of travels. 

In Persia, alone in a fine moonlit night, the traveller had fallenasleep on his horse, but woke suddenly, roused by somethingfrightful, he did not know what. The evil odour all about himexplained, however, his bewilderment and terror. Presently he wasbumped on this side, then bumped on that; first one knee, then theother, would be struck; now the calf of one leg was caught, now thecalf of the other; then both would be caught at once, and he shovednearly over his pommel. His horse was very uneasy, but could illhelp himself in the midst of a moving mass of uncertain objects. Thetraveller for a moment imagined himself in a boat on the sea, with ahuge quantity of wrecked cargo floating around him, whence came thefrequent collisions he was undergoing; but he soon perceived thatthe vague shapes were boxes, pannierwise on the backs of mules, moving in caravan along the desert. Of not a few the lids werebroken, of some gone altogether, revealing their contents--thebodies of good Mussulmans, on their way to the consecrated soil ofMecca for burial. Carelessly shambled the mules along, stumbling asthey jogged over the uneven ground, their boxes tilting from side toside, sorely shaken, some of them, in frustration of dying hopes, scattering their contents over the track--for here and there a mulecarried but a wreck of coffins. On and on over the rough gravellywaste, under the dead cold moon, weltered the slow stream of death!

"You may be sure, " concluded Ian, "he made haste out of the ruck!But it was with difficulty he got clear, happily to windward--thenfor an hour sat motionless on his horse, watching through themoonlight the long dark shadow flitting toward its far-off goal. When at length he could no longer descry it, he put his horse to hisspeed--but not to overtake it. "

As he spoke, Mercy's eyes grew larger and larger, never leaving hisface. She had at least imagination enough for that! Christina curledher pretty lip, and looked disgusted. The one at a horrible tale washorrified, the other merely disgusted! The one showed herselfcapable of some reception; the other did not. 

"Something might be done with that girl!" thought Ian. 

"Did he see their faces?" drawled Christina. 

Mercy was silent, but her eyes remained fixed on him. It was Ian'stelling, more than the story, that impressed her. 

"I don't think he mentions them, " answered Ian. "But shall I tellyou, " he went on, "what seems to me the most unpleasant thing aboutthe business?"

"Do, " said Christina. 

"It is that the poor ghosts should see such a disagreeable fuss madewith their old clothes. "

Christina smiled. 

"Do you think ghosts see what goes on after they are dead?" askedMercy. 

"The ghosts are not dead, " said Ian, "and I can't tell. But I aminclined to think some ghosts have to stay a while and look on. "

"What would be the good of that?" returned Mercy. 

"Perhaps to teach them the little good they were in, or got out ofthe world, " he answered. "To have to stick to a thing after it isdead, is terrible, but may teach much. "

"I don't understand you, " said Mercy. "The world is not dead!"

"Better and better!" thought Ian with himself. "The girl CANunderstand!--A thing is always dead to you when you have done withit, " he answered her. "Suppose you had a ball-dress crumpled andunsightly--the roses on it withered, and the tinsel shininghideously through them--would it not be a dead dress?"

"Yes, indeed. "

"Then suppose, for something you had done, or for something youwould not stop being, you had to wear that ball-dress till somethingcame about--you would be like the ghosts that cannot getaway. --Suppose, when you were old and wrinkled, --"

"You are very amusing, Captain Macruadh!" said Christina, with abell-like laugh. But Ian went on. 

"Some stories tell us of ghosts with the same old wrinkled faces inwhich they died. The world and its uses over, they are compelled tohaunt it still, seeing how things go but taking no share in thembeholding the relief their death is to all, feeling they have losttheir chance of beauty, and are fixed in ugliness, having wastedbeing itself! They are like a man in a miserable dream, in which hecan do nothing, but in which he must stay, and go dreaming, dreamingon without hope of release. To be in a world and have nothing to dowith it, must be awful! A little more imagination would do somepeople good!"

"No, please!--no more for me!" said Christina, laughing as she rose. 

Mercy was silent. Though she had never really thought about anythingherself, she did not doubt that certain people were in earnest aboutsomething. She knew that she ought to be good, and she knew she wasnot good; how to be good she did not know, for she had never setherself, to be good. She sometimes wished she were good; but thereare thousands of wandering ghosts who would be good if they mightwithout taking trouble: the kind of goodness they desire wouldnot be worth a life to hold it. 

Fear is a wholesome element in the human economy; they are merelysilly who would banish it from all association with religion. True, there is no religion in fear; religion is love, and love casts outfear; but until a man has love, it is well he should have fear. Solong as there are wild beasts about, it is better to be afraid thansecure. 

The vague awe ready to assail every soul that has not found rest inits source, readier the more honest the soul, had for the first timelaid hold of Mercy. The earnest face of the speaker had most to dowith it. She had never heard anybody talk like that!

The lady of the house appeared, asking, with kind dignity, if theywould not take some refreshment: to a highlander hospitality is alaw where not a passion. Christina declined the offer. 

"Thanks! we were only a little tired, and are quite rested now, " shesaid. "How beautifully sheltered your house is!"

"On the side of the sea, yes, " answered Mrs. Macruadh; "but not muchon the east where we want it most. The trees are growing, however!"

When the sisters were out of sight of the cottage--

"Well!" remarked Christina, "he's a nice young man too, is he not?Exceedingly well bred! And what taste he has! He knows how to amuseladies!"

Mercy did not answer. 

"I never heard anything so disgusting!" pursued Christina. 

"But, " suggested Mercy, "you like to READ horrid stories, Chrissy!You said so only yesterday! And there was nothing in what he told usthat oughtn't to be spoken about. "

"What!--not those hideous coffins--and the bodies dropping out ofthem--all crawling, no doubt?"

"That is your own, Chrissy! You KNOW he did not go so far as that!If Colonel Webberly had told you the story, you would have called itcharming--in fun, of course, I mean!"

But Christina never liked the argumentum ad feminam. 

"I would not! You know I would not!" she exclaimed. "I do believethe girl has fallen in love with the horrid man! Of the two, Ideclare, I like the ploughman better. I am sorry I happened to vexhim; he is a good stupid sort of fellow! I can't bear this man! Howhorribly he fixed his eyes on you when he was talking that rubbishabout the ball-dress!"

"He was anxious to make himself understood. I know he made me thinkI must mind what I was about!"

"Oh, nonsense! We didn't come into this wilderness to be preached toby a lay John the Baptist! He is an ill-bred fellow!"

She would not have said so much against him, had not Mercy taken hispart. 

Mercy rarely contradicted her sister, but even this brief passagewith a real man had roused the justice in her. 

"I don't agree with you, Chrissy, " she said. "He seems to me VERYMUCH of a gentleman!"

She did not venture to say all she felt, not choosing to be atabsolute variance, and the threatened quarrel blew over like ashower in spring. 

But some sort of impression remained from the words of Ian on themind of Mercy, for the next morning she read a chapter in the bookof Genesis, and said a prayer her mother had taught her. 

CHAPTER XII. 

AMONG THE HILLS. 

When Mr. And Mrs. Palmer reached Inverness, they found they couldspend a few days there, one way and another, to good purpose, forthey had friends to visit as well as shopping to do. Mr. Palmer'saffairs calling him to the south were not immediately pressing, andtheir sojourn extended itself to a full week of eight days, duringwhich the girls were under no rule but their own. Their parentsregarded them as perfectly to be trusted, nor were the girlsthemselves aware of any reason why they should not be so regarded. 

The window of Christina's bedroom overlooked a part of the roadbetween the New House and the old castle; and she could see from itall the ridge as far as the grove that concealed the cottage: if nowthey saw more of the young men their neighbours, and were ledfarther into the wilds, thickets, or pasturage of theiracquaintance, I cannot say she had no hand in it. 

She was depressed by a sense of failure; the boor, as she calledhim, was much too thick-skinned for any society but that of hisbulls! and she had made no progress with the Valentine any more thanwith the Orson; he was better pleased with her ugly sister than withher beautiful self!

She would have given neither of tie men another thought, but thatthere was no one else with whom to do any of that huckster businesscalled flirting, which to her had just harm enough in it to make itinteresting to her. She was one of those who can imagine beauty norenjoyment in a thing altogether right. She took it for granted thatbad and beautiful were often one; that the pleasures of the worldowed their delight to a touch, a wash, a tincture of the wicked inthem. Such have so many crooked lines in themselves that they fancynature laid down on lines of crookedness. They think the obliquitythe beauty of the campanile, the blurring the charm of the sketch. 

I tread on delicate ground--ground which, alas! many girls treadboldly, scattering much feather-bloom from the wings of poor Psyche, gathering for her hoards of unlovely memories, and sowing the seedof many a wish that they had done differently. They cannot pass oversuch ground and escape having their nature more or less vulgarized. I do not speak of anything counted wicked; it is only gambling withthe precious and lovely things of the deepest human relation! If agirl with such an experience marry a man she loves--with what powerof loving may be left such a one--will she not now and then remembersomething it would be joy to discover she had but dreamed? will shebe able always to forget certain cabinets in her brain which "itwould not do" to throw open to the husband who thinks her simple aswell as innocent? Honesty and truth, God's essentials, are perhapsmore lacking in ordinary intercourse between young men and womenthan anywhere else. Greed and selfishness are as busy there as inmoney-making and ambition. Thousands on both sides are constantlyseeking more than their share--more also than they even intend toreturn value for. Thousands of girls have been made sad for life bythe speeches of a man careful all the time to SAY nothing thatamounted to a pledge! I do not forget that many a woman who wouldotherwise have been worth little, has for her sorrow found suchconsolation that she has become rich before God; these words holdnevertheless: "It must needs be that offences come, but woe to thatman by whom the offence cometh!"

On a morning two days later, Christina called Mercy, ratherimperiously, to get ready at once for their usual walk. She obeyed, and they set out. Christina declared she was perishing with cold, and they walked fast. By and by they saw on the road before them thetwo brothers walking slow; one was reading, the other listening. When they came nearer they descried in Alister's hand a manuscriptvolume; Ian carried an old-fashioned fowling-piece. It was a hardfrost, which was perhaps the cause of Alister's leisure so early inthe day. 

Hearing the light steps of the girls behind them, the men turned. The laird was the first to speak. The plough and the fierce bullsnot there to bewilder their judgment, the young women immediatelydiscovered their perception in the matter of breeding to be lessinfallible than they had imagined it: no well bred woman could for amoment doubt the man before them a gentleman--though his carriagewas more courteous and more natural than is often seen in a Mayfairdrawing-room, and his English, a little old-fashioned. Ian was atonce more like and more unlike other people. His manner was equallycourteous, but notably stiffer: he was as much at his ease, but morereserved. To use a figure, he did not step out so far to meet them. 

They walked on together. 

"You are a little earlier than usual this morning, ladies!" remarkedthe chief. 

"How do you know that, Mr. Macruadh?" rejoined Christina. 

"I often see you pass--and till now always at the same hour. "

"And yet we have never met before!"

"The busy and the"--he hesitated a moment--"unbusy seldom meet, "said the chief. 

"Why don't you say the IDLE?" suggested Christina. 

"Because that would be rude. "

"Why would it be rude? Most people, suppose, are more idle thanbusy!"

"IDLE is a word of blame; I had no right to use it. "

"I should have taken you for one of those who always speak theirminds!"

"I hope I do when it is required, and I have any to speak. "

"You prefer judging with closed doors!"

The chief was silent: he did not understand her. Did she want him tosay he did not think them idle? or, if they were, that they werequite right?

"I think it hard, " resumed Christina, with a tone of injury, almostof suffering, in her voice, "that we should be friendly and openwith people, and they all the time thinking of us in a way it wouldbe rude to tell us! It is enough to make one vow never to speakto--to anybody again!"

Alister turned and looked at her. What could she mean?

