jacket that he was the ostler at the Drybrig Inn on the road to Ayr; for I mind that Falcon was speaking wi' him mair nor a quarter o' an hour on the road home on Monday."

"I'll see him the morn if he's still at the place. And noo, I hae just ae thing to say: I'll be gaun away' frae hame the morn, and dinna ken when I may be coming back. Mackie will take charge o' Cairnieford for the present; but ye would take ower the lease if I wanted to gie it up a'thegither ? "

"I would do anything to oblige ye," answered the Laird, with difficulty concealing a smirk of satisfaction behind a pinch of snuff; "though I would be loath to lose a guid tenant that's ay had the rent ready to a minute on term-day."

"Thank ye.

Guid nicht."

"Take a dram before ye gae, ye're needing it-no. Aweel, shake hands onyway, for I hae ay wished to be a friend to ye, Cairnieford."

"There's my hand for ance, Laird, as it's like to be the last time we'll ever meet in this world, and I hope there's little chance o' us meeting in the next."

66

Prejudiced to the last against me," sighed the Laird. "Weel, weel, it canna be helped noo. I wish ye guid fortune wherever ye gang."

"Ye hae a heap o' charity, Laird-on your tongue."

"Kenning my ain faults (humbly), I ay try to be merciful in my judgment o' others."

"That accounts for the quantity o' your mercy."

"Ye're a stubborn body, Cairnieford; there's nae garring ye see straight ance your e'en hae got aglee. But that be as't may, ye'll let me ken if the ostler be the man ?"

“Aye, if ye'll let Morris gang as far as the Drybrig wi, me the morn."

"Surely, surely."

"I'll find the man, ye may be certain, ae time or other; and I hope ye may prove as blameless in the matter as ye seem to be enoo."

66

you

Man, what guid would it dae me to breed dispeace atween and your wife?"

"I canna say."

"Nor naebody else. On my soul, sir, it's no easy for the humblest creature to thole sae mony hard words as ye hae gien me.'

And his virtuous indignation brought his head forward with a reproachful dab, his eyes blinking the while.

"If I hae wranged ye, McWhapple, I'm sorry for't," was Robin's response as he went away.

At a slow pace he proceeded toward Boghaugh. He was in the most painful of mental conditions-uncertain what to do. Much that he had learned seemed to confirm Jeanie's statement, and yet there was no direct proof that she had been deceived by Falcon's messenger. His heart pleaded for her, urged him to hasten to her and implore her to forgive all that he had said and done. And his passion, exhausted by its own violence and his physical fatigue, seemed too weak to contend against the promptings of his love.

But at the moment when he seemed ready to yield, the sharp sting of jealousy quickened him to the remembrance of McWhapple's inuendoes, which he had angrily rebutted at the time, but which rankled in his mind for all that, and restrained him from the course his heart and reason seemed to point out.

He was in the miserable condition of one who does not know his own mind, and is consequently dissatisfied with himself and everything about him. At one minute he heard Jeanie's wild exclamation that she wished she had gone away with Falcon, and he was ready to dance with rage. The next minute her last words were soothing and comforting him, whilst they frightened him with the thought of the terrible wrong he had done her, should it subsequently appear that his frenzy had blinded him to the truth.

It is not easy to realize the torture of his mind, the cause looks so simple. But remember the jealous devotion with which he regarded her, his keen sense of the inequality of their years, his knowledge of her former love for Falcon, and his passionate nature worked upon by a series of unhappy

circumstances and the wily insinuations of the Laird. Then take into account that through it all an upright conscience was groping helplessly about in a mist of passion, craving for the truth that justice might be done, and some idea of the man's anguish will be obtained, whilst his weakness will be pardoned.

CHAPTER XXIX.

TWO BLACK CROWS.

"There were twa corbies sat upon a tree,

Sing hey, sing ho, and derry;

They had picked a dead man's banes clean on the lea,
And they were as merry as merry could be.
Sing hey, sing ho, and derry."—Old Song.