"You can't think it hard, " he said, "that people should not tell youwhat they think of you the moment they first see you!"

"They might at least tell us what they mean by calling us idle!"

"I said NOT BUSY. "

"Is EVERYBODY to blame that is idle?" persisted Christina. 

"Perhaps my brother will answer you that question, " said Alister. 

"If my brother and I tell you honestly what we thought of you whenfirst we saw you, " said Ian, "will you tell us honestly what youthought of us?"

The girls cast an involuntary glance at each other, and when theireyes met, could not keep them from looking conscious. A twitchingalso at the corners of Mercy's mouth showed they had been sayingmore than they would care to be cross-questioned upon. 

"Ah, you betray yourselves, ladies!" Ian said. "It is all very wellto challenge us, but you are not prepared to lead the way!"

"Girls are never allowed to lead!" said Christina. "The men are downon them the moment they dare!"

"I am not that way inclined, " answered Ian. "If man or woman lead TOanything, success will justify the leader. I will propose anotherthing!"

"What is it?" asked Christina. 

"To agree that, when we are about to part, with no probability ofmeeting again in this world, we shall speak out plainly what wethink of each other!"

"But that will be such a time!" said Christina. 

"In a world that turns quite round every twenty-four hours, it maybe a very short time!"

"We shall be coming every summer, though I hope not to stay throughanother winter!"

"Changes come when they are least expected!"

"We cannot know, " said Alister, "that we shall never meet again!"

"There the probability will be enough. "

"But how can we come to a better--I mean a FAIRER opinion of eachother, when we meet so seldom?" asked Mercy innocently. 

"This is only the second time we have met, and already we are notquite strangers!" said Christina. 

"On the other hand, " said Alister, "we have been within call formore than two months, and this is our second meeting!"

"Well, who has not called?" said Christina. 

The young men were silent. They did not care to discuss the questionas to which mother was to blame in the matter. 

They were now in the bottom of the valley, had left the road, andwere going up the side of the burn, often in single file, Alisterleading, and Ian bringing up the rear, for the valley was thicklystrewn with lumps of gray rock, of all shapes and sizes. They seemedto have rolled down the hill on the other side of the burn, butthere was no sign of their origin: the hill was covered with grassbelow, and with heather above. Such was the winding of the way amongthe stones--for path there was none--that again and again no one ofthem could see another. The girls felt the strangeness of it, andbegan to experience, without knowing it, a little of the power ofsolitary places. 

After walking thus for some distance, they found their leaderhalted. 

"Here we have to cross the burn, " he said, "and go a long way up theother side. "

"You want to be rid of us!" said Christina. 

"By no means, " replied Alister. "We are delighted to have you withus. But we must not let you get tired before turning to go back. "

"If you really do not mind, we should like to go a good dealfarther. I want to see round the turn there, where another hillcomes from behind and closes up the view. We haven't anybody to gowith us, and have seen nothing of the country. The men won't take usshooting; and mamma is always so afraid we lose ourselves, or falldown a few precipices, or get into a bog, or be eaten by wildbeasts!"

"If this frost last, we shall have time to show you something of thecountry. I see you can walk!"

"We can walk well enough, and should so like to get to the top of amountain!"

"For the crossing then!" said Alister, and turning to the burn, jumped and re-jumped it, as if to let them see how to do it. 

The bed of the stream was at the spot narrowed by two rocks, sothat, though there was little of it, the water went through with aroar, and a force to take a man off his legs. It was too wide forthe ladies, and they stood eyeing it with dismay, fearing an end totheir walk and the pleasant companionship. 

"Do not be frightened, ladies, " said Alister: "it is not too widefor you. "

"You have the advantage of us in your dress!" said Christina. 

"I will get you over quite safe, " returned the chief. 

Christina looked as if she could not trust herself to him. 

"I will try, " said Mercy. 

"Jump high, " answered Alister, as he sprang again to the other side, and held out his hand across the chasm. 

"I can neither jump high nor far!" said Mercy. 

"Don't be in a hurry. I will take you--no, not by the hand; thatmight slip--but by the wrist. Do not think how far you can jump; allyou have to do is to jump. Only jump as high as you can. "

Mercy could not help feeling frightened--the water rushed so fastand loud below. 

"Are you sure you can get me over?" she asked. 

"Yes. "

"Then I will jump. "

She sprang, and Alister, with a strong pull on her arm, landed hereasily. 

"It is your turn now, " he said, addressing Christina. 

She was rather white, but tried to laugh. 

"I--I--I don't think I can!" she said. 

"It is really nothing, " persuaded the chief. 

"I am sorry to be a coward, but I fear I was born one. "

"Some feelings nobody can help, " said Ian, "but nobody need give wayto them. One of the bravest men I ever knew would always start asideif the meanest little cur in the street came barking at him; and yeton one occasion, when the people were running in all directions, hetook a mad dog by the throat, and held him. Come, Alister! you takeher by one arm and I will take her by the other. "

The chief sprang to her side, and the moment she felt the grasp ofthe two men, she had the needful courage. The three jumped together, and all were presently walking merrily along the other bank, overthe same kind of ground, in single file--Ian bringing up the rear. 

The ladies were startled by a gun going off close behind them. 

"I beg your pardon, " said Ian, "but I could not let the rascal go. "

"What have you killed?" his brother asked. 

"Only one of my own family--a red-haired fellow!" answered Ian, whohad left the path, and was going up the hill. 

The girls looked, but saw nothing, and following him a few yards, came to him behind a stone. 

"Goodness gracious!" exclaimed Christina, with horror in her tone, "it's a fox!--Is it possible you have shot a fox?"

The men laughed. 

"And why not?" asked Alister, as if he had no idea what she couldmean. "Is the fox a sacred animal in the south?"

"It's worse than poaching!" she cried. 

"Hardly!" returned Alister. "No doubt you may get a good deal of funout of Reynard, but you can't make game of him! Why--you look as ifyou had lost a friend! I admire his intellect, but we can't affordto feed it on chickens and lambs. "

"But to SHOOT him!"

"Why not? We do not respect him here. He is a rascal, to be sure, but then he has no money, and consequently no friends!"

"He has many friends! What WOULD Christian or Mr. Sercombe say toshooting, actually shooting a fox!"

"You treat him as if he were red gold!" said the chief. "We buildtemples neither to Reynard nor Mammon here. We leave the men of thesouth to worship them!"

"They don't worship them!" said Mercy. 

"Do they not respect the rich man because he is rich, and look downon the poor man because he is poor?" said Ian. "Though the rich be awretch, they think him grand; though the poor man be like JesusChrist, they pity him!"

"And shouldn't the poor be pitied?" said Christina. 

"Not except they need pity. "

"Is it not pitiable to be poor?"

"By no means. It is pitiable to be wretched--and that, I venture tosuspect, the rich are oftener than the poor. --But as to masterReynard there--instead of shooting him, what would you have had usdo with him?"

"Hunt him, to be sure. "

"Would he like that better?"

"What he would like is not the question. The sport is the thing. "

"That will show you why he is not sacred here: we do not hunt him. It would be impossible to hunt this country; you could not ride theground. Besides, there are such multitudes of holes, the houndswould scarcely have a chance. No; the only dog to send after thefellow is a leaden one. "

"There's another!" exclaimed the chief; "--there, sneakingaway!--and your gun not loaded, Ian!"

"I am so glad!" said Christina. "He at least will escape you!"

"And some poor lamb in the spring won't escape him!" returnedAlister. 

"Lambs are meant to be eaten!" said Christina. 

"Yes; but a lamb might think it hard to feed such a creature!"

"If the fox is of no good in the world, " said Mercy, "why was hemade?"

"He can't be of no good, " answered the chief. "What if some thingsare, just that we may get rid of them?"

"COULD they be made just to be got rid of?"

"I said--that WE might get rid of them: there is all the differencein that. The very first thing men had to do in the world was tofight beasts. "

"I think I see what you mean, " said Mercy: "if there had been nowild beasts to fight with, men would never have grown able formuch!"

"That is it, " said Alister. "They were awful beasts! and they hadpoor weapons to fight them with--neither guns nor knives!"

"And who knows, " suggested Ian, "what good it may be to the foxhimself to make the best of a greedy life?"

"But what is the good to us of talking about such things?" saidChristina. "They're not interesting!"

The remark silenced the brothers: where indeed could be use withoutinterest?

But Mercy, though she could hardly have said she found theconversation VERY interesting, felt there was something in the menthat cared to talk about such things, that must be interesting ifshe could only get at it. They were not like any other men she hadmet!

Christina's whole interest in men was the admiration she looked forand was sure of receiving from them; Mercy had hitherto found theircompany stupid. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

THE LAKE. 

Silence lasted until they reached the shoulder of the hill thatclosed the view up the valley. As they rounded it, the sun wentbehind a cloud, and a chill wind, as if from a land where dwelt nolife, met them. The hills stood back, and they were on the shore ofa small lake, out of which ran the burn. They were verydesolate-looking hills, with little heather, and that bloomless, tohide their hard gray bones. Their heads were mostly white with frostand snow; their shapes had little beauty; they looked worn andhopeless, ugly and sad--and so cold! The water below was slatygray, in response to the gray sky above: there seemed no life ineither. The hearts of the girls sank within them, and all at oncethey felt tired. In the air was just one sign of life: high abovethe lake wheeled a large fish-hawk. 

"Look!" said Alister pointing; "there is the osprey that lives herewith his wife! He is just going to catch a fish!"

He had hardly spoken when the bird, with headlong descent, shot intothe water, making it foam up all about. He reappeared with a fish inhis claws, and flew off to find his mate. 

"Do you know the very bird?" asked Mercy. 

"I know him well. He and his wife have built on that conical rockyou see there in the middle of the water many years. "

"Why have you never shot him? He would look well stuffed!" saidChristina. 

She little knew the effect of her words; the chief HATED causelesskilling; and to hear a lady talk of shooting a high-soaring creatureof the air as coolly as of putting on her gloves, was nauseous tohim. Ian gave him praise afterwards for his unusual self-restraint. But it was a moment or two ere he had himself in hand. 

"Do you not think he looks much better going about God's business?"he said. 

"Perhaps; but he is not yours; you have not got him!"

"Why should I have him? He seems, indeed, the more mine the higherhe goes. A dead stuffed thing--how could that be mine at all? Alive, he seems to soar in the very heaven of my soul!"

"You showed the fox no such pity!" remarked Mercy. 

"I never killed a fox to HAVE him!" answered Alister. "The ospreydoes no harm. He eats only fish, and they are very plentiful; henever kills birds or hares, or any creature on the land. I do notsee how any one could wish to kill the bird, except from mere loveof destruction! Why should I make a life less in the world?"

"There would be more lives of fish--would there not?" said Mercy. "I don't want you to shoot the poor bird; I only want to hear yourargument!"

The chief could not immediately reply, Ian came to his rescue. 

"There are qualities in life, " he said. "One cannot think thefish-life so fine, so full of delight as the bird-life!"

"No. But, " said Mercy, "have the fishes not as good a right to theirlife as the birds?"

"Both have the right given them by the maker of them. The osprey wasmade to eat the fish, and the fish, I hope, get some good of beingeaten by the osprey. "

"Excuse me, Captain Macruadh, but that seems to me simple nonsense!"said Christina. 

"I hope it is true. "

"I don't know about being true, but it must be nonsense. "

"It must seem so to most people. "

"Then why do you say it?"

"Because I hope it is true. "

"Why should you wish nonsense to be true?"

"What is true cannot be nonsense. It looks nonsense only to thosethat take no interest in the matter. Would it be nonsense to thefishes?"

"It does seem hard, " said Mercy, "that the poor harmless thingsshould be gobbled up by a creature pouncing down upon them fromanother element!"

"As the poor are gobbled up everywhere by the rich!"

"I don't believe that. The rich are very kind to the poor. "

"I beg your pardon, " said Ian, "but if you know no more about therich than you do about the fish, I can hardly take your testimony. The fish are the most carnivorous creatures in the world. "

"Do they eat each other?"

"Hardly that. Only the cats of Kilkenny can do that. "

"I used a common phrase!"

"You did, and I am rude: the phrase must bear the blame for both ofus. But the fish are even cannibals--eating the young of their ownspecies! They are the most destructive of creatures to other lives. "

"I suppose, " said Mercy, "to make one kind of creature live onanother kind, is the way to get the greatest good for the greatestnumber!"

"That doctrine, which seems to content most people, appears to me apoverty-stricken and selfish one. I can admit nothing but thegreatest good to every individual creature. "

"Don't you think we had better be going, Mercy? It has got quitecold; I am afraid it will rain, " said Christina, drawing her cloakround her with a little shiver. 

"I am ready, " answered Mercy. 

The brothers looked at each other. They had come out to spend theday together, but they could not leave the ladies to go home alone;having brought them across the burn, they were bound to see themover it again! An imperceptible sign passed between them, andAlister turned to the girls. 

"Come then, " he said, "we will go back!"

"But you were not going home yet!" said Mercy. 

"Would you have us leave you in this wild place?"

"We shall find our way well enough. The burn will guide us. "

"Yes; but it will not jump over you; it will leave you to jump overit!"

"I forgot the burn!" said Christina. 

"Which way were you going?" asked Mercy, looking all around for roador pathway over the encircling upheaved wildernesses. 

"This way, " answered Ian. "Good-bye. "

"Then you are not coming?"

"No. My brother will take care of you. "

He went straight as an arrow up the hill. They stood and watched himgo. At what seemed the top, he turned and waved his cap, thenvanished. 

Christina felt disappointed. She did not much care for either of thevery peculiar young men, but any company was better than none; a manwas better than a woman; and two men were better than one! If thesewere not equal to admiring her as she deserved, what moreremunerative labour than teaching them to do so?

The thing that chiefly disappointed her in them was, that they hadso little small talk. It was so stupid to be always speaking sense!always polite! always courteous!--"Two sir Charles Grandisons, " shesaid, "are two too many!" And indeed the History of Sir CharlesGrandison had its place in the small library free to them fromchildhood; but Christina knew nothing of him except by hearsay. 

The young men had been brought up in a solemn school--had learned totake life as a serious and lovely and imperative thing. Not theless, upon occasions of merry-making, would they frolic like youngcolts even yet, and that without the least reaction or sense offolly afterwards. At the same time, although Ian had in the villagefrom childhood the character, especially in the workshops of thecarpenter, weaver, and shoemaker, of being 'full of humour, he wasin himself always rather sad, being perplexed with many things: hishumour was but the foam of his troubled sea. 

Christina was annoyed besides that Mercy seemed not indifferent tothe opinion of the men. It was from pure inexperience of theman-world, she said to herself, that the silly child could seeanything interesting in them! GENTLEMEN she must allow them--but ofsuch an old-fashioned type as to be gentlemen but by courtesy--notgentlemen in the world's count! She was of the world; they of thenorth of Scotland! All day Mercy had been on their side and againsther! It might be from sheer perversity, but she had never been likethat before! She must take care she did not make a fool of herself!It might end in some unhappiness to the young goose! Assuredlyneither her father nor mother would countenance the thing! She mustthrow herself into the breach! But which of them was she taking afancy to?

She was not so anxious about her sister, however, as piqued that shehad not herself gathered one expression of homage, surprised onelook of admiration, seen one sign of incipient worship in either. Ofthe two she liked better the ploughman! The other was more a man ofthe world--but he was not of her world! With him she was a strangerin a very strange land!

Christina's world was a very small one, and in its temple stood herown image. Ian belonged to the universe. He was a gentleman of thehigh court. Wherever he might go throughout God's worlds, he wouldbe at home. How could there be much attraction between Christina andhim?

Alister was more talkative on the way back than he had been all day. Christina thought the change caused by having them, or rather her, to himself alone; but in reality it sprang from the prospect of soonrejoining his brother without them. Some of the things he said, Mercy found well worth hearing; and an old Scotch ballad which herepeated, having learned it of a lowland nurse, appeared to her asbeautiful as it was wild and strange. For Christina, she despisedthe Scotch language: it was vulgar! Had Alister informed her thatBeowulf, "the most important of all the relics of the PaganAnglo-Saxon, is written in undeniable Scotch, the English of theperiod, " it would have made no difference to Christina! Why shouldit? She had never yet cared for any book beyond the novels of acertain lady which, to speak with due restraint, do not tend toprofitable thought. At the same time, it was not for the worst inthem that she liked them; she did not understand them well enough tosee it. But there was ground to fear that, when she came tounderstand, shocked at first, she would speedily get accustomed toit, and at length like them all the better for it. 

In Mercy's unawakened soul, echoed now and then a faint thrill ofresponse to some of the things Alister said, and, oftener, to someof the verses he repeated; and she would look up at him when he wassilent, with an unconscious seeking glance, as if dimly aware of abeneficent presence. Alister was drawn by the honest gaze of her yetundeveloped and homely countenance, with its child-look in processof sublimation, whence the woman would glance out and vanish again, leaving the child to give disappointing answers. There was somethingin it of the look a dog casts up out of his beautiful brown eyesinto the mystery of his master's countenance. She was on the edge ofcoming awake; all was darkness about her, but something was pullingat her! She had never known before that a lady might be lovely in aballad as well as in a beautiful gown!

Finding himself so listened to, though the listener was little morethan a child, the heart of the chief began to swell in his greatbosom. Like a child he was pleased. The gray day about him grewsweet; its very grayness was sweet, and of a silvery sheen. Whenthey arrived at the burn, and, easily enough from that side, he hadhanded them across, he was not quite so glad to turn from them as hehad expected to be. 

"Are you going?" said Christina with genuine surprise, for she hadnot understood his intention. 

"The way is easy now, " he answered. "I am sorry to leave you, but Ihave to join Ian, and the twilight will be flickering down before Ireach the place. "

"And there will be no moon!" said Mercy: "how will you get homethrough the darkness?"

"We do not mean to come home to-night. "

"Oh, then, you are going to friends!"

"No; we shall be with each other--not a soul besides. "

"There can't surely be a hotel up there?"

Alister laughed as he answered, "There are more ways than one of spending a night on the hills. Ifyou look from a window--in that direction, " he said, pointing, "thelast thing before you go to bed, you will see that at least we shallnot perish with cold. "

He sprang again over the burn, and with a wave of his bonnet, went, like Ian, straight up the hill. 

The girls stood for some time watching him climb as if he had beengoing up a flight of stairs, until he stood clear against the sky, when, with another wave of his bonnet, he too disappeared. 

Mercy did not forget to look from her window in the directionAlister had indicated. There was no room to mistake what he meant, for through the dark ran a great opening to the side of a hill, somewhere in the night, where glowed and flamed, reddening the air, a huge crescent of fire, slowly climbing, like a column of attack, up toward the invisible crest. 

"What does it mean?" she said to herself. "Why do they make such abonfire--with nobody but themselves to enjoy it? What strangemen--out by themselves in the dark night, on the cold hill! What canthey be doing it for? I hope they have something to eat! I SHOULDlike to hear them talk! I wonder what they are saying about US! I amcertain we bored them!"

The brothers did speak of them, and readily agreed in some notion oftheir characters; but they soon turned to other things, and therepassed a good deal that Mercy could not have followed. What wouldshe, for instance, have made of Alister's challenge to his brotherto explain the metaphysical necessity for the sine, tangent, andsecant of an angle belonging to its supplement as well?

When the ladies overtook them in the morning, Alister was reading, from an old manuscript volume of his brother's which he had found ina chest, a certain very early attempt at humour, and now theydisputed concerning it as they watched the fire. It had abundance offaults, and in especial lacked suture, but will serve to showsomething of lan's youthful ingenium. 

 TO A VAGRANT. 

 Gentle vagrant, stumping over Several verdant fields of clover! Subject of unnumbered knockings! Tattered' coat and ragged stockings, Slouching hat and roving eye, Tell of SETTLED vagrancy! Wretched wanderer, can it be The poor laws have leaguered thee? Hear'st thou, in thy thorny den, Tramp of rural policemen, Inly fancying, in thy rear Coats of blue and buttons clear, While to meet thee, in the van Stalks some vengeful alderman?-- Each separate sense bringing a notion Of forms that teach thee locomotion! Beat and battered altogether, By fellow-men, by wind and weather; Hounded on through fens and bogs, Chased by men and bit by dogs: And, in thy weakly way of judging, So kindly taught the art of trudging; Or, with a moment's happier lot, Pitied, pensioned, and forgot-- Cutty-pipe thy regium donum; Poverty thy summum bonum; Thy frigid couch a sandstone stratum; A colder grave thy ultimatum; Circumventing, circumvented; In short, excessively tormented, Everything combines to scare Charity's dear pensioner! --Say, vagrant, can'st thou grant to me A slice of thy philosophy? Haply, in thy many trudgings, Having found unchallenged lodgings, Thy thoughts, unused to saddle-crupper, Ambling no farther than thy supper-- Thou, by the light of heaven-lit taper, Mendest thy prospective paper! Then, jolly pauper, stitch till day; Let not thy roses drop away, Lest, begrimed with muddy matter, Thy body peep from every tatter, And men--a charitable dose-- Should physic thee with food and clothes! Nursling of adversity! 'Tis thy glory thus to be Sinking fund of raggery! Thus to scrape a nation's dishes, And fatten on a few good wishes! Or, on some venial treason bent, Frame thyself a government, For thy crest a brirnless hat, Poverty's aristocrat! Nonne habeam te tristem, Planet of the human system? Comet lank and melancholic --Orbit shocking parabolic-- Seen for a little in the sky Of the world of sympathy-- Seldom failing when predicted, Coming most when most restricted, Dragging a nebulous tail with thee Of hypothetic vagrancy-- Of vagrants large, and vagrants small, Vagrants scarce visible at all! Matchless oracle of woe! Anarchy in embryo! Strange antipodes of bliss! Parody on happiness! Baghouse of the great creation! Subject meet for strangulation, By practice tutored to condense The cautious inquiry for pence, And skilful, with averted eye, To hide thy latent roguery-- Lo, on thy hopes I clap a stopper! Vagrant, thou shalt have no copper! Gather thy stumps, and get thee hence, Unwise solicitor of pence!

Alister, who all but worshipped Ian, and cherished every scrap fromhis pen, had not until quite lately seen this foolish production, asIan counted it, and was delighted with it, as he would have been hadit been much worse. Ian was vexed that he should like it, and nowspent the greater part of an hour trying to show him how very bad inparts, even senseless it was. Profusion of epithets withoutapplicability, want of continuity, purposelessness, silliness, heartlessness--were but a few of his denunciations. Alister arguedit was but a bit of fun, and that anybody that knew Ian, knewperfectly he would never amuse himself with a fellow without givinghim something, but it was in vain; Ian was bent on showing italtogether unworthy. So, not to waste the night, they dropped thedispute, and by the light of the blazing heather, turned to achapter of Boethius. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE WOLVES. 