THE Laird stood tapping his snuff-box uneasily, and blinking at the door for some time after it had closed on Robin Gray. His under lip protruded over the upper one, as if he were sucking it, and his eyebrows were contracted so that his visage was covered with wrinkles. He was in a quandary, and one of an excessively unpleasant character, the upshot of which was anything but clear. He took several pinches, but they did not make the matter any clearer or smooth away a single wrinkle.

Abstractedly, whilst the right hand was arrested half-way to his nose, he rubbed the snuff-box, which was in his left, over his head slowly; but that did not help him either, and whilst losing all patience with the subject of his cogitations, he forgot his grave character as an elder, and uttered impatiently

“Damn it, and burn it.”

66

Oich, no, she would shust as soon trink it-pe-tam."

The Laird wheeled about, startled, and beheld Ivan Carrach at the table emptying the glass which had been momentarily arrested by his angry ejaculation, the skipper fancying it applied to the liquor he had been quietly taking.

“At it again—I wish it would burn you; for if it hadną

been for your confounded whiskyfied brains, I would never hae been in sic a mess that I kenna how tɔ get out o't.”

"Oich, then, where's the goot o' pothering? If you'll no be able to get out, bide in.”

The Laird was in a passion, and his little body quivered with rage. He shook his fist at the obtuse skipper, whose bovine eyes rolled over him with the utmost placidity.

"I hae mair than half a mind to step out o't and leave you to bide in't, ye thick-headed brute.”

Carrach was no more disturbed than if a fly had buzzed against his coat.

"No, you'll no be doing that. Ochone, she could never do without you, whether it was here shust trinking ta tram, or whether it was in ta jail or on ta gallows. Ochone no, it would never do."

"Will ye hald your tongue, ye senseless blethering fool? Ye'll stand in a' thae places without me, if ye dinna heed what I say to ye. What business had ye coming out o' that room before I called ye?"

"She'll hear the door was closed, and she'll look out and see there was nopody here, and she'll be dry."

"I micht hae guessed that I believe ye would drink the sea dry, if it had been whisky.”

"Cot, but that would be ta fine drunk?”

And his eyes rolled with ecstasy at the bare notion.

By this time the Laird had hirpled back to his chair, and he sank upon it with the manner of one utterly exhausted, his hands hanging listlessly over the arms of the chair, his body bent, and his eyes fixed blinkingly on the skipper, who, in his stolid way, quite undisturbed by the anger or distress of his master, had already sat down beside the bottle, to which he applied himself at brief intervals.

The Laird's outburst of hysterical rage was over, but it had left much petulance behind, which he was at no pains to disguise. As he regarded the man opposite him, he seemed to be envying his dull stolidity, which rendered him so perfectly callous to everything around him.

"I believe if a bombshell was to drap at your foot, Carrach,' he ejaculated, "ye wouldna fash yoursel' to step out o' its road."

"She wouldna say," was the indifferent rejoinder.

"Then do ye ken that a bombshell has lighted at your foot?" exclaimed the Laird petulantly.

Carrach rolled his eyes over the floor, and then over his

master.

"She'll no see her."

"Maybe ye'll feel her, as ye call it, before long,-mair likely aye than no. Do ye ken what your infernal blundering has earned for you?"

"No but I'll like to hear when I earn onything at all."

"Then it's naething less than a hempen cravat, as sure as I'm sitting here the night."

"I'll no like her; she'll fit too tight."

His stolidity was impenetrable.

A silence fell upon them, during which the Laird reflected, and Carrach continued to drink without the least perceptible effect being produced on him, unless it might be a degree of denser dulness, if that were possible. The bottle being emptied, he shoved it towards his host with a sort of grunt intended as a hint that he would like it replenished. But McWhapple either did not observe or affected not to observe the movement. Another grunt, a little louder and more expressive than the first; and that obtaining no better acknowledgment than the first hint, he declared his wants more plainly.

"Fill her again-she's run dry, and a dry bottle she'll make a dry man, and a dry man-oich, she'll make a sour teil."

The Laird twisted himself in his chair and cast a quick look at his companion, expressive of disgust. He seemed rather disposed to throw the bottle at the skipper's head than to comply with his request. He overcame that desire, however, if he had entertained it, rose with a sigh, and refilled the bottle from a jar, which he produced from the cupboard at his side of the fireplace.