My readers may remember that Ian was on the point of acquainting hismother with an important event in his spiritual history, when theywere interrupted by the involuntary call of the girls from the NewHouse. The mother, as will readily be believed, remained desirous oflistening to her son's story, though dreading it would not be of a kindto give her much satisfaction; but partly from preventions--favoured, it must be confessed by Ian, and yet more from direct avoidance on hispart, the days passed without her hearing anything more of it. Ian hadin truth almost repented his offer of the narrative: a certain vagueassurance that it would not be satisfactory to her, had grown uponhim until he felt it unkind to lay before her an experience whosenarration would seem to ask a sympathy she could not give. But themother was unable to let the thing rest. More than by interest shewas urged by anxiety. In spite of her ungodlike theories of God, itwas impossible she could be in despair about her noble Ian; still, her hope was at best founded on the uncovenanted mercies of God, noton the security of his bond! She did not believe that God was doingand would do his best for every man; therefore she had no assurancethat he would bring down the pride of Ian, and compel his acceptanceof terms worthy of an old Roman father, half law-circumventing lawyer, half heartless tyrant. But her longing to hear what her son hadproposed telling her, was chiefly inspired by the hope of gettingnearer to him, of closer sympathy becoming possible between themthrough her learning more clearly what his views were. She constantlyfelt as if walking along the side of a thick hedge, with occasionalthinnesses through which now and then she gained a ghostly glimpseof her heart's treasure gliding along the other side--close to her, yet so far that, when they spoke, they seemed calling across a gulfof dividing darkness. Therefore, the night after that spent by hersons on the hill, all having retired some two hours before, the mother, finding herself unable to sleep, rose as she had often done ere now, and stole to the door of the little room under the thatch where Ianlay. Listening, and judging him awake, she went softly in, and sat downby his bedside. 

There had been such occasions on which, though son as well as motherwas wide awake, neither spoke a word; but this time the mother couldnot be silent. 

"You never told me, Ian, the story you began about something thatmade you pray!"

Ian saw he could not now draw back without causing, her more troublethan would the narration. 

"Are you sure you will not take cold mother dear?" he said. 

"I am warmly clad, my son; and my heart, more than I can tell you, is longing to hear all about it. "

"I am afraid you will not find my story so interesting as youexpect, mother!"

"What concerns you is more interesting to me than anything else inthe whole world, Ian. "

"Not more than God, mother?" said Ian. 

The mother was silent. She was as honest as her sons. The question, dim-lucent, showed her, if but in shadow, something of the truthconcerning herself--not so that she could grasp it, for she saw itas in a glimmer, a fluctuating, vanishing flash--namely, that shecared more about salvation than about God--that, if she could butkeep her boy out of hell, she would be content to live on withoutany nearer approach to him in whom she had her being! God was to heran awe, not a ceaseless, growing delight!

There are centuries of paganism yet in many lovely Christiansouls--paganism so deep, therefore so little recognized, that theirearnest endeavour is to plant that paganism ineradicably in thehearts of those dearest to them. 

As she did not answer, Ian was afraid she was hurt, and thought itbetter to begin his story at once. 

"It was one night in the middle of winter--last winter, nearMoscow, " he began, "and the frost was very bitter--the worst nightfor cold I have ever known. I had gone with a companion into thedepth of a great pine forest. On our way, the cold grew so intense, that we took refuge at a little public-house, frequented by peasantsand persons of the lowest ranks. On entering I saw a scene whichsurpassed all for interest I had ever before witnessed. The littlelonely house was crammed with Russian soldiers, fierce-lookingfellows, and I daresay their number formed our protection fromviolence. Many of them were among the finest looking fellows I haveever seen. They were half drunk, and were dancing and singing withthe wildest gesticulations and grimaces; but such singing forstrange wildness and harmony combined I had never before listenedto. One would keep up a solo for some minutes, when the wholecompany would join in a sort of chorus, dancing frantically about, but with the most perfect regularity of movement. One of them cameup to me and with a low bow begged me in the name of the rest togive them some money. I accordingly gave them a silver ruble, uponwhich the whole party set up a shout, surrounded me, and in a momenta score of brawny fellows had lifted me in the air, where I wasborne along in triumph. I took off my cap and gave threehip-hip-hurrahs as loud as my lungs could bawl, whereupon, with theprofoundest expressions of gratitude, I was lowered from myelevation. One of them then who seemed to be the spokesman of therest, seized me in his arms and gave me a hearty kiss on the cheek, on which I took my departure amid universal acclamation. --But allthat's not worth telling you about; it was not for that Ibegan--only the scene came up so clear before me that it drew measide. "

"I don't need to tell you, Ian, " said his mother, with shining eyes, "that if it were only what you had to eat on the most ordinary dayof your life, it would be interesting to me!"

"Thank you, mother dear; I seem to know that without being told; butI could never talk to you about anything that was not interesting tomyself. "

Here he paused. He would rather have stopped. 

"Go on, go on, Ian. I am longing to hear. "

"Well--where was I?--We left at the inn our carriage and horses, andwent with our guns far into the forest--all of straight, tall pines, up and up; and the Little island-like tops of them, which, if therebe a breath of wind, are sure to be swaying about like the motion ofa dream, were as still as the big frosty stars in the deep blueoverhead. "

"What did you want in such a lonely place at that time of thenight?" asked the mother. 

She sat with firm-closed lips, and wide, night-filled eyes lookingat her son, the fear of love in her beautiful face--a face morebeautiful than any other that son had yet seen, fit window for aheart so full of refuge to look out of; and he knew how she lookedthough the darkness was between them. 

"Wolves, mother, " he answered. 

She shuddered. She was a great reader in the long winter nights, andhad read terrible stories of wolves--the last of which in Scotlandhad been killed not far from where they sat. 

"What did you want with the wolves, Ian?" she faltered. 

"To kill them, mother. I never liked killing animals any more thanAlister; but even he destroys the hooded crow; and wolves are yetfairer game. They are the out-of-door devils of that country, and Ifancy devils do go into them sometimes, as they did once into thepoor swine: they are the terror of all who live near the forests. 

"There was no moon--only star-light; but whenever we came to anyopener space, there was light enough from the snow to see all about;there was light indeed from the snow all through the forest, but thetrees were thick and dark. Far away, somewhere in the mystery of theblack wood, we could now and then hear a faint howling: it came fromthe red throats of the wolves. "

"You are frightening me, Ian!" said the mother, as if they had beentwo children telling each other tales. 

"Indeed, mother, they are very horrible when they hunt in droves, ravenous with hunger. To kill one of them, if it be but one, is todo something for your kind. And just at that time I was oppressedwith the feeling that I had done and was doing nothing for mypeople--my own humans; and not knowing anything else I could at themoment attempt, I resolved to go and kill a wolf or two: they hadkilled a poor woman only two nights before. 

"As soon as we could after hearing the noise of them, we got up intotwo trees. It took us some time to discover two that were fit forour purpose, and we did not get them so near each other as we shouldhave liked. It was rather anxious work too until we found them, forif we encountered on foot a pack of those demons, we could be but amoment or two alive: killing one, ten would be upon us, and ahundred more on the backs of those. But we hoped they would smell usup in the trees, and search for us, when we should be able to giveaccount of a few of them at least: we had double-barrelled guns, andplenty of powder and ball. "

"But how could you endure the cold--at night--and without food?"

"No, mother; we did not try that! We had plenty to eat in ourpockets. My companion had a bottle of vodki, and--"

"What is that?" asked the mother with suspicion. 

"A sort of raw spirit--horrible stuff--more like spirits of wine. They say it does not hurt in such cold. "

"But, Ian!" cried the mother, and seemed unable to say more. 

"Don't be frightened, mother!" said Ian, with a merry laugh. "Surelyyou do not imagine _I_ would drink such stuff! True, I had mybottle, but it was full of tea. The Russians drink enormousquantities of tea--though not so strong as you make it. "

"Go on, then, Ian; go on. "

"We sat a long time, and there was no sign of the wolves coming nearus. It was very cold, but our furs kept in our warmth. By and by Ifell asleep--which was not dangerous so long as I kept warm, and Ithought the cold must wake me before it began to numb me. And as 'Islept I dreamed; but my dream did not change the place; the forest, the tree I was in, all my surroundings were the same. I even dreamedthat I came awake, and saw everything about me just as it was. Iseemed to open my eyes, and look about me on the dazzling snow frommy perch: I was in a small tree on the border of a little clearing. 

"Suddenly, out of the wood to my left, issued something, runningfast, but with soundless feet, over the snow. I doubted in my dreamwhether the object were a live thing or only a shadow. It camenearer, and I saw it was a child, a little girl, running as if forher life. She came straight to the tree I sat in, and when close toit, but without a moment's halt, looked up, and I saw a sweet littleface, white with terror--which somehow seemed, however, not forherself, but for me. I called out after her to stop, and I wouldtake her into the tree beside me, where the wolves could not reachher; but she only shook her head, and ran on over the clearing intothe forest. Among the holes I watched the fleeting shape appear anddisappear and appear again, until I saw it no more. Then first Iheard another kind of howl from the wolves--that of pursuit. Itstrengthened and swelled, growing nearer and nearer, till at last, through the stillness of the night and the moveless forest and thedead snow, came to my ear a kind of soft rushing sound. I don't knowhow to describe it. The rustle of dry leaves is too sharp; it waslike a very soft heavy rain on a window--a small dull paddingpadding: it was the feet of the wolves. They came nearer and grewlouder and louder, but the noise was still muffled and soft. Theirhowling, however, was now loud and horrid. I suppose they cannothelp howling; if they could, they would have too much power overpoor creatures, coming upon them altogether at unawares; but as itis, they tell, whether they will or no, that they are upon the way. At length, dark as a torrent of pitch, out of the forest flowed amultitude of obscure things, and streamed away, black over the snow, in the direction the child had taken. They passed close to the footof my tree, but did not even look up, flitting by like a shadowwhose substance was unseen. Where the child had vanished they alsodisappeared: plainly they were after her!

"It was only a dream, mother! don't be so frightened, " interruptedlan, for here his mother gave a little cry, almost forgetting whatthe narration was. 

"Then first, " he went on, "I seemed to recover my self-possession. Isaw that, though I must certainly be devoured by the wolves, and thechild could not escape, I had no choice but go down and follow, dowhat I could, and die with her. Down I was the same instant, runningas I had never run before even in a dream, along the track of thewolves. As I ran, I heard their howling, but it seemed so far offthat I could not hope to be in time to kill one of them ere theywere upon her. Still, by their howling, it did not appear they hadreached her, and I ran on. Their noise grew louder and louder, but Iseemed to run miles and miles, wondering what spell was upon me thatI could not come up with them. All at once the clamour grew hideous, and I saw them. They were gathered round a tree, in a clearing justlike that I had left, and were madly leaping against it, but everfalling back baffled. I looked up: in the top of the tree sat thelittle girl, her white face looking down upon them with a smile. Allthe terror had vanished from it. It was still white as the snow, butlike the snow was radiating a white light through the dark foliageof the fir. I see it often, mother, so clear that I could paint it. I was enchanted at the sight. But she was not in safety yet, and Irushed into the heap of wolves, striking and stabbing with myhunting-knife. I got to the tree, and was by her in a moment. Butas I took the child in my arms I woke, and knew that it was a dream. I sat in my own tree, and up against the stem of it broke a howling, surging black wave of wolves. They leaped at the tree-bole as arock-checked billow would leap. My gun was to my shoulder in amoment, and blazed among them. Howls of death arose. Theircompanions fell upon the wounded, and ate them up. The tearing andyelling at the foot of the tree was like the tumult of devils fullof hate and malice and greed. Then for the first time I thoughtwhether such creatures might not be the open haunts of demons. I donot imagine that, when those our Lord drove out of the man askedpermission to go into the swine, they desired anything unheard ofbefore in the demon-world. I think they were not in the way of goinginto tame animals; but, as they must go out of the man, as theygreatly dreaded the abyss of the disembodied, and as no ferociousanimals fit to harbour them were near, they begged leave to go intosuch as were accessible, though unsuitable; whereupon the naturalconsequence followed: their presence made the poor swine miserableeven to madness, and with the instinct of so many maniacs that indeath alone lies their deliverance, they rushed straight into theloch. "

"It may be so, Ian! But I want to hear how you got away from thewolves. "

"I fired and fired; and still they kept rushing on the tree-hole, heaping themselves against it, those behind struggling up on thebacks of those next it, in a storm of rage and hunger and jealousy. Not a few who had just helped to eat some of their fellows, werethemselves eaten in turn, and not a scrap of them left; but it was alarge pack, and it would have taken a long time to kill enough tosatisfy those that remained. I killed and killed until my ammunitionwas gone, and then there was nothing for it but await the light. When the morning began to dawn, they answered its light withsilence, and turning away swept like a shadow back into the wood. Strange to tell, I heard afterwards that a child had been killed bythem in the earlier part of that same night. But even now sometimes, as I lie awake, I grow almost doubtful whether the whole was not ahideous dream. 

"Not the less for that was what I went through between the time mypowder came to an end and the dawn of the morning, a real spiritualfact. 

"In the midst of the howling I grew so sleepy that the horriblenoise itself seemed to lull me while it kept me awake, and I fellinto a kind of reverie with which my dream came back and mingled. Iseemed to be sitting in the tree with the little shining girl, andshe was my own soul; and all the wrong things I had in me, and allthe wrong things I had done, with all the weaknesses and eviltendencies of my nature, whether mine by fault or by inheritance, had taken shape, and, in the persons of the howling wolves below, were besieging me, to get at me, and devour me. Suddenly my soul wasgone. Above were the still, bright stars, shining unmoved; beneathwas the white, betraying snow, and the howling wolves; away throughthe forest was fleeting, ever fleeting, my poor soul, in thelikeness of a white-faced child! All at once came a great stillness, as of a desert place, where breathed nor life of man nor life ofbeast. I was alone, frightfully alone--alone as I had never beenbefore. The creatures at the foot of the tree were still howling, but their cry sounded far away and small; they were in some story Ihad been reading, not anywhere in my life! I was left and lost--leftby whom?--lost by whom?--in the waste of my own being, without stayor comfort. I looked up to the sky; it was infinite--yet only a partof myself, and much too near to afford me any refuge from the desertof my lost self. It came down nearer; the limitless space came down, and clasped me, and held me. It came close to me--as if I had been ashape off which all nature was taking a mould. I was at onceeverything and nothing. I cannot tell you how frightful it was! Inagony I cried to God, with a cry of utter despair. I cannot saywhether I may believe that he answered me; I know this, that a greatquiet fell upon me--but a quiet as of utter defeat and helplessness. Then again, I cannot tell how, the quiet and the helplessness meltedaway into a sense of God--a feeling as if great space all about mewas God and not emptiness. Wolf nor sin could touch me! I was a widepeace--my very being peace! And in my mind--whether an echo fromthe Bible, I do not know--were the words:--'I, even I, am he thatcomforteth thee. I am God, thy saviour!' Whereas I had seemed allalone, I was with God, the only withness man can really share! Ilifted my eyes; morning was in the east, and the wolves wereslinking away over the snow. "

How to receive the strange experience the mother did not know. Sheought to say something, for she sorely questioned it! Not a word hadhe spoken belonging to the religion in which she had brought him up, except two--SIN and GOD! There was nothing in it about theatonement! She did not see that it was a dream, say rather a vision, of the atonement itself. To Ian her interpretation of the atonementseemed an everlasting and hopeless severance. The patience of Godmust surely be far more tried by those who would interpret him, thanby those who deny him: the latter speak lies against him, the formerspeak lies for him! Yet all the time the mother felt as in thepresence of some creature of a higher world--one above the ordinaryrace of men--whom the powers of evil had indeed misled, but perhapsnot finally snared. She little thought how near she was to imaginingthat good may come out of evil--that there is good which is not ofGod! She did not yet understand that salvation lies in being onewith Christ, even as the branch is one with the vine;--that anysalvation short of knowing God is no salvation at all. What moment aman feels that he belongs to God utterly, the atonement is there, the son of God is reaping his harvest. 

The good mother was not, however, one of those conceited, stiff-necked, power-loving souls who have been the curse and ruinof the church in all ages; she was but one of those in whomreverence for its passing form dulls the perception of unchangeabletruth. They shut up God's precious light in the horn lantern ofhuman theory, and the lantern casts such shadows on the path to thekingdom as seem to dim eyes insurmountable obstructions. For thesake of what they count revealed, they refuse all furtherrevelation, and what satisfies them is merest famine to the nextgeneration of the children of the kingdom. Instead of God's truththey offer man's theory, and accuse of rebellion against God such ascannot live on the husks they call food. But ah, home-hungry soul!thy God is not the elder brother of the parable, but the father withthe best robe and the ring--a God high above all thy longing, evenas the heavens are high above the earth. 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE GULF THAT DIVIDED. 

When Ian ceased, a silence deep as the darkness around, fell uponthem. To Ian, the silence seemed the very voice of God, clear in thedarkness; to the mother it was a darkness interpenetrating thedarkness; it was a great gulf between her and her boy. She must cryto him aloud, but what should she cry? If she did not, anopportunity, perhaps the last, on which hung eternal issues, wouldbe gone for ever! Each moment's delay was a disobedience to herconscience, a yielding to love's sinful reluctance! With "sickassay" she heaved at the weight on her heart, but not a word wouldcome. If Ian would but speak again, and break the spell of theterrible stillness! She must die in eternal wrong if she did notspeak! But no word would come. Something in her would not move. Itwas not in her brain or her lips or her tongue, for she knew all thetime she could speak if she would. The caitiff will was not all onthe side of duty! She was not FOR the truth!--could she then be OFthe truth? She did not suspect a divine reluctance to urge thatwhich was not good. 

Not always when the will works may we lay hold of it in the act:somehow, she knew not how, she heard herself speaking. 

"Are you sure it was God, Ian?" she said. 

The voice she heard was weak and broken, reedy and strained, likethe voice of one all but dead. 

"No, mother, " answered Ian, "but I hope it was. "

"Hopes, my dear hoy, are not to be trusted. "

"That is true, mother; and yet we are saved by hope. "

"We are saved by faith. "

"I do not doubt it. "

"You rejoice my heart. But faith in what?"

"Faith in God, mother. "

"That will not save you. "

"No, but God will. "

"The devils believe in God, and tremble. "

"I believe in the father of Jesus Christ, and do not tremble. "

"You ought to tremble before an unreconciled God. "

"Like the devils, mother?"

"Like a sinful child of Adam. Whatever your fancies, Ian, God willnot hear you, except you pray to him in the name of his Son. "

"Mother, would you take my God from me? Would you blot him out ofthe deeps of the universe?"

"Ian! are you mad? What frightful things you would lay to mycharge!"

"Mother, I would gladly--oh how gladly! perish for ever, to save Godfrom being the kind of God you would have me believe him. I loveGod, and will not think him other than good. Rather than believe hedoes not hear every creature that cries to him, whether he knowsJesus Christ or not, I would believe there was no God, and gomourning to my grave. "

"That is not the doctrine of the gospel. "

"It is, mother: Jesus himself says, 'Every one that hath heard andlearned of the Father, cometh unto me. '"

"Why then do you not come to him, Ian?"

"I do come to him; I come to him every day. I believe in nobody buthim. He only makes the universe worth being, or any life worthliving!"

"Ian, I can NOT understand you! If you believe like that abouthim, --"

"I don't believe ABOUT him, mother! I believe in him. He is mylife. "

"We will not dispute about words! The question is, do you place yourfaith for salvation in the sufferings of Christ for you?"

"I do not, mother. My faith is in Jesus himself, not in hissufferings. "

"Then the anger of God is not turned away from you. "

"Mother, I say again--I love God, and will not believe such thingsof him as you say. I love him so that I would rather lose him thanbelieve so of him. "

"Then you do not accept the Bible as your guide?"

"I do, mother, for it tells me of Jesus Christ. There is no suchteaching as you say in the Bible. "

"How little you know your New Testament!"

"I don't know my New Testament! It is the only book I do know! Iread it constantly! It is the only thing I could not livewithout!--No, I do not mean that! I COULD do without my Testament!Christ would BE all the same!"

"Oh, Ian! Ian! and yet you will not give Christ the glory ofsatisfying divine justice by his suffering for your sins!"

"Mother, to say that the justice of God is satisfied with suffering, is a piece of the darkness of hell. God is willing to suffer, andready to inflict suffering to save from sin, but no suffering issatisfaction to him or his justice. "

"What do you mean by his justice then?"

"That he gives you and me and everybody fair play. "

The homeliness of the phrase offended the moral ear of the mother. 

"How dare you speak lightly of HIM in my hearing!" she cried. 

"Because I will speak for God even to the face of my mother!"answered Ian. "He is more to me than you, mother--ten times more. "

"You speak against God, Ian, " she rejoined, calmed by the feelingshe had roused. 

"No, mother. He speaks against God who says he does things that arenot good. It does not make a thing good to call it good. I speak FORhim when I say lie cannot but give fair play. He knows he put ruewhere I was sure to sin; he will not condemn me because I havesinned; he leaves me to do that myself. He will condemn me only if Ido not turn away from sin, for he has made me able to turn from it, and I do. "

"He will forgive sin only for Christ's sake. "

"He forgives it for his own name's sake, his own love's sake. Thereis no such word as FOR CHRIST'S SAKE in the New Testament--exceptwhere Paul prays us for Christ's sake to be reconciled to God. It isin the English New Testament, but not in the Greek. "

"Then you do not believe that the justice of God demands thesatisfaction of the sinner's endless punishment?"

"I do not. Nothing can satisfy the justice of God but justice in hiscreature. The justice of God is the love of what is right, and thedoing of what is right. Eternal misery in the name of justice couldsatisfy none but a demon whose bad laws had been broken. "

"I grant you that no amount of suffering on the part of the wickedcould SATISFY justice; but it is the Holy One who suffers for oursins!"

"Oh, mother! JUSTICE do wrong for its own satisfaction! Did JesusDESERVE punishment? If not, then to punish him was to wrong him!"

"But he was willing; he consented;"

"He yielded to injustice--but the injustice was man's, not God's. IfJustice, insisted on punishent, it would at least insist on theguilty, not the innocent, being punished! it would revolt from theidea of the innocent being punished for the guilty! Mind, I sayBEING PUNISHED, not SUFFERING: that is another thing altogether. Itis an eternal satisfaction to love to suffer for the guilty, but notto justice that innocence should be punished for the guilty. Thewhole idea of such atonement is the merest subterfuge, a figment ofthe paltry human intellect to reconcile difficulties of its owninvention. Once, when Alister had done something wrong, my fathersaid, 'He must be punished--except some one will be punished forhim!' I offered to take his place, partly that it seemed expected ofme, partly that I was moved by vanity, and partly that I foresawwhat would follow. "

"And what did follow?" asked the mother, to whom the least word outof the past concerning her husband, was like news from the worldbeyond. At the same time it seemed almost an offence that one of hissons should know anything about him she did not know. 

"He scarcely touched me, mother, " answered Ian. "The thing taught mesomething very different from what he had meant to teach by it. Thathe failed to carry out his idea of justice helped me afterwards tosee that God could not have done it either, for that it was notjustice. Some perception of this must have lain at the root of theheresy that Jesus did not suffer, but a cloud-phantom took his placeon the cross. Wherever people speculate instead of obeying, theyfall into endless error. "

"You graceless boy! Do you dare to say your father speculatedinstead of obeying?" cried the mother, hot with indignation. 

"No, mother. It was not my father who invented that way ofaccounting for the death of our Lord. "

"He believed it!"

"He accepted it, saturated with the tradition of the elders beforehe could think for himself. He does not believe it now. "

"But why then should Christ have suffered?"

"It is the one fact that explains to me everything, " said Ian. "--But I am not going to talk about it. So long as your theorysatisfies you, mother, why should I show you mine? When it no longersatisfies you, when it troubles you as it has troubled me, and as Ipray God it may trouble you, when you feel it stand between you andthe best love you could give God, then I will share my very soulwith you--tell you thoughts which seem to sublimate my very being inadoration. "

"I do not see what other meaning you can put upon the statement thathe was a sacrifice for our sins. "

"Had we not sinned he would never have died; and he died to deliverus from our sins. He against whom was the sin, became the sacrificefor it; the Father suffered in the Son, for they are one. But if Icould see no other explanation than yours, I would not, could notaccept it--for God's sake I would not. "

"How can you say you believe in Christ, when you do not believe inthe atonement!"

"It is not so, mother. I do not believe what you mean by theatonement; what God means by it, I desire to accept. But we arenever told to believe in the atonement; we are told to believe inChrist--and, mother, in the name of the great Father who hears mespeak, I do believe in him. "

"How can you, when you do not believe what God says about him?"

"I do. God does not say those things about him you think he says. They are mere traditions, not the teaching of those who understoodhim. But I might believe all about him quite correctly, and yet notbelieve in him. "

"What do you call believing in him, then?"

"Obeying him, mother--to say it as shortly as I can. I try to obeyhim in the smallest things he says--only there are no small thingshe says--and so does Alister. I strive to be what he would have me, nor do I hold anything else worth my care. Let a man trust in hisatonement to absolute assurance, if he does not do the things hetells him--the very things he said--he does not believe in him. Hemay be a good man, but he has not yet heard enough and learnedenough of the Father to be sent to Jesus to learn more. "

"Then I do not believe in him, " said the mother, with a strange, sadgentleness--for his words awoke an old anxiety never quite at rest. 

Ian was silent. The darkness seemed to deepen around them, and thesilence grew keen. The mother began to tremble. 

"GOD KNOWS, " said Ian at length, and again the broken silence closedaround them. 

It was between God and his mother now! Unwise counsellors willpersuade the half crazy doubter in his own faith, to believe that hedoes believe!--how much better to convince him that his faith is apoor thing, that he must rise and go and do the thing that Jesustells him, and so believe indeed! When will men understand that itis neither thought nor talk, neither sorrow for sin nor love ofholiness that is required of them, but obedience! To BE and to OBEYare one. 

A cold hand grasping her heart, the mother rose, and went from theroom. The gulf seemed now at last utterly, hopelessly impassable!She had only feared it before; she knew it now! She did not seethat, while she believed evil things of God, and none the less thatshe called them good, oneness was impossible between her and anybeing in God's creation. 

The poor mother thought herself broken-hearted, and lay down toosick to know that she was trembling from head to foot. Such was thehold, such the authority of traditional human dogma on her soul--asoul that scorned the notion of priestly interposition between Godand his creature--that, instead of glorifying God that she hadgiven birth to such a man, she wept bitterly because he was on thebroad road to eternal condemnation. 

But as she lay, now weeping, now still and cold with despair, shefound that for some time she had not been thinking. But she had notbeen asleep! Whence then was this quiet that was upon her? Somethinghad happened, though she knew of nothing! There was in her as itwere a moonlight of peace!

"Can it be God?" she said to herself. 

No more than Ian could she tell whether it was God or not; but fromthat night she had an idea in her soul by which to reach after "thepeace of God. " She lifted up her heart in such prayer as she hadnever prayed before; and slowly, imperceptibly awoke in her thefeeling that, if she was not believing aright, God would nottherefore cast her off, but would help her to believe as she oughtto believe: was she not willing? Therewith she began to feel as ifthe gulf betwixt her and Ian were not so wide as she had supposed;and that if it were, she would yet hope in the Son of Man. Doubtlesshe was in rebellion against God, seeing he would question his ways, and refuse to believe the word he had spoken, but surely somethingmight be done for him! The possibility had not yet dawned upon herthat there could be anything in the New Testament but thosedoctrines against which the best in him revolted. She littlesuspected the glory of sky and earth and sea eternal that would oneday burst upon her! that she would one day see God not only good butinfinitely good--infinitely better than she had dared to think him, fearing to image him better than he was! Mortal, she dreaded beingmore just than God, more pure than her maker!

"I will go away to-morrow!" said Ian to himself. "I am only a painto her. She will come to see things better without me! I cannotlive in her sight any longer now! I will go, and come again. "

His heart broke forth in prayer. 

"O God, let my mother see that thou art indeed true-hearted; thatthou dost not give us life by parings and subterfuges, butabundantly; that thou dost not make men in order to assert thydominion over them, but that they may partake of thy life. O God, have pity when I cannot understand, and teach me as thou wouldst thelittle one whom, if thou wert an earthly father amongst us as thyson was an earthly son, thou wouldst carry about in thy arms. Whenpride rises in me, and I feel as if I ought to be free and walkwithout thy hand; when it looks as if a man should be great inhimself, nor need help from God; then think thou of me, and I shallknow that I cannot live or think without the self-willing life; thatthou art because thou art, I am because thou art; that I am deeperin thee than my life, thou more to my being than that being toitself. Was not that Satan's temptation, Father? Did he not takeself for the root of self in him, when God only is the root of allself? And he has not repented yet! Is it his thought coming up inme, flung from the hollow darkness of his soul into mine? Thouknowest, when it comes I am wretched. I love it not. I would havethee lord and love over all. But I cannot understand: how comes itto look sometimes as if indeinpendence must be the greater? A liecannot be greater than the truth! I do not understand, but thoudost. I cannot see my foundations; I cannot dig up the roots of mybeing: that would be to understand creation! Will the Adversary evercome to see that thou only art grand and beautiful? How came he tothink to be greater by setting up for himself? How was it that itlooked so to him? How is it that, not being true, it should everlook so? There must be an independence that thou lovest, of whichthis temptation is the shadow! That must be how 'Satan fell!--forthe sake of not being a slave!--that he might be a free being! Ah, Lord, I see how it all comes! It is because we are not near enoughto thee to partake of thy liberty that we want a liberty of our owndifferent from thine! We do not see that we are one with thee, thatthy glory is our glory, that we can have none but in thee! that weare of thy family, thy home, thy heart, and what is great for theeis great for us! that man's meanness is to want to be great out ofhis Father! Without thy eternity in us we are so small that we thinkourselves great, and are thus miserably abject and contemptible. Thou only art true! thou only art noble! thou wantest no glory forselfishness! thou doest, thou art, what thou requirest of thychildren! I know it, for I see it in Jesus, who casts the contemptof obedience upon the baseness of pride, who cares only for thee andfor us, never thinking of himself save as a gift to give us! Olovely, perfect Christ! with my very life I worship thee! Oh, pray, Christ! make me and my brother strong to be the very thing thouwouldst have us, as thy brothers, the children of thy Father. Thouart our perfect brother--perfect in love, in courage, intenderness! Amen, Lord! Good-night! I am thine. "

He was silent for a few moments, then resumed:

"Lord, thou knowest whither my thoughts turn the moment I ceasepraying to thee. I dared not think of her, but that I know thee. Butfor thee, my heart would be as water within me! Oh, take care ofher, come near to her! Thou didst send her where she could not learnfast--but she did learn. And now, God, I do not know where she is!Thou only of all in this world knowest, for to thee she lives thoughgone from my sight and knowledge--in the dark to me. Pray, Father, let her know that thou art near her, and that I love her. Thou hastmade me love her by taking her from me: thou wilt give her to meagain! In this hope I will live all my days, until thou takest mealso; for to hope mightily is to believe well in thee. I will hopein thee infinitely. Amen, Father!"

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE CLAN CHRISTMAS. 

By slow degrees, with infinite subdivisions and apparent reversalsof change, the autumn had passed into winter indeed. Cloud above, mire below, mist and rain all between, made up many days; only, likethe dreariest life, they were broken through and parted, lest theyshould seem the universe itself, by such heavenly manifestations, such gleams and glimpses of better, as come into all lives, allwinters, all evil weathers. What is loosed on earth is loosed firstin heaven: we have often shared of heaven, when we thought it but asoftening of earth's hardness. Every relief is a promise, a pledgeas well as a passing meal. The frost at length had brought with itbrightness and persuasion and rousing. In the fields it was swellingand breaking the clods; and for the heart of man, it did somethingto break up that clod too. A sense of friendly pleasure filled allthe human creatures. The children ran about like wild things; theair seemed to intoxicate them. The mother went out walking with thegirls, and they talked of their father and Christian and Mr. Sercombe, who were all coming together. For some time they sawnothing of their next neighbours. 

They had made some attempts at acquaintance with the people of theglen, but unhappily were nowise courteous enough for their ideas ofgood breeding, and offended both their pride and their sense ofpropriety. The manners and address of these northern peasants wereblameless--nearly perfect indeed, like those of the Irish, and intheir own houses beyond criticism; those of the ladies conventionalwhere not rudely condescending. If Mistress Conal was an exceptionto the rest of the clan, even she would be more civil to a strangerthan to her chief whom she loved--until the stranger gave heroffence. And if then she passed to imprecation, she would not curselike an ordinary woman, but like a poetess, gaining rather thanlosing dignity. She would rise to the evil occasion, no hag, but alargely-offended sibyl, whom nothing thereafter should everappease. To forgive was a virtue unknown to Mistress Conal. Its morethan ordinary difficulty in forgiving is indeed a special fault ofthe Celtic character. --This must not however be confounded with adesire for revenge. The latter is by no means a specially Celticcharacteristic. Resentment and vengeance are far from inseparable. The heart that surpasses in courtesy, except indeed that courtesy, be rooted in love divine, must, when treated with discourtesy, experience the worse revulsion, feel the bitterer indignation. Butmany a Celt would forgive, and forgive thoroughly and heartily, withhis enemy in his power, who, so long as he remained beyond hisreach, could not even imagine circumstances in which they might bereconciled. To a Celt the summit of wrong is a slight, but apologyis correspondingly potent with him. Mistress Conal, however, had notthe excuse of a specially courteous nature. 

Christina and Mercy, calling upon her one morning, were notungraciously received, but had the misfortune to remark, trusting toher supposed ignorance of English, upon the dirtiness of her floor, they themselves having imported not a little of the moisture thathad turned its surface into a muddy paste. She said nothing, but, tothe general grudge she bore the possessors of property oncebelonging to her clan, she now added a personal one; the offence laycherished and smouldering. Had the chief offended her, she wouldhave found a score of ways to prove to herself that he meantnothing; but she desired no mitigation of the trespass of strangers. 

The people at the New House did not get on very well with any of theclan. In the first place, they were regarded not merely asinterlopers, but almost as thieves of the property--though in truthit had passed to them through other hands. In the second place, arumour had got about that they did not behave with sufficientrespect to the chief's family, in the point of whose honour the clanwas the more exacting because of their common poverty. Hence theinhabitants of the glen, though they were of course polite, showedbut little friendliness. 

But the main obstacle to their reception was in themselves: thehuman was not much developed in them; they understood nothing oftheir own beings; they had never had any difficulty withthemselves:--how could they understand others, especially incircumstances and with histories so different from their own! Theyhad not a notion how poor people feel, still less poor people poorerthan before--or how they regard the rich who have what they havelost. They did not understand any huftian feeling--not even thesilliness they called LOVE--a godless, mindless affair, fit onlyfor the doll-histories invented by children: they had a feeling, ora feeling had them, till another feeling came and took its place. When a feeling was there, they felt as if it would never go; when itwas gone, they felt as if it had never been; when it returned, theyfelt as if it had never gone. They seldom came so near anything asto think about it, never put a question to themselves as to how athing affected them, or concerning the phenomena of its passagethrough their consciousness! There is a child-eternity of soul thatneeds to ask nothing, because it understands everything: the ways ofthe spirit are open to it; but where a soul does not understand, andhas to learn, how is it to do so without thinking? They knew nothingof labour, nothing of danger, nothing of hunger, nothing of cold, nothing of sickness, nothing of loneliness. The realities of life, in their lowest forms as in their highest, were far from them. Ifthey had nearly gone through life instead of having but entered uponit, they would have had some ground for thinking themselves unfairlydealt with; for to be made, and then left to be worthless, unfiteven for damnation, might be suspected for hard lines; but there isOne who takes a perfect interest in his lowliest creature, and willnot so spare it. They were girls notwithstanding who could makethemselves agreeable, and passed for clever--Christina because shecould give a sharp answer, and sing a drawingroom-song, Mercybecause as yet she mostly held her tongue. That there was at thesame time in each of them the possibility of being developed intosomething of inestimable value, is merely to say that they werehuman. 

The days passed, and Christmas drew near. The gentlemen arrived. There was family delight and a bustling reception. It is amazing--itshows indeed how deep and divine, how much beyond the individualself are the family affections--that such gladness breaks forth inthe meeting of persons who, within an hour or so of the joyouswelcome, self getting the better of the divine, will begin to feelbored, and will each lay the blame of the disappointment on theother. 

Coats were pulled off; mufflers were unwound; pretty hands werehelping; strong hands were lifting and carrying; every room wasbright with a great fire; tea was refused, and dinner welcomed. After dinner came the unpacking of great boxes; and in the midst ofthe resultant pleasure, the proposal came to be made--none butChristina knew how--that the inhabitants of the cottage should beinvited to dinner on Christmas-eve. It was carried at once, and thenext afternoon a formal invitation was sent. 

At the cottage it caused conference, no discussion. The lady of theNew House had not called with her girls, it was true; but thenneither had the lady of the castle--for that was the clanspeople'sname for the whole ridge on which the cottage stood--called on thenew-comers! If there was offence, it was mutual! The unceremoniousinvitation MIGHT indicate that it was not thought necessary totreat them as persons who knew the ways of society; on the otherhand, if it meant that they were ready to throw aside formalitiesand behave heartily, it would be wrong not to meet them half-way!They resolved therefore to make a counter-proposal; and if theinvitation came of neighbourliness, and not of imagined patronage, they would certainly meet it in a friendly spirit! Answer wasreturned, sealed with no mere crest but with a coat of arms, to theeffect that it had been the custom since time forgotten for thechief to welcome his people and friends without distinction onChristmas-eve, and the custom could not be broken; but if the ladiesand gentlemen of the New House would favour them with their com-company on the occasion, to dine and dance, the chief and his familywould gratefully accept any later offer of hospitality Mr. And Mrs. Peregrine Palmer might do them, the honour to send. 

This reply gave occasion to a good deal of talk at the New House, not entirely of a sort which the friends of the chief would haveenjoyed hearing. Frequent were the bursts of laughter from the menat the assumption of the title of CHIEF by a man with no more landthan he could just manage to live upon. The village they said, andsaid truly, in which the greater number of HIS PEOPLE lived, wasnot his at all--not a foot of the ground on which it stood, not astone or sod of which it was built--but belonged to a certainCanadian, who was about to turn all his territory around andadjacent into a deer forest! They could not see that, if there hadever been anything genuine in the patriarchal relation, the mereloss of the clan-property could no more cause the chieftainship tocease, than could the loss of the silver-hilted Andrew Ferrara, handed down from father to son for so many generations. 

There are dull people, and just as many clever people, who look uponcustoms of society as on laws of nature, and judge the worth ofothers by their knowledge or ignorance of the same. So doing theydisable themselves from understanding the essential, which is, likelove, the fulfilling of the law. A certain Englishman gave greatoffence in an Arab tent by striding across the food placed for thecompany on the ground: would any Celt, Irish or Welsh, have beenguilty of such a blunder? But there was not any overt offence on thepresent occasion. They called it indeed a cool proposal that THEYshould put off their Christmas party for that of a ploughman inshabby kilt and hob-nailed shoes; but on their amused indignationsupervened the thought that they were in a wild part of the country, where it would be absurd to expect the SAVOIR VIVRE of the south, and it would be amusing to see the customs of the land. Bysuggestion and seeming response, the clever Christina, unsuspectedeven of Mercy, was the motive power to bring about the acceptance ofthe chief's invitation. 

A friendly answer was returned: they would not go to dinner, theysaid, as it was their custom also to dine at home on Christmas-eve;but they would dine early, and spend the evening with them. 

To the laird the presence of the lowland girls promised a greataddition to the merry-making. During the last thirty years, all thegentlemen-farmers of the clan, and most of the humbler tacksmen aswell, had vanished, and there was a wide intellectual space betweenall those left and the family of the chief. Often when Ian was away, would Alister, notwithstanding his love to his people and theirentire response, have felt lonely but for labour. 

There being in the cottage no room equal to the reception of a largecompany, and the laird receiving all the members of theclan--"poor, " I was going to say, "and rich, " but there were norich--as well as any neighbour or traveller who chose to appear, thefather of the present chief had had good regard to the necessitiesof entertainment in the construction of a new barn: companionship, large feasting, and dancing, had been even more considered than thestoring and threshing of his corn. 

There are in these days many who will mock; but for my part I amproud of a race whose social relations are the last upon which theywill retrench, whose latest yielded pleasure is their hospitality. It is a common feeling that only the WELL-TO-DO have a right to behospitable: the ideal flower of hospitality is almost unknown to therich; it can hardly be grown save in the gardens of the poor; it isone of their beatitudes. 

Means in Glenruadh had been shrinking for many years, but the heartof the chief never shrank. His dwelling dwindled from a castle to ahouse, from a house to a cottage; but the hospitality did notdwindle. As the money vanished, the show diminished; the place ofentertainment from a hall became a kitchen, from a kitchen changedto a barn; but the heart of the chief was the same; theentertainment was but little altered, the hospitality not in theleast. When things grow hard, the first saving is generally offothers; the Macruadh's was off himself. The land was not his, saveas steward of the grace of God! Let it not be supposed he ran indebt: with his mother at the head, or rather the heart of affairs, that could not be. She was not one to regard as hospitality areadiness to share what you have not!

Little did good Doctor Johnson suspect the shifts to which some ofthe highland families he visited were driven--not to feed, but tohouse him: and housing in certain conditions of society is the largehalf of hospitality. Where he did not find his quarters comfortable, he did not know what crowding had to be devised, what inconveniencesendured by the family, that he might have what ease and freedom werepossible. Be it in stone hall or thatched cottage, the chief mustentertain the stranger as well as befriend his own! This was thefulfilling of his office--none the less that it had descended uponhim in evil times. That seldom if ever had a chief been Christianenough or strong enough to fill to the full the relation of fatherof his people, was nothing against the ideal fact in the existentrelation; it was rather for it: now that the chieftainship had cometo a man with a large notion of what it required of him, he was themore, not the less ready to aim at the mark of the idea; he was notthe more easily to be turned aside from a true attempt to live up tohis calling, that many had yielded and were swept along bound slavesin the triumph of Mammon! He looked on his calling as entirelyenough to fill full the life that would fulfil the calling. It wasambition enough for him to be the head of his family, with thehighest of earthly relations to realize toward its members. As tothe vulgar notion of a man's obligation to himself, he had learnedto despise it. 

"Eubbish!" Ian would say. "I owe my self nothing. What has my selfever done for me, but lead me wrong? What but it has come between meand my duty--between me and my very Father in heaven--between meand my fellow man! The fools of greed would persuade that a man hasno right to waste himself in the low content of making and sharing ahumble living; he ought to make money! make a figure in the world, forsooth! be somebody! 'Dwell among the people!' such would say:'Bah! Let them look after themselves! If they cannot pay theirrents, others will; what is it to you if the rents are paid? Sendthem about their business; turn the land into a deer-forest or asheep-farm, and clear them out! They have no rights! A man is boundto the children of his body begotten; the people are nothing to him!A man is not his brother's keeper--except when he has got him inprison! And so on, in the name of the great devil!"

Whether there was enough in Alister to have met and overcome thespirit of the world, had he been brought up at Oxford or Cambridge, I have not to determine; there was that in him at least which wouldhave come to, repent bitterly had he yielded; but brought up as hewas, he was not only able to entertain the exalted idea presented tohim, but to receive and make it his. With joy he recognized thehigher dignity of the shepherd of a few poor, lean, wool-torn humansheep, than of the man who stands for himself, however "spacious inthe possession of dirt. " He who holds dead land a possession, andliving souls none of his, needs wake no curse, for he is in the verypit of creation, a live outrage on the human family. 

If Alister Macruadh was not in the highest grade of Christianity, hewas on his way thither, for he was doing the work that was given himto do, which is the first condition of all advancement. He had muchto learn yet, but he was one who, from every point his feet touched, was on the start to go further. 

The day of the holy eve rose clear and bright. Snow was on thehills, and frost in the valley. There had been a time when at thisseason great games were played between neighbour districts or clans, but here there were no games now, because there were so few men; themore active part fell to the women. Mistress Macruadh was busy allday with her helpers, preparing a dinner of mutton, and beef, andfowls, and red-deer ham; and the men soon gave the barn something ofthe aspect of the old patriarchal hall for which it was no very poorsubstitute. A long table, covered with the finest linen, was laidfor all comers; and when the guests took their places, they neededno arranging; all knew their standing, and seated themselvesaccording to knowledge. Two or three small farmers took modestly theupper places once occupied by immediate relatives of the chief, forof the old gentry of the clan there were none. But all were happy, for their chief was with them still. Their reverence was none theless that they were at home with him. They knew his worth, and theroughest among them would mind what the Macruadh said. They knewthat he feared nothing; that he was strong as the red stag afterwhich the clan was named; that, with genuine respect for every man, he would at the least insolence knock the fellow down; that he wasthe best shot, the best sailor, the best ploughman in the clan: Iwould have said THE BEST SWORDSMAN, but that, except Ian, there wasnot another left to it. 

Not many of them, however, understood how much he believed that hehad to give an account of his people. He was far from consideringsuch responsibility the clergyman's only. Again and again had heexpostulated with some, to save them from the slow gaping hell ofdrink, and in one case, he had reason to hope, with success. 

As they sat at dinner, it seemed to the young fellow who, with hishelp, had so far been victorious, that the chief scarcely took hiseyes off him. One might think there was small danger where thehostess allowed nothing beyond water and milk but small ale; thechief, however, was in dread lest he should taste even that, andcaught one moment the longing look he threw at the jug as it passed. He rose and went down the table, speaking to this one and that, butstopped behind the lad, and putting his arm round his shoulders, whispered in his ear. The youth looked up in his face with a solemnsmile: had not the chief embraced him before them all! He was only ashepherd-lad, but his chief cared for him!

In the afternoon the extemporized tables were cleared away, candleswere fixed in rough sconces along the walls, not without precautionagainst fire, and the floor was rubbed clean--for the barn wasfloored throughout with pine, in parts polished with use. The wallswere already covered with the plaids of the men and women, each keptin place by a stone or two on the top of the wall where the raftersrested. In one end was a great heap of yellow oat-straw, which, partly levelled, made a most delightful divan. What with the straw, the plaids, the dresses, the shining of silver ornaments, and theflash of here and there a cairngorm or an amethyst, there was not alittle colour in the barn. Some of the guests were poorly but allwere decently attired, and the shabbiest behaved as ladies andgentlemen. 

The party from the New House walked through the still, star-watchedair, with the motionless mountains looking down on them, and asilence around, which they never suspected as a presence. The littlegirls were of the company, and there was much merriment. Foolishcompliments were not wanting, offered chiefly on the part of Mr. Sercombe, and accepted on that of Christina. The ladies, under theirfurs and hoods, were in their best, with all the jewels they couldwear at once, for they had heard that highlanders have a passion forcolour, and that poor people are always best pleased when you go tothem in your finery. The souls of these Sasunnachs were full ofTHINGS. They made a fine show as they emerged from the darkness oftheir wraps into the light of the numerous candles; nor did theapproach of the widowed chieftainess to receive them, on the arm ofAlister, with Ian on her other side, fail in dignity. The mother wasdressed in a rich, matronly black silk; the chief was in the fulldress of his clan--the old-fashioned coat of the French court, withits silver buttons and ruffles of fine lace, the kilt of Macruadhtartan in which red predominated, the silver-mounted sporan--of theskin and adorned with the head of an otter caught with, the barehands of one of his people, and a silver-mounted dirk of lengthunusual, famed for the beauty of both hilt and blade; Ian wassimilarly though less showily clad. When she saw the stately dameadvancing between her sons, one at least of her visitors felt adoubt whether their condescension would be fully appreciated. 

As soon as their reception was over, the piper--to the discomfort ofMr. Sercombe's English ears--began his invitation to the dance, andin a few moments the floor was, in a tumult of reels. The girls, unacquainted with their own country's dances, preferred looking on, and after watching reel and strathspey for some time, altogetherdeclined attempting either. But by and by it was the turn of theclanspeople to look on while the lady of the house and her sonsdanced a quadrille or two with their visitors; after which the chiefand his brother pairing with the two elder girls, the ladies wereastonished to find them the best they had ever waltzed with, although they did not dance quite in the London way. Ian's dancing, Christina said, was French; Mercy said all she knew was that thechief took the work and left her only the motion: she felt as in adream of flying. Before the evening was over, the young men had sofar gained on Christina that Mr. Sercombe looked a littlecommonplace. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

BETWEEN DANCING AND SUPPER. 

The dancing began about six o'clock, and at ten it was time forsupper. It was readjr, but there was no room for it except the barn;the dancing therefore had to cease for a while, that the table mightagain be covered. The ladies put on their furs and furry boots andgloves, and went out into the night with the rest. 

The laird and Christina started together, but, far from keeping ather side, Alister went and came, now talking to this couple, now tothat, and adding to the general pleasure with every word he spoke. Ian and Mercy walked together, and as often as the chief left herside, Christina joined them. Mrs. Palmer stayed with their hostess;her husband took the younger children by the hand; Mr. Sercombe andChristian sauntered along in the company, talking now to one, now toanother of the village girls. 

All through the evening Christina and Mercy noted how instantly theword of the chief was followed in the smallest matter, and the factmade its impression on them; for undeveloped natures in the presenceof a force, revere it as POWER--understanding by POWER, not thestrength to create, to harmonize, to redeem, to discover the true, to suffer with patience; but the faculty of having things one's ownvulgar, self-adoring way. 

Ian had not proposed to Mercy that they should walk together; butwhen the issuing crowd had broken into twos and threes, they foundthemselves side by side. The company took its way along the ridge, and the road eastward. The night was clear, and like a greatsapphire frosted with topazes--reminding Ian that, solid as is theworld under our feet, it hangs in the will of God. Mercy and hewalked for some time in silence. It was a sudden change from the lowbarn, the dull candles, and the excitement of the dance, to theawful space, the clear pure far-off lights, and the great stillness. Both felt it, though differently. There was in both of them thequest after peace. It is not the banished demon only that wandersseeking rest, but souls upon souls, and in ever growing numbers. Theworld and Hades swarm with them. They long after a repose that isnot mere cessation of labour: there is a positive, an active rest. Mercy was only beginning to seek it, and that without knowing whatit was she needed. Ian sought it in silence with God; she increpitant intercourse with her kind. Naturally ready to fall intogloom, but healthy enough to avoid it, she would rush at anything todo--not to keep herself from thinking, for she had hardly begun tothink, but to escape that heavy sense of non-existence, that wearyand restless want which is the only form life can take to the yetunliving, those who have not yet awakened and arisen from the dead. She was a human chicken that had begun to be aware of herself, buthad not yet attacked the shell that enclosed her: because it wastransparent, and she could see life about her, she did not know thatshe was in a shell, or that, if she did not put forth the might ofher own life, she was sealing herself up, a life in death, in herantenatal coffin. Many who think themselves free have never yet evenseen the shell that imprisons them--know nothing of the libertywherewith the Lord of our life would set them free. Men fight many aphantom when they ought to be chipping at their shells. "Thou artthe dreamer!" they cry to him who would wake them. "See how diligentwe are to get on in the world! We labour as if we should never goout of it!" What they call the world is but their shell, which isall the time killing the infant Christ that houses with them. 

Ian looked up to the sky, and breathed a deep breath. Mercy lookedup in his face, and saw his strangely beautiful smile. 

"What are you thinking of, Captain Macruadh?" she said. 

"I was thinking, " he answered, "that perhaps up THERE"--he waved hisarm wide over his head--"might he something like room; hut I doubtit, I doubt it!"

Naturally, Mercy was puzzled. The speech sounded quite mad, and yethe could not be mad, he had danced so well! She took comfort thather father was close behind. 

"Did you never feel, " he resumed, "as if you could not anyhow getroom enough?"

"No, " answered Mercy, "never. "

Ian fell a thinking how to wake in her a feeling of what he meant. He had perceived that one of the first elements in human educationis the sense of space--of which sense, probably, the star-dweltheaven is the first awakener. He believed that without the heavenswe could not have learned the largeness in things below them, couldnot, for instance, have felt the mystery of the high-ascendinggothic roof--for without the greater we cannot interpret the less;and he thought that to have the sense of largeness developed mightbe to come a little nearer to the truth of things, to therecognition of spiritual relations. 

"Did you ever see anything very big?" he asked. 

"I suppose London is as big as most things!" she answered, after amoment. 

"Did you ever see London?" he asked. 

"We generally live there half the year. "

"Pardon me; I did not ask if you had ever been to London, " said Ian;"I asked if you had ever seen London. "

"I know the west end pretty well. "

"Did it ever strike you as very large?"

"Perhaps not; but the west end is only a part of London. "

"Did you ever see London from the top of St. Paul's?"

"No. "

"Did you ever see it from the top of Hampstead heath?"

"I have been there several times, but I don't remember seeing Londonfrom it. We don't go to London for the sights. "

"Then you have not seen London!"

Mercy was annoyed. Ian did not notice that she was, else perhaps hewould not have gone on--which would have been a pity, for a littleannoyance would do her no harm. At the same time the mood was notfavourable to receiving any impression from the region of the thingsthat are not seen. A pause followed. 

"It is so delightful, " said Ian at length, "to come out of themotion and the heat and the narrowness into the still, coldgreatness!"

"You seemed to be enjoying yourself pretty well notwithstanding, Captain Macruadh!"

"What made you think so?" he asked, turning to her with a smile. 

"You were so merry--not with me--you think me only a stupid lowlandgirl; but the other young persons you danced with, laughed very muchat things you said to them. "

"You are right; I did enjoy myself. As often as one comes near asimple human heart, one's own heart finds a little room. "

Ere she knew, Mercy had said--

"And you didn't find any room with me?"

With the sound of her words her face grew hot, as with afurnace-blast, even in the frosty night-air. She would have coveredwhat she had said, but only stammered. Ian turned, and looking ather, said with a gentle gravity--

"You must not be offended with me! I must answer you truly. --You donot give me room: have you not just told me you never longed for anyyourself?"

"One ought to be independent!" said Mercy, a little nettled. 

"Are you sure of that? What is called independence may really bewant of sympathy. That would indicate a kind of lonelinessanything but good. "

"I wish you would find a less disagreeable companion then!--one thatwould at least be as good as nobody! I am sorry I don't know how togive you room. I would if I could. Tell me how. "

Again Ian turned to her: was it possible there were tears in hervoice? But her black eyes were flashing in the starlight!

"Did you ever read Zanoni?" he asked. 

"I never heard of it. What is it?"

"A romance of Bulwer's. "

"My father won't let us read anything of Bulwer's. Does he writevery wicked books?"

"The one I speak of, " said Ian, "is not wicked, though it is full ofrubbish, and its religion is very false. "

Whether Mercy meant to take her revenge on him with consciously badlogic, I am in doubt. 

"Captain Macruadh! you astonish me! A Scotchman speak so ofreligion!"

"I spoke of the religion in that book. I said it was false--which isthe same as saying it was not religion. "

"Then religion is not all true!"

"All true religion is true, " said Ian, inclined to laugh like onethat thought to catch an angel, and had clutched a bat! "I was goingon to say that, though the religion and philosophy of the book wererubbish, the story was fundamentally a grand conception. It puzzlesme to think how a man could start with such an idea, and work it outso well, and yet be so lacking both in insight and logic. It iswonderful how much of one portion of our nature may be developedalong with so little of another!"

"What is the story about?" asked Mercy. 

"What I may call the canvas of it, speaking as if it were a picture, is the idea that the whole of space is full of life; that, as thesmallest drop of water is crowded with monsters of hideous forms anddispositions, so is what we call space full of living creatures, --"

"How horrible!"

"--not all monsters, however. There are among them creatures notaltogether differing from us, but differing much from each other, --"

"As much as you and I?"

"--some of them lovely and friendly, others frightful in theirbeauty and malignity, --"

"What nonsense!"

"Why do you call it nonsense?"

"How could anything beautiful be frightful?"

"I ought not to have said BEAUTIFUL. But the frightfullest face Iever saw ought to have been the finest. When the lady that owned itspoke to me, I shivered. "

"But anyhow the whole thing is nonsense!"

"How is it nonsense?"

"Because there are no such creatures. "

"How do you know that? Another may have seen them though you and Inever did!"

"You are making game of me! You think to make me believe anythingyou choose!"

"Will you tell me something you do believe?"

"That you may prove immediately that I do not believe it!" sheretorted, with more insight than he had expected. "--You are notvery entertaining!"

"Would you like me to tell you a story then?"

"Will it be nonsense?"

"No. "

"I should like a little nonsense. "

"You are an angel of goodness, and as wise as you are lovely!" saidIan. 

She turned upon him, and opened wide at him her great black eyes, inwhich were mingled defiance and question. 

"Your reasoning is worthy of your intellect. When you dance, " hewent on, looking very solemn, "your foot would not bend the neck ofa daisy asleep in its rosy crown. The west wind of May haunts youwith its twilight-odours; and when you waltz, so have I seen thewaterspout gyrate on the blue floor of the Mediterranean. Your voiceis as the harp of Selma; and when you look out of your welkin eyes--no! there I am wrong! Allow me!--ah, I thought so!--dark asErebus!--But what!"

For Mercy, perceiving at last that he was treating her like thesilliest of small girls, lost her patience, and burst into tears. 

"You are dreadfully rude!" she sobbed. 

Ian was vexed with himself. 

"You asked me to talk nonsense to you, Miss Mercy! I attempted toobey you, and have done it stupidly. But at least it was absolutenonsense! Shall I make up for it by telling you a pretty story?"

"Anything to put away that!" answered Mercy, trying to smile. 

He began at once, and told her a wonderful tale--told first afterthis fashion by Bob of the Angels, at a winter-night gathering ofthe women, as they carded and spun their wool, and reeled their yarntogether. It was one well-known in the country, but Rob had filledit after his fancy with imaginative turns and spiritual hints, unappreciable by the tall child of seventeen walking by Ian's side. There was not among the maidens of the poor village one who wouldnot have understood it better than she. It took her fancynotwithstanding, partly, perhaps, from its unlikeness to any storyshe had ever heard before. Her childhood had been starved on thehusks of new fairy-tales, all invention and no imagination, thanwhich more unnourishing food was never offered to God's children. 

The story Ian told her under that skyful of stars, was as Rob of theAngels had dressed it for the clan matrons and maidens, only altereda very little for the ears of the lowland girl. 

END OF VOL. I.